Teachers' Sickout Adds Militancy to Contract Talks : Torrance: The school district responds with a hard-line stance to this week's job action. The teachers union is close to declaring an impasse.

By DEBORAH SCHOCH

Jan. 31, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Months of simmering frustration boiled over among Torrance teachers this week, resulting in a rare job action that forced the school district to shut its four high schools early and created a new militancy in long-stalled contract talks.

On Monday, 430 teachers and other employees called in sick, prompting the Torrance Unified School District to respond with a hard-line stance of its own: Absentees were warned that they would not be paid for the day unless they produced doctors’ notes verifying their illnesses.

“I think both sides are really solidifying, which is always a dangerous thing,” said Sarah Lorenz, an English teacher at West High School.

By Wednesday, a spokesman reported that the teachers’ union was on the brink of declaring an impasse in contract talks, a step that could result in a state mediator being brought in.

The district has said it will withdraw some salary offers if a contract agreement is not reached by Friday. The union, in turn, has promised that if Friday passes without an agreement, the district can expect what William A. Franchini, the association’s executive director, calls “more intensified job actions,” including possible work slowdowns and more sickouts.

“Both sides have drawn their lines in the sand,” Franchini said Wednesday afternoon. “Both sides are now working toward that deadline.”

All three of the district’s unions--representing teachers, maintenance workers and clerical and technical workers--have been lobbying for improved wages and benefits. But district officials have countered that they are able to offer no more than 1% raises, plus a small bonus.

The district’s contracts with its three unions expired June 30, 1990, and contract talks with the teachers’ association have been under way since last spring. If the teachers’ association reaches impasse this week, it will be the third of the district’s unions to do so. When an impasse is declared, a state mediator enters the talks; if mediation fails, the parties go to a fact-finding panel, which makes non-binding recommendations.

Both school officials and employees expressed discouragement over the deteriorating relations.

“It’s a case of you don’t have any money, and you can’t spend what you don’t have,” said school board President David Sargent, who said he doubts the district will be able to increase its offers to the three unions.

“There can be an awful lot of surprised people out there that don’t believe it, but I would be extremely surprised if the board changed its mind,” Sargent said.

But some teachers said the stalled contract talks reflect more than economic issues. They complained the district is increasing its demands on teachers while refusing to increase salaries. They cited as one example the district’s efforts to lengthen the middle-school day by 32 minutes.

“An awful lot of the animosity that came out with the sickout has to do with more than a contract,” said Lorenz, who called in sick Monday.

“It’s very unlike Torrance teachers to take such an action,” she said. “For many people, it was a biggie. It was a major step. I’d think this would be a message to them that this is serious.”

Another teacher, Margaret Harrell, who said she was recovering from an illness on Monday, said teachers’ morale is being seriously harmed by what she called the district’s lack of flexibility.

“We give and we give and we give, and we care . . . but you expect to get something back,” said Harrell, who teaches English and social studies at West High School.

“There just is no reciprocity. There’s no sense of working together in a difficult atmosphere, when there just isn’t the money to do what needs to be done.”

Franchini said teachers are fed up.

“There needs to be compensation for time put in beyond the call of duty,” Franchini said. “If the district can’t afford to do that, it shouldn’t be asking.”

Students have expressed sympathy for the teachers’ position and in mid-December staged walkouts and other actions at the four district high schools.

Several West High School students interviewed Monday said they supported the teachers’ sickout and do not feel teachers should be disciplined.

“I’m glad they did it,” senior Shawn Lehto, 17, said as he left school Monday after classes were called off because of the sickout.

The teachers’ association is the largest union in the school district. It represents 800 teachers and 75 other employees such as nurses and librarians.

The California School Employees Union, which represents 168 clerical and technical workers, declared an impasse late last year. The Service Employees International Union, Local 99, representing 250 maintenance and operations workers, said it followed suit Tuesday.

