UTLA Bargaining Team Demands Movement from the District or Will Have to Declare Impasse

Tonight, the 150-member UTLA Bargaining Team met with LAUSD on Zoom for the 17th bargaining session.

After the powerful November 6 regional rallies, LAUSD had canceled Monday’s bargaining session and held a special school board meeting to discuss our contract negotiations. Tonight they came with 15 proposals including a modest increase in Community School funding, a proposal to reduce class sizes in 11th and 12th grades, and class size reductions for IDM and Modified Core Curriculum classes that show movement, but still do not meet the needs of Special Education students and educators.

“It’s disheartening to see that the district still does not prioritize our most vulnerable students. Special Education continues to be treated like an afterthought and that is simply not acceptable. We are beginning to see minor movement, and that progress is only due to the pressure we’ve created through our organizing efforts. But it is still not enough. The district has the money but lacks urgency to take our demands seriously. We must keep holding the line and showing up until our demands are met.” — Adrian Tamayo, Lorena ES Special Education teacher and UTLA Bargaining Team member

After nine months at the table, the district is only just now starting to engage on some of the proposals that address issues most widely and deeply felt by UTLA educators. But the district’s proposals tonight still fall far short of what we need to break the log jam in negotiations.

LAUSD brought no salary proposal, nothing on parental leave, nothing on Arts Education, PE, or elementary prep time. They continue to offer no solutions to meet the massive need for PSAs, PSWs, and school psychologists, no solution to enforce class size and staffing ratio violations, and no solutions for many other critical issues educators and students are facing.

To add insult to injury, while refusing to address our proposals or discuss the issues at the bargaining table, the district is moving forward with unilateral top-down decisions. For example, LAUSD is already implementing their plan on including the LRE as part of the SPSA even though we are currently bargaining the issue. They are doing so while failing to address any of the other issues educators have raised that impact inclusion.

We know the district has the money to go much further than what they’re bringing to bargaining. Their financial team confirmed the funding that was hidden from the district’s budget presentations to the public can be used to pay for our demands.

We ended tonight’s session demanding the district come back the first week of December with significant movement on core issues, or we will be forced to declare impasse with the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) and start the mediation and fact-finding process.

Chapter leaders are preparing for the next steps in our contract fight. Join your site’s UTLA chapter meeting to learn more about how 37,000 educators will demonstrate our willingness to fight for what we deserve and what our students need.