Negotiations between the Los Angeles Unified School District and United Teachers Los Angeles stretched into Saturday without an agreement, leaving open the possibility of a strike next Tuesday. A LAUSD spokesperson said the talks were continuing throughout the weekend.
UTLA represents roughly 37,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and librarians, and its 150-member bargaining team last met with district negotiators on Wednesday in a session that ran from morning into the night. The union’s president, Cecily Myart-Cruz, said Thursday that the district must do more to address staffing, student mental health and livable wages for educators.
The district said schools remain open on Monday, but the standoff has widened beyond UTLA. LAUSD is also facing pressure from Service Employees International Union Local 99 and the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, whose leaders have said they are preparing for possible walkouts as well.
SEIU Local 99 represents roughly 30,000 support staff, while the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles represents about 3,000 administrators. Together, the three unions represent roughly 70,000 employees, the vast majority of the district’s 83,000-person workforce. If all three were to strike, it would be the first time they walked out at the same time and could disrupt instruction for more than 400,000 students across the nation’s second-largest district.
LAUSD said it remains committed to reaching agreements that support employees while also protecting the district’s long-term financial stability. But the bargaining calendar has not narrowed the gap. SEIU Local 99 said late Thursday that no agreement had been reached and that it remained on track for a potential strike, and then said in a social media post Saturday that its members are strike ready. AALA leaders said Thursday and Friday that no additional bargaining sessions had been scheduled and that they were continuing strike preparations in coordination with other labor groups.
The fight is over wages, staffing and working conditions, and the weekend talks show how little time remains before the district tests whether it can settle with its largest union and avoid a broader labor shutdown. If it cannot, Tuesday could bring the first simultaneous strike by all three unions and a major disruption for hundreds of thousands of students.
