UPDATE 2: Strike photos.
It's getting uglier in South Orange County:
Accusing Capistrano Unified of fostering “chaos instead of communication,” the district's teachers union says educators will begin striking Thursday to show they’re fed up with the district's failure to make a "clear, unambiguous offer" to settle their bitter pay cut dispute.The teacher's demanded the district agree to certain provisions before they sat down to negotiate, and the district responded with a letter that called that move an "unfair labor practice". There is no love lost on either side of this fight. Looks like they're going to insult each other into a full-on strike.
It will mark the first teacher strike in Orange County in a decade.
Union leaders said the final straw prompting a strike in Orange County’s second largest school district was a letter Tuesday in which district officials indicated they were willing to discuss a compromise related to the 10.1 percent cut, but that the district could not agree upfront to demands made by the union.
“We don’t believe they are serious about negotiating,” teachers union President Vicki Soderberg said. “We think they are using this as a stalling tactic, and we can see right through it.”
The strike will begin Thursday morning, the union said, giving parents and students less than 48 hours’ notice.
It will end when union leaders “determine that they (district officials) are serious about reaching a settlement,” according to a statement released late Tuesday.
The teachers union said there was nothing in state law requiring it to give advance notice to students and parents in the 52,000-student district.
The Register has an article that will be useful to Capo parents with information about the strike and what to expect. You can read it here.
2 comments:
Some people, even teachers, just don't get it. A pie can only be cut in so many pieces and when it's gone, IT IS GONE! The same is true in business or school finances and when the general public won't fund any more money there comes a time where you tighten the belt and in some cases a reduction in pay may have to be the answer. Right now, the economy is in such a mess that I would think the Union and its members would just be glad to have a job, even if it meant having to give up 10% of their normal pay.
The union has agreed to the 10% cut, but don't want it to be permanent when things change finacially. That's not unreasonble. We need to attract great teachers here in the future and can't treat them like this.
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