CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

LA Teachers Strike: Labor Solidarity Wins Big in LA Educator Fight

Image by Maayan Nemanov.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress…Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.”–Frederick Douglass

After 14 months of negotiations, at 4 AM Sunday morning UTLA signed a very favorable Tentative Agreement with Los Angeles Unified School District, winning a raise of almost 7% a year and the salary table reforms we sought.

Under the current contract, a new LAUSD teacher starting at the first salary level sees an increase of only $6 a month in their second year, $61 a month in their third and fourth years, and less than $10 a month in their fifth and sixth years. For veteran teachers, unless a teacher has taken a number of education units equivalent to two master’s degrees, after 10 years the teacher receives no yearly raises. Under the new agreement, starting teacher pay will go up ~$​8K, and all veteran teachers will receive five figure ($10K or more) raises.

UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz told citywide chapter leaders:

“We achieved every single goal we had for fixing the salary tables–raising the (salary) floor, making it easier to reach higher levels, and with consistent step and column increases from year to year.”

Beyond salary, UTLA also won:

Over 450 new Pupil Services and Attendance (PSA) Counselors, Psychiatric Social Workers, School Psychologists, and Counselors​ will be added–funded by LAUSD directly, not by school site budgets, which are already stretched. The new PSAs will be concentrated in schools with attendance problems. Secondary student-counselor ratios ​will be lowered to 335-1 for high........

© CounterPunch