“The big issue isn’t the wages. It’s the benefits,” said Tom Newbery, Torrance division coordinator for the service employees’ union. For instance, the union has unsuccessfully proposed some creative approaches to funding health-care benefits, he said.

“They’re stonewalling. They’re very rigid on this stuff,” Newbery said.

But J. Richard Ducar, the district’s spokesman on labor issues, disputed that view. “We’ve been negotiating in good faith with all of our unions,” Ducar said.

The teachers’ union had requested an 8% raise, but the district has said it could afford only a 1% raise. Last week, the district added an additional one-time bonus equivalent to another 1% raise.

No more money is available, district officials have said, pointing to the budget-slashing that has marked the 1990-91 school year. The school board carved $1.5 million from the budget last March by eliminating 20 positions and tightening other spending. An additional $1.46 million was cut in September by abolishing 39 jobs--through attrition and layoffs--as well as axing some money for field trips, transportation and conferences.

District officials have blamed their financial woes on reduced state funding.

Sargent issued a statement during the sickout Monday afternoon, saying the board had “stretched” to offer the additional 1% bonus. Teachers who expect even more from the board “ignore the fact that the district has no money,” Sargent said.

The only way the board could produce larger raises is to cut programs and jobs, he said.

Torrance teachers’ salaries range from $24,869 for a beginning teacher to $48,090 for a teacher with 25 years’ experience, just slightly less than the median salary for teachers in districts of comparable size in Los Angeles County. Torrance teachers received an 8% increase last year. This year, comparable districts in the Los Angeles area have given raises ranging from 3.25% to 7%, according to figures provided by the teachers’ association.

The board came up with its 1% one-time bonus offer last week in hopes of fending off impasse, Sargent said. The money to pay for the bonus--about $600,000 for all employees--would come from the building fund, he said.

Because of financial uncertainties, the money was presented in the form of a bonus rather than an additional 1% raise that would become a permanent part of the structure for employee salaries, Sargent said.

Ducar said the bonus offer will be withdrawn Friday if it is not accepted by the unions. The district on Friday will also withdraw its offer to make the 1% raise retroactive to July 1, 1990, he said.

He said the school board next month is going to have to cut $2.2 million from the coming 1991-92 budget. That could include layoffs among the district’s certificated staff as well as other employees, he said. The certificated staff is made up of teachers and administrators.

Franchini agrees that the district has financial problems. “It’s a particularly bad year,” he said.

But he maintains that the board could have treated teachers’ salaries as a higher priority--for instance, by agreeing early to grant teachers a 3% increase and then building the 1990-91 budget around that expense.

“Instead they’re offering us crumbs in February of what’s left over,” he said.

Even now, the district could afford to give teachers a salary increase comparable to those given in other districts in the area, Franchini said. He pointed to the building fund and the operating reserve fund as potential sources of money.

Ducar said the building fund stands at $13.5 million, and the operating reserve fund is projected to be $1.4 million when the current budget year ends June 30.

However, Sargent said the district needs the interest it earns from the building fund to supplement its general fund.

Franchini said teachers are also concerned about rising health-care costs. He said the district now gives each teacher $2,960 annually, in 10 payments of $296.07, to pay for health insurance and related benefits; it has proposed raising that to $3,321. But teachers complain that amount is not keeping pace with the increase in costs.

“The rates have gone way up. . . . Some of the rates went up as much as 24%,” Franchini said.

For a single employee, it can cost from $181 to $306 in each of 10 payments for health, dental, vision and life insurance, depending on the plan selected. But family coverage is far steeper--from $528 to $790 for each installment--and far exceeds the district allowance, Franchini said.

Teachers were reluctant to discuss what new tactics they may use to pressure the board. But several teachers said they may be less willing to volunteer their time for tasks such as noon meetings with other teachers or extracurricular school activities.

“When they don’t give in anything,” Harrell said, “they can’t expect teachers to think they’re bargaining in good faith.”