On Thursday, Los Angeles teachers begin voting on whether to authorize a strike. While an authorization doesn’t mean that the strike will take place right away, if the union chooses to strike, it would be the first since a nine-day strike in 1989. It may also be the biggest action since 2009, when thousands of Los Angeles teachers called in sick after hearing about possible teacher layoffs. The voting process will end on August 30.
The teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), says it has been at an impasse with the Los Angeles Unified School District for some time.
Teachers are asking for smaller class sizes, reductions in standardized testing, a 2 percent bonus, 6.5 percent salary increases and a $500 stipend for materials and supplies, according to California News Wire Services. Teachers are also interested in expanding charter school accountability, spending more money on ethnic studies and bilingual education, and creating school climate and discipline plans, according to a recent open letter from the union.
A social studies teacher in the LAUSD school district, Glenn Sacks, wrote in the Daily News that teachers often spend time on things like subbing, yard duty, administrative duties, and test proctoring, which is not an effective use of teaching professionals’ time, and added that “The insulting 2 percent ‘raise’ LAUSD has offered us doesn’t even keep up with current inflation.”
Communication between the district and the union is only getting more contentious and rhetoric has heated up over the spring and summer. Last week, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner met with the head of the teachers union, Alex Caputo-Pearl, and the two talked about a few contract offers after the meeting, but Caputo-Pearl said it was insufficient. On Thursday, the union sent an open letter to Beutner saying that the district is “refusing to meet with a state-appointed mediator in a timely fashion,” claiming that they could not schedule mediation for 56 days.
Mediation is important because before a strike happens, the union needs to fulfill certain regulatory requirements. When the union and district are at an impasse, they meet with the mediator followed by fact-finding and then advance notification of a strike, according to LA School Report. By dragging out the process of meeting with the mediator, the superintendent can stall and perhaps kill the strike.
At an American Federation of Teachers convention held in July, Caputo-Pearl, who at the time had been negotiating for more than a year with the district, referred to the wave of teachers strikes over the spring in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona, to name a few. Referring to what could be a number of groups — the Trump administration, corporations, and the super-rich in general — Caputo-Pearl spoke to fellow teachers. “They’re trying to privatize entire systems,” he said, according to Splinter. “They’re trying to gentrify entire cities. Their program is huge. So our response has to be big.”
The union’s statement in July stated it was at an impasse with the school district. It said the district is “dominated by pro-privatization ideologues” and that the bargaining process “has been exhausted,” according to the Daily News. LAUSD Deputy Superintendent Vivian Ekchian said the district disagreed with the UTLA statement on said that “the district has been engaged in a good-faith effort to reach agreement.”
According to the LAist, the major issues in negotiations have been class sizes, salaries, and caseloads for special education teachers. District budget officials have also said that lower enrollment and increasing employee benefit costs mean that the district’s financial situation is not ideal. But the union has countered that the district has $1.7 billion in its reserve fund that could be put to use.
If the meetings with a mediator are delayed, there is a possibility the teachers could go on strike anyway, in the vein of other teachers work stoppages that were discouraged by state attorneys general and governors and other officials.