LAUSD strike averted as district reaches tentative deal with SEIU

Los Angeles Unified avoided a strike that could have shut down classrooms for nearly 400,000 students after reaching an agreement in principle with Service Employees International Union Local 99, keeping schools open across the district’s 710 square miles. The deal came just as the district had told families it would announce by 6 a.m. Tuesday whether campuses would open or close.

The tentative accord still needs a ratification vote from SEIU members, but it marks the final piece in a fast-moving bargaining push that ended a three-union strike threat. Los Angeles Unified said it had now reached resolution with all of its labor partners, including United Teachers Los Angeles, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles and Teamsters Local 2010, a political and operational relief for a district that enrolls more than 520,000 students in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and surrounding cities.

For SEIU Local 99, which represents about 30,000 aides, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and special education assistants, the reported terms go well beyond wages. The tentative deal includes a 24% wage increase, higher work hours that would allow thousands of workers to qualify for health-care benefits, rescinded layoffs for hundreds of IT technicians and expanded health coverage for teacher assistants and others. Those terms suggest the district was forced to address both pay compression and chronic staffing shortages, especially in the lower-paid jobs that keep schools running before the first bell and long after it rings.

The SEIU breakthrough followed tentative agreements Sunday with UTLA and AALA, which had moved the district away from a shutdown that union leaders said could have forced educators to honor picket lines. The unions’ contracts had expired last June, leaving months of negotiations to spill into the spring and, in the case of UTLA and SEIU, into the final hours before a possible walkout. Acting Superintendent Andrés E. Chait said the district was proud to have resolved matters with all labor partners, a signal that leaders viewed stability as the priority after weeks of escalating pressure.

UTLA’s tentative deal reportedly raises salary scales by 11.65%, lifts the starting annual salary for a new teacher to $77,000, provides four weeks of district-paid parental leave and expands mental health supports. AALA’s agreement raises pay by 11.65% over two years with a reopener in year three. Together, the deals buy time for the district and immediate relief for workers and families, but they also leave the larger question intact: whether LAUSD has finally met the staffing and service pressures that fueled the confrontation, or only postponed the next one.