LA teachers strike ends in victory
After a six day strike United Teachers Los Angeles have struck a deal which will allow a return to work in the USA’s second largest school district. The deal was announced following a mammoth 21-hour bargaining session ending before dawn.
Clashes over pay, class sizes and support staff levels in the district with 640,000 students led to its first strike in 30 years and thousands of teachers attend a union rally in downtown Los Angeles mid January, determined to build on the Red4Ed movement that began last year in West Virginia and moved to Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and Washington state.
Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl said the 30,000 members would now vote and he expected approval. A union summary of the agreement called it 'historic' and urged teachers to vote yes to ratify.
The deal was broadly described by officials at the news conference as including a 6% pay hike and a commitment to reduce class sizes over four years. Specifics provided later included the addition of more than 600 nursing positions over the next three school years. Additional counsellors and librarians were also part of the increase in support staff. (Source: The Star)
