Three unions unite on LAUSD’s biggest strike threat: What’s at stake for workers, families

The looming strike next Tuesday at public schools in Los Angeles brings together three friends who may, together, plan to shut down the nation’s second-largest school system and exert intense pressure to reach a settlement.

The three unions are United Teachers Los Angeles, Local 99 of Service Employees International Union and the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles – all of which have frozen contracts before the agreement.

Together they represent about 70,000 of the school’s 83,300 employees and hold nearly every important position on campus – principals, teachers, food workers. There is no question that schools will be closed if there are two out of three unions leaving, district officials confirmed.

“This type of alliance is rare and greatly enhances the bargaining power of all three unions,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communication at UC Berkeley and USC. “What might be good is that it binds each of them not to enter even if their needs are met, but if they maintain unity they will put the region in a very difficult situation.”

UTLA includes teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians; The 99 local employees include bus drivers, teacher’s aides, cafeteria workers, technical support and custodians; AALA members are principals, assistant principals and middle management managers.

These unions, whose members have different priorities and different contracts, are betting that their powerful triumvirate will benefit all.

The main objective of all three unions is a higher wage, but the details vary widely between the proposals. All asserted that LA Unified has enough money saved from the districts to reach the desired agreement.

“With more than 5 BILLION in reserves, we know that LAUSD can offer all of its employees a fair contract,” said Jessica Rodarte, UTLA vice president. “We will continue to negotiate with the district sincerely, we hope they do the right thing, if they don’t do that we are ready, willing and able to strike to fight for the right contract.”

“We don’t want to go on strike,” said Charmell Lee, a special education assistant and member of Local 99. “But we will if that’s what it takes to make sure our families can survive, and our students have all the support they need—in and out of the classroom.”

“We’re close,” the AALA report said of the negotiations, “but the salary must reflect the value of our work.”

The United front in LAUSD is new

Union coalitions are not new to the broader labor movement, said Tia Koonse, policy director at the UCLA Labor Center.

“While this seems historic to the unions that represent LAUSD workers, it is common for unions or locals to coordinate contract terminations, negotiations, and strike action where there is only one employer or actor,” Koonse said.

“Sometimes support is seen as a ‘sympathy strike’ or ‘solidarity action,’ like when the Teamsters refuse to cross the picket line and things get messy,” Koonse added. “Obviously, it works well.”

It is very rare for administrators to join rank and file unions. In the 1990s, administrators and teachers were like warring political parties, who, in school board elections, supported candidates from the other side.

UTLA strikes in 1970 and 1989 left lasting resentments between some managers and those they supervised.

As with previous strikes, during the 2019 teacher walkout, administrators bypassed teacher lines to keep schools open and hold things together — overseeing food distribution and student supervision during the six-day work stoppage.

Elena Jordan, who has two children in an LAUSD school, joins the Get Our Schools LA news conference and rally as the day of the UTLA strike approaches. .

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Managers often do not respect their superiors, who they often relate to. At village events, such as the superintendent’s annual speech, they often stand up and applaud when they hear that.

The former president of AALA, Nery Paiz, cultivated a warm, cooperative relationship with Supt. Alberto Carvalho — with the aim of obtaining better treatment and conditions for members. But Maria Nichols demoted Paiz after seeing deep discontent among the administration. The situation was straining managers for long hours without extra pay amid growing compliance demands and heightened pressure to raise test scores.

Once elected, Nichols led a campaign to merge his union with the Teamsters – an alliance that brought more fighting and higher costs. AALA leadership is motivated to demonstrate tangible benefits.

Nichols took a different view in his remarks at a March 18 town meeting attended by members of all three unions.

“We all care,” Nichols urged the gathering of thousands. “I don’t care about your title. As a principal for 11 years, I rely on SEIU to make sure my schools are running.”

“We all have a story,” he repeated. “Everyone in the school: teachers. I tell my people: Principals, you need to support your teachers. You need to work together” with those “who walk the children six hours a day, five days a week.”

Historically, both UTLA and AALA have tended to ignore Local 99. On the other hand, Local 99 has often endorsed existing board members for re-election – a safe bet many times – in hopes of being rewarded at the bargaining table.

All county unions relied on UTLA to win raises that were often passed on to all workers at or near the same grade level.

Determined to exercise power and raise its profile, Local 99 went on strike against LA Unified for the first time in 2023. UTLA joined the union in its three-day walkout — and accepted Local 99’s goal of winning a higher percentage raise than UTLA — because Local 99 workers earn so little. It helped that the pay raises at the time were huge for both unions – from about 20% to 30% between three-year contracts.

To pay for these increases, the district was encouraged by the pandemic aid and, again, did not hire many of the workers that were budgeted under this aid. So there was more money left over for existing workers – at least until the one-time subsidy ran out.

It would be foolish for the state to give in to union demands, said Lance Christensen, vice president of government affairs and education policy for the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank whose projects include persuading public workers to drop their union memberships.

“Yes, the district has a large budget and some liquidity and they are still benefiting from some of the federal and state’s COVID funding policies, but most of that money is disappearing,” said Christensen, whose organization publishes its financial dashboard. “This should be a time for fiscal prudence, not excessive use of union demands.”

Prelude to San Francisco

When asked about collaboration, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz cited February’s four-day strike at San Francisco Unified as a model.

In that strike, all of the state’s unions honored teachers’ orders, said Cassondra Curiel, president of the United Educators of San Francisco.

The collaboration was successful, closing 130 schools in that system. However, only the teachers’ contract was a problem. When the teachers reached their agreement, the strike ended – although other unions are still negotiating. Within the next month or so, the remaining unions will be settled, Curiel said.

He went on to say that the management union respects the departure of teachers even though their contract has been agreed upon.

It’s unclear what would happen in LA if one of the three unions settled before the other — which, in practical terms, is possible because the district has one bargaining team that bounces from union to union.

The message of the regional community was one of reconciliation.

It’s a challenge to measure rapidly changing conversations. Administrators won a key unpaid concession: recognition of a 40-hour work week, with flexible breaks to compensate for weeks over 40 hours.

Counter-offs can change by the hour, but during the week teachers were demanding a 17% pay rise. 99 of the locals wanted job security provisions, increased work hours and more raises than the district’s proposal of about 13%. Management wants a 13% raise over two years.