page_title: United Teachers Los Angeles
section_title: 2019 strike
hierarchical_section_title: United Teachers Los Angeles / 2019 strike
caption_attribution_description: English: an. 22, 2019. UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl and union officers celebrate the end of the strike. Photo credit: Mike Chickey. Español: 22 de enero de 2019. El presidente de UTLA, Alex Caputo-Pearl, y los dirigentes sindicales celebran el final de la huelga. Crédito de la foto: Mike Chickey.
context_page_description: United Teachers Los Angeles is the main representative of certified, non-administrative staff in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Prior to 1970, primary and secondary school teachers in Los Angeles were chiefly represented by a local of the American Federation of Teachers and the Associated Classroom Teachers of Los Angeles which was affiliated to the National Education Association. There were other smaller teachers unions active before 1970 that also merged into UTLA. Over a dozen different organizations merged to form UTLA.
  The first broad federation of Los Angeles School District teachers was the Affiliated Teacher Organizations of Los Angeles, formed between 1930 and 1932.
  UTLA is very active in the political sphere of California, especially since Proposition 13, which severely limited the amount that public schools can receive from property taxes. This shifted the burden to the state and increased the competition between state funded groups. The union has also advocated strongly against school voucher programs and attempts to break up the school district.
context_section_description: In August of 2018, under the leadership of progressive UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, 98% of UTLA members authorized a strike  over numerous disputes and a failure of months of contract negotiations. These included familiar issues such as salary increases, classroom size reduction and the need for more nurses and librarians. However, a new issue also predominated the discussions -- i.e., authority and control over the proliferation of charter schools.
  At the time of the strike, one in five LAUSD students attended a charter school, siphoning an estimated $600 million dollars a year from the financially strapped school system, according to UTLA  which called for a moratorium on charter school authorizations, an end to school privatization and robust funding for public education. Los Angeles had more charter school students than any other school district, in part because anti-union interests and billionaires, such as the Walton heirs to the Walmart fortune and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect a pro-charter majority on the seven-member school board.
  Fact-finding and mediation continued for several months, while teachers, counselors, parents and other community members rallied in downtown, Los Angeles, marching through an echoing 3rd Street tunnel, right up to the entrance of the Broad Museum, built by real estate magnate Eli Broad, who a few years earlier had conceived a plan to turn half of LAUSD into charter schools.
  The fact-finding report failed to resolve matters and UTLA stated that a strike would proceed on January 10, 2019.
  On January 14, 2019, despite torrential rain and an attempt by the district to enjoin the strike, 30,000 teachers walked out of class and onto the picket line in what was the first teacher's strike to rock Los Angeles in 30 years, not since 1989.
   
  The strike lasted six days. Schools remained open, with replacement teachers and administrative staff showing movies, filling in for the striking teachers, but school attendance was estimated to have dropped to less than half during the strike. 
  Students at Venice High School created a buzz on Twitter when they danced in support of their striking teachers, issuing a Public Ed Dance Challenge to other students to learn their dance steps and join them on the picket line.
  Meanwhile, thousands of teachers clad in red union t-shirts, waving signs that read, "Save our Schools," continued to attend rallies with community supporters around the city, including at City Hall and LAUSD headquarters.
  UTLA and the school district reached a deal on a new contract January 22, 2019, after an all-night negotiating session on the sixth day. The 2019-2022 UTLA contract includes a 6 percent teacher pay raise untethered to cuts in health benefits for new teachers; a reduction in class size by 4 students per class for grades four through 12 over the course of three years; a full-time librarian in each middle and high school; additional secondary school counselors to allow for more individual student counseling; plans to cut standardized testing by 50%; removal of a provision that had previously allowed the District to increase class sizes during times of economic hardship; teacher representation on charter co-location committees; and a "commitment to provide a full-time nurse in every school". The deal also includes the establishment of 30 community schools around the district, modeled after similar programs in Cincinnati and Austin that seek to provide students with social services and learning experiences in the arts. The deal does not contain any binding agreements on charter schools, but it does include a non-binding resolution that calls on the state to establish a cap on charter schools.
caption: (Jan. 22, 2019. Downtown, LA.) With the strike over, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl and union officers thank teachers and community members for their support
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