98% of UTLA members voted to authorize a strike.
In a significant show of strength and unity, 98% of UTLA members voting said yes to authorize a strike, should one become necessary. During the week-long vote at school-sites, 81% of members cast ballots. Because of this historic turnout, a small number of ballots are still being counted tonight.
“Our members have spoken, with one big, united voice,” said Arlene Inoyue, chair of the UTLA Bargaining Team. “After 17 months of bargaining with LAUSD, educators are frustrated and angry. We want a district that partners with us—not fights us—on critical issues like lower class sizes, fair pay, and bringing more staff to work with our students.”
The results were a sharp rebuke to Austin Beutner and his austerity agenda to ultimately cut pay, healthcare, pensions, staffing, and student services, starving schools of resources and opening the door to dismantling the district. The huge turnout shows that educators in LA know what’s on the line and are ready to take action, connecting with the national teacher rebellions to stand up for public education.
While LAUSD would like to constrict contract talks to pay and a few narrow issues, educators have been fighting for a righteous set of proposals that are urgently needed for the district to survive and thrive, including lower class sizes, fair pay, less testing and more teaching, accountability for charter operators and co-locations, respect for early and adult educators, and more nurses, counselors, and librarians to support our students.
The force behind our vote is a clear signal to Beutner that he should stop the delay tactics, end his attempts to reach a backroom deal, and agree to enter mediation immediately.
The vote does not mean we are going on strike immediately. The results authorize the UTLA Board of Directors to call for a strike if LAUSD does not show good faith in mediation and offer a fair contract that respects educators, our students, and our communities.
Parents were with us at the vote count today to show their support for educators.
“Our teachers are there for us and our children every day, and now I stand with them in this important fight,” said Alejandra Delgadillo, a parent at Trinity Elementary. “I see what teachers take out of their pockets every week to spend on their classrooms. They deserve a fair pay raise for doing one of the most important jobs in our communities. But they are fighting for much more than just a pay raise—they are fighting for a better education for our children. As a parent, I hope a strike won’t be necessary, but I support the teachers if it does come to that. It will be a short-term sacrifice for my children’s long-term future.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My daughter is a teacher and she recently got a 13% pay raise but she said the level of education and their standards would not have changed with a far lesser increase. The unions have said that the Supreme Court ruling in our state was for higher salaries but it was actually for more: admin costs, all day kinger, transportation as well as salaries. The state parceled out the money to the districts for them to parcel (fight) it out. I really believe that with the large number of districts going out on strike (at least one asking for a 24% pay increase) that the unions are over stepping and placing the districts and the tax payers of WA in a future financiaal bind. A beginning teacher can start with $49,000. Funding education is so much more than salaries. Cutting class sizes means that we need more teachers and classroom construction–it may bite us going forward..
Things that are worth doing cost money. Smaller class size is an obvious and needed benefit to the kids. Overcrowded classrooms will bite us going forward. Amazing, we always have money for the military, we always have money to give to the rich and the corporations in the form of massive tax breaks. But money for schools? Oh, that’s moot, we must think long and hard about that……..for decades………before increasing money for schools, if ever.
Imagine Bezos and Gates, just those two alone, paying personal income taxes to Washington, the state they make their playground. Their current tax bracket is 0.0%.
They prefer regressive taxes where the poor pay rates up to 7 times theirs. Gates gives Washington state citizens the finger by using his money to defeat judges who made decisions favorable to public schools. Gates is a leech and a scumbag.
You’re way too nice in your description, Linda.
My state’s top income bracket pays 13.3%. If Bill Gates — just Gates by himself — paid that amount instead of zero percent, Washington would gain multiple billions of dollars a year in revenue. But he doesn’t want to help others; he is NOT a philanthropist. Regressive taxation is the reason he lives in Washington. He is an emblem of regression.
and always they find newer ways to get and keep More Money….for the life of me I never can figure out why.
I’m in one of those unions that some have felt we have “over stepped “. Yet after looking at the money sent from the state, knowing the union found that percent after only using that amount to cover what they asked , and knowing that one always asks a high end first knowing you will negotiate lower, my union votes yes to strike by 98.4%. I have blisters on my feet and am recovering after my 3 days walking on pavement in strike. I’ve been called greedy, a communist, an exhortationist along with other more colorful words sprinkled in. I’m tired of people assuming teachers are going to bankrupt the very district we love. We have strong number crunchers on our end too. This is a very complicated situation where it’s very very easy to misconstrue the truth with percentages and half truths. I’m living in it right now.
