Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has volunteered to help break through a stalemate in contract talks between the nation’s second-largest school system and its teachers union, it was reported Tuesday.
The offer comes as United Teachers Los Angeles is conducting a strike-authorization vote, which would allow the union leadership to call a strike without going back to the membership for approval.
“We need to make sure teachers are in schools and that children have teachers,” Garcetti said Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported. “I will do anything that I can to make sure there is not a strike, or, if a strike is called, to directly intervene in negotiations.”
Garcetti said he’d made the offer to leaders on both sides, and that the broad outline of a deal appears within reach, according to The Times.
“This is a time, I think, in which there can be reasonable increases for teachers,” he said.
L.A. schools Superintendent Austin Beutner said he welcomes the offer “to convene a meeting with L.A. Unified and UTLA leadership to help resolve this situation and prevent a strike, which will harm students, families and the communities we serve.”
In an interview with The Times editorial board Monday, Beutner also suggested that the union was negotiating in bad faith and had been pushing toward a strike from the get-go.
The union did not respond Monday to the mayor’s offer.
Salary is one part of the division between the district and the union. United Teachers Los Angeles has asked for a 6.5 percent raise retroactive to July 1, 2016, with the possibility of future raises in a contract that would run through June 30, 2020. The district unofficially has offered 6 percent, stretched out over a three-year period. Other district employee unions already have settled for about 6 percent, spread out over several years in various ways, but they could be entitled to additional compensation if the teachers get more.
Strike-authorization votes are a standard pressure tactic and do not preordain a walkout, but district officials appear to be worried. On Thursday, the first day of voting, the district helped coordinate a news conference with parents who spoke out against a strike.
The teachers’ 69-page proposal covers many areas besides salary, including changes that would add greater protections for teachers who want to hold on to their current assignments at schools and that would result in additional hiring to bring down class sizes and extend nursing and counseling services at campuses.
United Teachers Los Angeles Monday filed an unfair labor practice charge against the district,, claiming unlawful interference with the union’s strike authorization vote and failure to provide key public information and financial documents. The district has not responded.