Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. United Teachers Los Angeles and L.A. Unified march inexorably toward a strike in 2019, leading many to think back 30 years to the last Los Angeles teacher strike in May 1989. UTLA calls the 1989 strike a “historic UTLA victory” that resulted in a “historic contract.” Some...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. With no hope of a settlement in sight in the contract dispute between LA Unified and United Teachers Los Angeles, attention has turned to the conduct of the expected teacher strike in January. The district distributed a “family resource guide” to parents to help them prepare for...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Over the last few weeks, we have scrutinized how the California Teachers Association has funded the campaigns of school board candidates throughout the state, and how those campaigns did on Election Day. But candidates for public office are still one step removed from the union. Once elected,...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. While Election Day results for teacher unions across the country are best described as mixed, the California Teachers Association celebrated victories in virtually all of its targeted races. CTA’s unrelenting support of Tony Thurmond for Superintendent of Public Instruction was instrumental in putting him over the top....

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. The contract dispute between LA Unified and United Teachers Los Angeles entered its final phase as the three-member fact-finding panel was finally seated last week. The panel now has 30 days to submit a non-binding report of its recommendations, after which the district may impose its final...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Last week, I expressed doubt that press outlets would revisit the assumptions made prior to the election about teacher candidates for office in the “uprising” states. I was wrong to be so pessimistic, as there were dozens of stories about how the results did not live up...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Last week, United Teachers Los Angeles shot down another district proposal to settle their years-long contract dispute. UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl called the latest offer “insulting” and “anemic” and announced a major march and rally scheduled for Dec. 15. UTLA has not made a counter-proposal since its...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Whenever stories about the political spending of California’s teacher unions appear in the news, they focus on the major statewide races. This year is no different, with school employee unions devoting about $15 million in independent expenditures so far to elect Tony Thurmond as state superintendent of...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. Long before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME, public employee unions in California anticipated the loss of agency fees. Last year they persuaded the state legislature to pass Assembly Bill 119, which gave unions mandatory access to new employee orientations and required public employers...

Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. As expected, three mediation sessions between the Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers Los Angeles failed to result in a settlement — or even any movement, apparently — so the state-appointed mediator agreed to move the process forward to its final phase, fact-finding. Each side...