I think this article in TruthOut explains, not only what is at at stake for LAUSD teachers, but the broader issue your children face in WA. No, teachers are not overstepping any boundaries.
ABSTRACT: Brandon Abraham, an English teacher with 18 years of teaching experience, says, “When I started teaching in 1999, the teacher to student ratio was 1:20. I had twenty students in my class. These days, because of all the cuts, we don’t even have school librarians anymore, we are teaching basic literacy. They keep cutting and cutting and cutting essential services that students need to learn. To do a good job—which we do—is hard enough when conditions are perfect, but when the conditions get this challenging, it’s hard to motivate and inspire students. The problem is, really good teachers are leaving the profession because the conditions have become so difficult.”
https://truthout.org/articles/in-a-historic-move-los-angeles-educators-vote-to-strike/
What you are doing is hard. I have walked in your shoes many years ago. You must stay united and bear all the insults and discomfort. United you stand; divided you fall. You are fighting for the greater good. Hang tough!
Income gap: https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/
Too bad this country is run by a group of oligarchs and criminals.
Thanks for the link. Another statistic- labor’s share of national income is at the lowest point in U.S. recorded history. In the face that info. what do Gates and the other leeches do? Further concentrate their wealth and look for a lifeboat to escape what they have created as described by Douglas Rushoff at Medium, July 5, 2018.
Salaries are one part of a larger agenda for change. I think that is always wise. I wish the teachers well.
Although I taught for 42 years I suffered indignities at the end. For example, administrators asked teachers to have their lesson plan books out for “inspection” and demanded we get rid of materials they deemed inappropriate. I was reprimanded for showing a video of the Nutcracker ballet the day before I took my first graders to a musical with that theme (paid for by me). Now I am urging my granddaughter not to choose a k-12 teaching career.
My question: Why don’t teachers demand professional autonomy? Thanks.
I never demanded it. I showed it to the adminimals. I went to them and went over the curriculum, what I was doing, why, how, when etc. . . . They never wanted to listen. Five minutes and their eyes glazed over. I swear they had a system set up that when Swacker went into one of the adminimal’s office the others would call and interrupt and suddenly the one that I was talking with had more important things to attend to. Happened every time the last five years or so.
But, hey, none knew squat about teaching Spanish and I never sent a student to the office so. . . . .
But to answer your question, Linda. They all live their professional lives in FEAR, yes capital letter FEAR because they don’t have the confidence and professionalism to stand up to the adminimals.
“Trump hails unions” in his Labor Day message. The DINOS at the Center for American Progress and the Third Way abandoned the unions and supported politicians who plotted for corporatization and privatization of public schools which led to Trump’s win and 1000 Dem seats lost. A big go to hell to the posers.
True progressives are the only hope for the 99%.
Austin Beutner wants to starve L.A. public education, opening more doors to unregulated charter profiteers. Yes, he wants to erode pensions, healthcare, and salaries. But more than that, he wants to shrink the teaching force. He wants students jammed into classrooms like sardines so he and his investment banking buddies can have the leftover real estate. He wants no student services. He wants what all ultra rich rightwing zealots like DeVos want, to pay no taxes that don’t directly benefit themselves. He wants to starve the schools.
I am buoyed by my colleagues voting to authorize in such high numbers. This is bravery and care beyond marching in protest. And speaking of protests, from what I hear (and what I witnessed), when Beutner goes on his PR tours of schools these days, he is always met by a sea of union red shirts. It’s kind of exciting to see so many L.A. teachers awakened to the dangers of testing and charters.
I am able, ready, and willing to go on strike to save our schools from the privatization funding axe. It certainly appears I am not the only one.
Excellent news!
I voted to authorize the strike to send two messages:
1) Beutner and Rebecca Kockler need to be run out of town on rails.
2) Garcia, Gonez and Melvoin need to be exposed as the political whores/rent boy they are.
I can live without the 6% raise [which is still just getting us back to where we were before the recession], but take great umbrage at the political and social turmoil that they, and the California Charter Schools Association, are putting Los Angeles and California through.
So did I.
Thank you, Steve M.
Kockler was the curriculum specialist for the lowest performing state in the nation. What a find!