Los Angeles Educators Get Ready To Go All In

[TexasTowelie]

Los Angeles educator and United Teachers Los Angeles member Gillian Russom reports on a union conference organized to get ready for a battle next fall.


More than 750 school-site leaders attended the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) leadership conference on July 27-29. Organized under the theme “All In for Respect,” the purpose of the conference was to prepare members to be ready to strike this fall.

UTLA has been in contract negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for 16 months. Just before the conference, LAUSD pledged to bring “significant proposals” to bargaining. Instead, the district added a one-time 2 percent bonus and no ongoing raise. It again refused to make any improvements on class size; staffing of nurses, social workers and counselors; oversight of charter schools; over-testing; or UTLA’s “common good” proposals to benefit school communities.

UTLA then submitted its “last, best and final offer,” which LAUSD rejected.

“District officials claim we are being outrageous and uncooperative because we won’t join them in their cynical view of our future,” said Arlene Inouye, chair of the UTLA bargaining team. “Our vision for hope and reinvestment does not match their goal to defund, dismantle and ultimately privatize our public school district.”

Read more: https://socialistworker.org/2018/08/03/los-angeles-educators-get-ready-to-go-all-in