{"id":706714,"date":"2023-03-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/?post_type=article&#038;p=706714"},"modified":"2023-03-28T15:48:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T19:48:52","slug":"settling-l-a-strike-causes-future-problems-while-trying-to-solve-past-ones","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/settling-l-a-strike-causes-future-problems-while-trying-to-solve-past-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"Settling L.A. Strike Causes Future Problems While Trying to Solve Past Ones"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever read a science fiction story, you know the dangers of time travel. Someone returns to the past and alters something that completely remakes the present and the future, usually with disastrous effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it went last week with Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carvalho was forced to shutter schools while the district\u2019s 30,000 support employees, led by SEIU Local 99, went on a three-day strike. Members of United Teachers Los Angeles walked out in solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<span class=\"cta_snippet\"><hr><p><em>Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. <\/em><a class=\"arrow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/about\/newsletters\/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=top&utm_id=newsletter\"><strong>Sign up for The 74 Newsletter<\/strong><\/a><\/p><hr><\/span>\n\n\n\n<p>The day after the strike ended, Carvalho and the union announced a tentative agreement. The three-year deal raised salaries by a reported 30%. Carvalho called it a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/la-school-strike-union-deal-rcna76637\">precedent-setting, historic contract<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s historic, in the sense that most of it takes place in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<aside class=\"inline_story shortcode simple\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/carvalho-faces-defining-moment-as-l-a-s-largest-unions-prepare-to-strike\/\"><figure style=\"background-image: url(https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/carvalho-seiu-strike.jpg);\"><\/figure><div><span class=\"sans related_tag\">Related<\/span><h4 class=\"sans\">Carvalho Faces \u2018Defining Moment\u2019 as L.A.\u2019s Largest Unions Prepare to Strike<\/h4><\/div><\/a><\/aside>\n\n\n\n<p>The agreement contains a 6% pay hike retroactive to July 2021, another 7% retroactive to July 2022 and yet another 7% to take effect this July. In January 2024, the district will raise all support employee wages by $2 an hour. The district and the union both say this constitutes another 10% increase for the average employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless, it\u2019s not the amount that\u2019s going to cause headaches for Carvalho, the school board, parents and students in the near future. The district and the union weren\u2019t oceans apart on the money before the strike occurred. Where Carvalho went wrong was in the timeline of the settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lost in all the happiness and relief about the contract is that the strike supposedly wasn\u2019t about wages and benefits. Such a walkout would have been illegal, since the union hadn\u2019t completed all the procedural steps before calling a strike. SEIU did so to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seiu99.org\/2023\/03\/16\/this-strike-is-about-respect\/\">protest the district\u2019s alleged unfair labor practices<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SEIU accused the district of interrogating workers about union meetings and threatening to fire them if they walked out. The union even claimed that food service workers were locked in a cafeteria to prevent them from voting on a strike. Taking these accusations at face value, the district could not have prevented the strike, short of admitting it had committed these violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cnn59.com\/news\/lausd-strike-may-have-been-illegal-trial-can-move-ahead-labor-board-says\/?feed_id=17097&amp;_unique_id=641e212d77043\">The strike might end up being deemed illegal anyway<\/a>. An unfair labor practices strike is legal if unfair labor practices have occurred. These haven\u2019t been adjudicated, and if they\u2019re found to be baseless, the union will be penalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it won\u2019t matter. The reality is that the walkouts prompted Carvalho and the board to settle on the union\u2019s terms. So what happens to the district\u2019s future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There isn\u2019t going to be much of a lull. \u201cCarvalho has been put on notice that he better move on our demands,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/other\/q-a-5-questions-that-arise-from-lausd-s-historic-labor-settlement\/ar-AA195Yfo\">read an email from the teachers union to its members<\/a>. \u201cIf that movement is not enough to settle the contract that UTLA members deserve, we will move to the next round of this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The union wants a 20% raise over a two-year contract. But the contract expired in June 2022, so the two years are this school year and next. It\u2019s clear the teachers aren&#8217;t reluctant to strike, and SEIU Local 99 will be sure to back them up. So we might see a repeat of last week\u2019s actions, only this time it will be the teachers union organizing an unfair labor practices strike, with SEIU striking in solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carvalho might be able to head it off by caving early, but the reprieve would be only temporary. The new contracts would both expire in June 2024, right about the time all federal COVID subsidies will have run out. How much labor peace will Carvalho be able to buy then?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He seems unaware of his impending fate. \u201cThis agreement\u2019s going to make a lot of superintendents very nervous,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/los-angeles-schools-strike-union-deal-1cff7faece7289be3ea14b887800ceb8\">he said<\/a>. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ll see who is the most nervous superintendent a year from now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Mike Antonucci\u2019s Union Report appears most Wednesdays; see <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/series\/union-report\"><em>the full archive<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve ever read a science fiction story, you know the dangers of time travel. Someone returns to the past and alters something that completely remakes the present and the future, usually with disastrous effect. So it went last week with Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. Carvalho was forced to shutter schools [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":706716,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[192],"tags":[1340,895,5745,2491,1125],"series":[31],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/706714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/706714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706715,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/706714\/revisions\/706715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706714"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=706714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}