The Los Angeles teachers union is pressing its demands for a 20% raise in two years, smaller class sizes, and a major reduction in standardized testing — the nation’s second-largest school district and the latest stress test for September. As Alberto Carvalho struggles to address students’ profound learning disabilities and mental health needs due to the pandemic.
For United Teachers Los Angeles — which held three simultaneous rallies Monday in the massive school system — its contract platform speaks to the intense pressure that members are facing as their professions are threatened, leading to teacher shortages in California and across the country. Ongoing economic uncertainty and the high cost of living and housing in Los Angeles have intensified their focus on contract negotiations as teachers worry about career stability and increased workloads.
“When you can’t afford to live while working, we all have a problem,” UTLA President Cecily Myert-Cruz said in emotional remarks closing the rally outside district headquarters on the city’s west side. “This district has completed seven months to address the teacher shortage and ensure that every student has a classroom teacher, a school nurse for every student, a counselor for every student, and a library and mental health support.”
Among the speakers at the rally was newly elected school board member Rocio Rivas, who benefited from a multimillion-dollar independent campaign on his behalf from the teachers union.
While Myart-Cruz tried to get rid of her rank and file, school district officials tried to tamp things down.
“Los Angeles Unified continues to meet regularly with our labor partners,” the district said in an afternoon statement. “We respect and recognize the dedication of our employees and their need for fair compensation in the current economic climate. We are dedicated to avoiding lengthy negotiations to focus on our students and student achievement.”
The participants in the rally focused on the billions of dollars in reserves with the message that if teachers and other staff cannot be rewarded and supported now, when will it be possible?
Carvalho, in turn, has focused on potential difficulties. Fiscal forecasters, including state legislative analysts, warn of an economic slowdown as one-time COVID-19 relief aid winds down. An increase that is affordable in 2022 would still have to be paid for three years from now — when money is likely to be tighter, and when student enrollment continues to decline, which could create more financial pressure.
L.A. A major strike among UC academic workers by unionized labor is entering its fourth week, with 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, graduate student researchers, and post-doctoral scholars also rejecting the high cost of California housing to demand a significant pay increase. , with additional support for childcare, healthcare, and transport. Workers have rallied on campuses across the state for several weeks and staged a sit-in on Monday, with far-right parties on money.
A common theme for both unions is the high cost of living in the area, which teachers brought up repeatedly at downtown union marches.
“As someone new to L.A., teachers don’t make enough money to live in the city,” said Nekho Hogan, a third-year teacher at Manual Arts High School, just south of downtown. “People need to understand that teachers are asking for basic needs, and then for the working conditions to be normal – not to have too many kids in the classroom, not to take care of too many administrative things that prevent them from actually doing their job of just teaching the kids.”
Other factors are also making the job challenging, including working with students who are behind academically and have more emotional needs due to the hardships of the pandemic.
“There’s a lot of things they should know that they don’t know,” Hogan said. “And so I feel a kind of responsibility to essentially make two years of education within one semester — and that’s impossible.”
Parent supporters were also present at the rally. Some other parent leaders, who did not attend, are concerned about the labor conflict causing more potential learning disruptions. The previous contract agreement was reached in January 2019 after a week-long strike.
Families are “tired of politics and endless chaos,” said Christy Pesica, a spokeswoman for a parent group critical of the teachers’ union. “Enrollment is going down. By the time the dispute is settled, there may not be enough students left for LAUSD to remain solvent.”
Negotiations with United Teachers Los Angeles are relatively different. In addition to seeking a pay raise, the union is pushing for changes in the way students are taught in their “Beyond Recovery” platform, which aims to “ensure our neighborhood public schools meet the unique needs of students, families, and teachers in each community.”
Saying that standardized assessments take valuable time away from learning, the union is calling for states or the federal government to eliminate or dramatically reduce such tests when they are no longer required.
Carvalho has acknowledged that such assessments are not always well organized or consistent from one area of the district to another, but has defended their intent. Tests are used as baseline measures to guide instruction in the system, especially under the data-oriented Carvalho.
Some of what the union has framed as demands are in line with district goals, such as expanded access to dual-language programs and more ethnic studies classes. Like the union, the district supports keeping a full-time nurse in every school but has not been able to recruit them in a competitive job market.
The union wants to reduce class sizes to four students everywhere over the next two years. The district wants to target cuts where they are most needed, based on academic performance and the percentage of low-income families.
Some critics view many union proposals as out of subject or management prerogatives. But even with a bread-and-butter agenda, UTLA is known for pushing harder than teachers unions elsewhere — and such is the case with the 20% wage offer.
So far, the district is offering 8%, according to bargaining updates posted online by the union.
UTLA leaders pride themselves on having a curricular and social agenda — the union’s platform calls for installing solar panels and purchasing electric buses.
The union package also calls for stabilization of school closures – which are increasingly difficult to avoid as enrollments decline – and an end to “over-policing and criminalization of students in schools”.
The platform does not explicitly call for the end of school police, although union leadership supports its abolition. The union’s proposal, introduced earlier this year, sought to “eliminate all requirements for police involvement except as mandated by federal, state or local law requiring police involvement.”
The union bargaining platform also calls for the district to “push” for federal “housing vouchers to assist LAUSD families” and to “convert vacant LAUSD property into housing for low-income families” — though it’s challenging to see how these elements will be implemented. Through teacher contracts.
Other L.A. Unified bargaining units have generally benefited from the UTLA’s hard line—as their growth and benefits have come to mirror those fought by the UTLA. Another union, however, is independently determined, Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents the largest number of non-teaching employees, including bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians and cafeteria workers.
Local 99 members are among the lowest-paid in the school system — earning an average of $25,000 a year for mostly part-time work. They have scheduled their own rally for next week.
In the big picture, 2022 has been a relatively quiet year for K-12 education in California.
“Record funding — many districts are settling in quickly and working with staff to improve programs, etc.,” said Frank Wells, regional spokesman for the California Teachers Assn. “Others are taking an unnecessarily hard-line approach for whatever reason.”
Specifically, Wells was talking about Covina-Valley Unified, where teachers went on strike last week within hours. That strike was averted with a tentative agreement. In Glendale, the teachers union and school district are in arbitration.