Negotiations Held Amidst a News Blackout

The first formal face-to-face negotiations during the 4-day-old teachers’ strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District began Thursday night, with no resolution but both sides said talks would resume today.

The negotiations are expected to focus on how much of an infusion of extra state monies can be used to boost pay

Both United Teachers-Los Angeles President Wayne Johnson and district Supt. Leonard Britton declined to offer specifics as they left the Bonaventure Hotel downtown about 11 p.m. Thursday.

“We talked about a number of issues,” was all Britton would say.

“I’m tired and hungry,” said Johnson.

Under the supervision of a mediator, the meeting began at 11 a.m. Thursday with an unusual agreement for a news blackout. Participating in the talks were, for the district, school board President Roberta Weintraub, chief negotiator Dick Fisher and Britton. On the union side were UTLA Vice President Helen Bernstein, top negotiator John Britz and Johnson.

Meanwhile, student attendance continued to dip as more and more youngsters apparently wearied of the makeshift educational programs offered at the strikebound campuses, which usually enroll a total of 594,000. According to the district, 283,620 students showed up for morning attendance-taking Thursday, about 4,000 fewer than Wednesday and 45,700 fewer than on Monday. Those figures do not account for the lunchtime exodus.

Some students said they are getting tired of hanging around with friends at convenience stores and fast food restaurants and even feeling nostalgic about regular classes. “I’d rather be messin’ with my teachers,” complained North Hollywood High School junior Kiumba-Fisher.

The district claimed that 8,642 teachers came to work on Thursday--435 more than the day before. However, the union said that any attrition was minor and that at least 23,000 teachers, nurses, librarians and counselors remained out.

Both the district and the union say the largest stumbling block in the talks continues to be money. The announcement Wednesday of a $2.5-billion state tax windfall over the next two years appeared to harden the resolve on both sides.

District officials were expected to press their argument that any new state money that comes to Los Angeles schools has already been guaranteed to increase teacher salaries up to a maximum of 8% for each of three years under its current offer. That position was supported strongly by a state fact-finder’s report issued Wednesday.

The union’s latest public bargaining position was for a hike of 10% retroactive for this year and 8% for each of the next two. Other issues include school governance and the dropping of school yard supervision duties.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said Thursday that the surplus will likely mean an extra $40 million to $60 million for the Los Angeles district this year and between $20 million and $40 million the next. A source in Sacramento close to the district’s budget makers estimated the figures at $40 million followed by $20 million. Both men cautioned that the state government might require that no more than half of those funds be available for salaries.

The final figure will not be known for several weeks and not before the governor and Legislature twist through a complicated series of budget steps. “I’ve never seen such a frenzy,” the source said Thursday. He added that matters will be made more difficult because of Republican hostility toward the teachers union and the overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Nevertheless, Honig said the extra state funds, even though the final figures are uncertain, should speed a resolution of the labor dispute. “The risk at either side has been substantially diminished. There is no reason why children should continue to suffer.” The big issue now, according to Honig, is whether the district or the union will risk more in settling quickly while awaiting budget answers from the state.

Board member Julie Korenstein, who was not at the negotiations, said the talks covered what she called “a fairly decent compromise position.” Korenstein said the negotiations covered agency fee, a provision sought by the UTLA to require all teachers to pay some form of union dues, as well as whether teachers should get back wages they lost for refusing to turn in grades and to perform playground supervision.

Union attorneys went to U.S. District Court Thursday in a successful attempt to force the district to continue health care insurance coverage for striking teachers. The district had threatened that teachers could lose coverage if they did not pay premiums out of their own pockets by four days ago. In an agreement backed by a federal court restraining order, the district on Thursday gave teachers until May 31 to pay premiums retroactively if the strike continues. The union says that federal law requires coverage continue for 60 days of a strike. That issue could be the center of a future court battle.

Wesley Mitchell, chief of the school police, said that the situation on the picket lines and at the campuses were generally peaceful Thursday. However, several incidents were reported and one arrest was made.

Lanterman High School teacher Allen McCue was arrested by school police and charged with battery after he allegedly struck substitute teacher Janice Nevarez in the ribs with his forearm. The incident occurred at 8:30 a.m. outside the school near downtown after picketing teachers tried to lock the drive-through gate to the school’s parking lot, according to district spokeswoman Tammy Sims.

Also Thursday morning, a striker at Locke High School in South-Central Los Angeles allegedly threw hot coffee through a chain-link fence at a substitute teacher and a similar incident involving a striker and an administrator was reported at South Gate Junior High, according to Mitchell. The chief said he would recommend that the city attorney file charges of misdemeanor battery against the striking teachers even though no one was badly burned or required medical attention.

At El Sereno Junior High School, Henry Flores, a coordinator of a magnet center, was injured on a picket line when a minivan driven by a substitute teacher knocked him. Flores was treated for bruises at a hospital and released.

Several high school principals throughout the city began scheduling a regular six periods of instruction for the students remaining at their school. Students said that they were told that they might receive final grades based on the work done in those classes because most high school teachers have refused to turn in their grade books.

Senior high school division Assistant Supt. Dan Isaacs said that he could not say whether student grades will be based only on work done in the last weeks of the semester should the strike continue to the end of the school year.

In other matters, the union is planning to hold its first district-wide rally of the strike at 11 a.m. today at the quadrangle behind the county Museum of Natural History at Exposition Park, union spokeswoman Catherine Carey said.

Officials in nearby Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena school districts reported about 50 calls this week from Los Angeles teachers seeking temporary employment. The Glendale district does not hire teachers working under contract in other districts and the Burbank and Pasadena school districts are no longer accepting applications for the current school year, officials there said.

Also contributing to this article were Times staff writers Kim Murphy and Elizabeth J. Mann.