By
The Associated Press
Tens of thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District workers, including teachers, will strike for three days next week as pressure to push through stalled negotiations over better pay, likely leading to the closure of the second district. largest school in the country, union leaders said Wednesday.
The strike, which will start Tuesday, was announced at a rally of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents some 30,000 teacher aides, bus drivers, janitors, cafeteria workers and other support staff.
A driver walks in front of a Los Angeles Unified School District bus in the city of Gardena, California, in a picture taken on December 15, 2015. Damian Dovarganes / AP
The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union, which brings together 35,000 teachers, counselors and other staff, expressed its solidarity and will also join the strike.
"Educators will join our brothers in the union on the picket lines," said the union group in a message posted on the social network Twitter.
Teachers went on a six-day strike in 2019 over salary and contract issues, but schools remained open.
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This time it is likely that the educational centers will close and that there will be no access to virtual learning, Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho communicated in an email sent on Monday to the families of the students.
“We would simply have no way to ensure a safe environment in which education could take place,” Carvalho stressed.
The superintendent on Wednesday accused the main union of refusing to bargain and said he was willing to meet “day and night” to avoid a strike that he said would hurt students already struggling to regain academic ground lost during the shutdowns for the COVID-19.
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At a news conference, he said that getting the strike off the ground "will keep kids from staying home, keep kids from going hungry in our community without access to the food they get at school."
“We ask that you sit at the table for the staff and students, right now,” he said in a later statement.
SEIU members have been working without a contract since June 2020, while the teachers' contract expired in June 2022. The unions decided last week to stop accepting contract extensions.
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The SEIU alleges that district support employees earn an average of about $25,000 a year and that many live in poverty due to low wages or limited work hours, while coping with inflation and the high price of housing in Los Angeles County.
Consequently, he points out, he is demanding a 30% salary increase.
The teachers want a 20% raise in two years.
The school district claims to have made what it calls a landmark offer to SEIU, offering a $15 increase, part of it retroactive, and 9% in retention bonuses.
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The strike has broad support among union members.
Thousands of people, many of them dressed in red, demonstrated outside City Hall on Wednesday carrying banners, chanting and seeking more support in the hours before the strike date was announced.
The Los Angeles school district has more than 500,000 students, encompassing Los Angeles and all or part of 25 other cities and unincorporated areas of the county.