LA teachers set April 14 deadline

Los Angeles teachers say they will strike on April 14 unless the Los Angeles Unified School District reaches a new contract first. (politico.com) United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents about 38,000 educators, set the deadline after more than a year of bargaining with the district. Service Employees International Union Local 99, with about 30,000 support staff, and the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, with roughly 3,000 principals and managers, have aligned with the threat. (jacobin.com) (laist.com) A joint walkout by those three unions could shut schools across the country’s second-largest school district. Los Angeles Unified serves about 400,000 students daily, and district contingency plans include food distribution, take-home instruction and child care if classes stop. (laist.com) (politico.com) The contract fight is about wages, staffing and school conditions, but unions have also made subcontracting and the use of artificial intelligence part of the dispute. United Teachers Los Angeles says it wants protections against replacing school jobs with outside vendors or software systems. (edsource.org) United Teachers Los Angeles is asking for a pay scale overhaul that would lift starting teacher pay to $80,000 and produce an average 17 percent raise over two years, with the biggest increases for newer teachers. The union is also seeking smaller class sizes in eleventh and twelfth grade and penalties when limits are violated. (jacobin.com) The district has pointed to a different framework. An independent fact-finding report issued March 30 recommended a 3 percent one-time bonus for 2025-26, an 8 percent raise effective July 1, 2026, and a 3 percent raise effective January 1, 2028; the union rejected it. (utla.net) (dailynews.com) Los Angeles Unified says its offers are already “among the most generous in the State” and says it has to protect long-term finances. EdSource reported the district projects a $191 million deficit in the 2027-28 school year. (politico.com) (edsource.org) The technology angle comes from where district money has gone and what jobs unions say are at risk. A Private Equity Stakeholder Project report published April 10 said Los Angeles Unified approved about $10 billion in outside contracts from January 2022 through June 2025, including $2 billion for tech companies. (pestakeholder.org) That report said $255 million of $297 million in new digital instruction contract commitments went to private equity-backed or venture capital-backed companies, or at least 86 percent. The report was based on district contract data obtained by United Teachers Los Angeles, and it argues that more services are being outsourced as layoff notices go out to nearly 700 employees. (pestakeholder.org) Union leaders have tied the strike threat to living costs as much as classroom policy. EdSource reported that United Teachers Los Angeles says 20 percent of its members are housing insecure, 56 percent have taken on credit card debt and 30 percent have worked a second job. (edsource.org) The showdown lands as Los Angeles Unified is already under strain from a superintendent investigation and broader budget pressure across California school systems after federal pandemic aid expired. As of April 12, bargaining was still continuing ahead of the April 14 deadline. (politico.com) (dailybreeze.com)