LOS ANGELES – On a cloudless afternoon on Wednesday, March 18, thousands of red and purple-shirted union members rallied into Grand Park. With a stage set in front of City Hall, teachers and service members of United Teachers Los Angeles and Service Employees International Union Local 99 gathered to protest layoffs from the district and push for renewed contracts.
Anthony Flores, an IT technician and five year Local 99 member, wore a purple Local 99 shirt from the last union strike in 2023, three separate three-day walkouts which UTLA joined in solidarity. Now preparing to strike again, Flores showed up to support his fellow union members.
“They made it very welcoming, like, almost like a concert or like a festival,” he said.
Starting at 4:30 pm, the rally ran for over two hours with T-shirt handouts, tents for Mexican food, and signs denouncing LAUSD parading through Grand Park. Between the songs played in front of City Hall, different speakers would take stage to denounce the district.
The rally comes after recent negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District have gone stale. Teachers across LA have been working under contracts that expired last summer, and amid news of a $877 million budget shortfall for the district, notices for layoffs have shaken workers. Local 99 employees in the district without a teaching credential, such as teachers aides, bus drivers, and computer techs, are already getting notices for layoffs.
Flores started feeling the pressure from LAUSD after notices for preliminary cuts were sent to his department back on March 15. “It hits a little closer to home, because our IT department specifically had a lot of cuts, the numbers were looking pretty high,” he said. “It felt like a lot was out of our control. But, you know, one thing we could do is just show up.”
For UTLA, their work is under a contract last negotiated in 2019 and after its expiration in June, the district hasn’t given an inch to the teachers’ demands.
Jeffery Charoux, a special education teacher and UTLA member for over 20 years, spoke on the negotiations between the district and the unions. “[LAUSD] just gave everyone the final offer, something that probably wouldn’t even have been good the past year, where we don’t even have a contract,” he said.
The district hasn’t budged on the proposed 17% raise over the next two years from UTLA, instead slashing benefits and increasing layoffs.
“We got our contract before the pandemic, so it seemed good for about six months, and then everything got really expensive, and meanwhile, well our contracts expired since then,” Charoux said.
Even with the struggles the district faces, the benefits provided are a main attraction for teachers, according to Charoux. “I think the healthcare is just the main thing. Like, you know, that’s the one thing that attracts people to LA Unified, even if it has the downside or challenges,” he said.
But with budgetary issues, the district has claimed those benefits can’t be paid out. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, now on leave after an FBI raid and investigation, maintains that the $5 billion reserves are fleeting from declining revenue and ongoing commitments.
Flores understands these arguments, but doesn’t trust the district’s tactics. “The fact that they haven’t been so upfront with where all this money is going, it’s kind of a little shady,” he said.
The district has been holding their board meetings in the middle of a work day, where teachers and others affected had to take vacation days to attend. “I definitely feel like it’s trying to break morale and just get people to kind of just give up, start looking for other jobs,” Flores said.
Towards the end of the event, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz along with Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias announced a massive strike between the unions on April 14. Myart-Cruz made it clear — if no deal is reached with the district, April 14 will be the day “when the unions will strike back.”
