Teacher's Strike Looming in Capistrano Unified

Update:  Teachers cave.

Looks like things are about to get interesting in the Capistrano Unified School District which serves much of South Orange County:

Trustees in the Capistrano Unified School District have affirmed that they will not back off their decision to impose a 10.1 percent pay cut on the district's 2,200 teachers, even as union leaders could decide as early as Monday what day teachers will begin striking.

School board President Anna Bryson released a statement Saturday saying trustees were "very disappointed" by Friday's vote authorizing a teacher strike, but that the district "simply cannot" return to the bargaining table, as the Capistrano Unified Education Association union is demanding.

 "A teacher walkout will be a political statement by the union that will not change the fiscal reality we face as a school district or the need to move forward with the level of concessions required in the CUEA contract," Bryson said in the statement. "Individual teachers will be asked to pay the price in lost wages for that union decision."

Teachers in the district – Orange County's second largest – resoundingly authorized a plan Friday to go on strike in the coming weeks if the school district isn't willing to renegotiate the terms of the pay cut imposed on them.

Nearly 87 percent of teachers in the 52,000-student district voted in favor of striking, with an 85 percent turnout during the two-day voting period, according to the union. Union leaders will meet Monday to discuss when, or if, teachers will walk off the job.

Teachers say they are willing to accept pay cuts that are negotiated at the bargaining table, but that the school board has been disrespectful and hostile toward them throughout the nearly year-long negotiations impasse, especially when it imposed the pay cut in March.

As I understand it the union has to give 48 hours notice before it can start a strike, so I think that will hold things off until Wednesday or Thursday. Given the feelings on both sides, I'm guessing there will be a strike and it may go for awhile.

UPDATE:  The Mission Viejo Dispatch has some strike facts for parents and students.