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los angeles schools
'When We Fight, We Win!': LA School Workers Secure Deal After 3-Day Strike
"The agreement addresses our key demands and sets us on a clear pathway to improving our livelihoods and securing the staffing we need to improve student services," said SEIU Local 99.
Mar 25, 2023
Union negotiators for about 30,000 school support staffers in California's Los Angeles County struck a historic deal with the second-largest district in the United States on Friday after a three-day strike.
Members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, special education assistants, teaching aides, and other school staff—backed by about 35,000 educators of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)—walked off the job on Tuesday and continued to strike through Thursday.
The tentative contract agreement, which must still be voted on by SEIU Local 99 members, was reached with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) after mediation from Democratic Mayor Karen Bass.
The deal would increase the average annual salary from $25,000 to $33,000, raise wages by 30%, boost the district minimum wage to $22.52, provide a $1,000 Covid-19 pandemic bonus, secure healthcare benefits for part-time employees who work at least four hours a day, and guarantee seven hours of work for special education assistants.
"The agreement addresses our key demands and sets us on a clear pathway to improving our livelihoods and securing the staffing we need to improve student services," SEIU Local 99 said in a statement. "It was members' dedication to winning respect from the district that made this agreement possible."
The Los Angeles Times reports that during a Friday news conference at City Hall with Bass and Alberto Carvalho, the LAUSD superintendent, Local 99 executive director Max Arias declared that "here in California this agreement will set new standards, not just for Los Angeles, but the entire state."
"I want to appreciate the 30,000 members that sacrificed three days of work, despite low income, to raise the issue to society, that we as a society need to do better for all workers, all working people, for everyone," Arias added.
While the strike meant about 400,000 K-12 students weren't in classes for three days this week, "many parents stood in support of union employees," according to KTLA, with one local parent saying that "it's obvious all over the schools that we're really not putting the support where it's needed and our children are suffering because of that."
In a series of tweets, Local 99 thanked people from across the country for their solidarity this past week and stressed that the LA mayor, who has no formal authority over LAUSD, "was instrumental to getting the district to finally start hearing our demands."
Bass, in a statement, thanked Arias and Carvalho "for working together with me to put our families first" and emphasized that "we must continue working together to address our city's high cost of living, to grow opportunity, and to support more funding for LA's public schools, which are the most powerful determinant of our city's future."
Carvalho said Friday that "when we started negotiating with SEIU, we promised to deliver on three goals. We wanted to honor and elevate the dignity of our workforce and correct well-known, decadeslong inequities impacting the lowest-wage earners. We wanted to continue supporting critical services for our students. We wanted to protect the financial viability of the district for the long haul. Promises made, promises delivered."
Contract talks with district teachers are ongoing. When announcing support for Local 99's strike earlier this month, UTLA president Cecily Myart-Cruz said that "despite LAUSD having one of the largest school budgets and largest reserves in the nation—teachers and essential school workers are struggling to support their own families and live in the communities they work for."
The strike and pending deal in California come amid a rejuvenated labor organizing movement across the United States, with employees of major corporations including Amazon and Starbucks fighting for unions.
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Demanding Respect for All School Workers, LA Teachers Shut Down 2nd-Largest US School District
"As workers we are powerful. As parents we are powerful. As the people united, we are unstoppable."
Mar 21, 2023
An estimated 65,000 teachers and school staffers from across Los Angeles walked picket lines in the rain on Tuesday as the city's public school district employees went on strike—but more than half of the picketers were staging the walkout in solidarity, protesting conditions that don't directly affect them.
The 35,000 teachers who are represented by United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) joined cafeteria workers, bus drivers, teaching aides, grounds workers, and others who help ensure that more than 1,000 public schools in Los Angeles run safely and smoothly, demanding that support staff are treated fairly by the district.
"We are LA Public Schools," tweeted UTLA. "We are on strike because we won't let the district treat any of us with disrespect. It stops here."
Classes were canceled across the district—the second-largest in the nation.
As Common Dreams reported Monday, support workers represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 have been in contract negotiations with the district since April 2022, and the union is demanding a 30% overall pay raise to help ensure its members can afford to live in one of the country's most expensive cities.
SEIU Local 99 members currently earn about $25,000 on average.
Speaking to The New York Times, SEIU Local 99 executive director Max Arias said the union's last contract expired in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020—"when his workers were on the front lines helping to feed students at lunch pickup sites even as schools were closed."
"We are now here demanding respect from the district, and it starts with livable wages," said one member on a picket line on Tuesday.
Arias noted at a rally in Tuesday that the district can afford to spend far more on employees' compensation.
"Let me be clear, the district has approximately between a $13 billion and $14 billion budget a year," he said. "Out of that budget, it spends between 5% and 6% on payroll for 40% of the workforce. That's negligible."
Bus drivers were some of the first employees on the picket lines Tuesday, marching and chanting in the early morning hours.
"We're often the first LAUSD employees that students see in the early morning when we pick them up and the last ones they see when we drop them off," said SEIU Local 99. "We are essential and demand respect."
Special education teacher Opal Getaw told the Times that her own daily living expenses have risen in recent months amid inflation, and that she "could not imagine" the financial struggles her colleagues in support services are facing.
"It's not just about teachers, it's about community and camaraderie, it's about our colleagues," Getaw told the Times. "They want a fair chance and an ability to be able to earn enough, to have what everybody wants: a good life."
In a number of picket lines, teachers dressed in ponchos danced in the rain.
The union said in December that the negotiations had reached an impasse, and members voted overwhelmingly to strike last month. The strike has been called in response to unfair negotiating tactics, according to the union, rather than demands for fair pay.
SEIU Local 99 said Monday that the district subjected members "to surveillance, intimidation, and harassment" during the bargaining and strike voting process, and broke a confidentiality agreement.
"This afternoon, SEIU Local 99 had agreed to enter a confidential mediation process with LAUSD to try and address our differences," said Arias. "Unfortunately, LAUSD broke that confidentiality by sharing it with the media before our bargaining team, which makes all decisions, had a chance to discuss how to proceed. This is yet another example of the school district's continued disrespect of school workers. We are ready to strike."
LAUSD attempted to block the strike, issuing a complaint to state officials that the strike is actually in response to members' pay and that the union has not exhausted all bargaining possibilities before staging a walkout. The state rejected those claims over the weekend.
The strike is set to continue through Thursday.
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Tens of Thousands of LA Teachers to Strike in Solidarity With Support Workers
"How do we properly service our students when we are being overworked and underpaid and disrespected?" asked one special education assistant.
Mar 20, 2023
Demanding "respect and dignity" for tens of thousands of school support workers who help the Los Angeles Unified School District run, the union that represents 35,000 teachers in the city has called on its members to join a three-day strike starting Tuesday as school support staffers fight for a living wage.
Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 "work so hard for our students," said United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) on Monday. "They deserve respect and dignity at work. We will be out in force tomorrow to make sure they get it."
Roughly 65,000 teachers and support professionals including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, teaching aides, and grounds workers are expected to walk out from Tuesday through Thursday this week, nearly a year after SEIU Local 99 entered contract negotiations with LAUSD, the second-largest school district in the United States.
The union is calling for a 30% pay increase for its members, who earn an average of $25,000 per year, or roughly $12 per hour. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a living wage in the Los Angeles area is more than $21 per hour for a single person with no children and far more for people with children.
"I am a single mother and for the past 20 years I have worked two and sometimes three jobs just to support my family," Janette Verbera, a special education assistant, told In These Times Monday. "How do we properly service our students when we are being overworked and underpaid and disrespected?"
The school district offered a 20% overall pay increase spread over several years on Friday, along with a one-time 5% bonus.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, noted that LAUSD has a $4.9 billion surplus and said the district must use those funds to "invest in staff, students, and educators."
SEIU Local 99 members voted to authorize a strike in February, and said the limited three-day action is a protest against the district's negotiating tactics.
LAUSD has claimed the strike is unlawful and that workers are actually staging the walkout over pay without having exhausted all bargaining avenues. A state board over the weekend denied the district's request to block the strike.
As In These Timesreported, negotiations between the district and SEIU Local 99—as well as separate ongoing talks with the teachers' union about educators' contracts—are being led by Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho, "whose $440,000 salary is nearly 10 times that of a starting salary for a LAUSD teacher."
"LAUSD won't get away with underfunding our schools," tweeted UTLA last week. "This is for our students, for our communities and for our lives."
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