CORTINES: UTLA’S ‘UNREALISTIC’ PAY DEMANDS WILL LEAD TO ‘CATASTROPHIC’ LAYOFFS

SEE: CORTINES’ NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE EMAIL TO EMPLOYEES & LABOR PARTNERS: |  http://bit.ly/15NeomP

L.A. Unified chief blasts teachers union's salary demands By Teresa Watanabe | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1H5WWdI Los Angeles Unified Supt. Ramon Cortines blasted the teachers union Monday, warning it would force "catastrophic" layoffs. The union sharply rebutted his allegations. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press) 27 Jan 2015  ::  L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon Cortines blasted the teachers union's salary demands Monday, calling them an unrealistic proposal that would force "catastrophic" layoffs of other employees. After 16 meetings and months of contract negotiations with United Teachers Los Angeles, Cortines issued a public letter sharply criticizing the union's demands for an 8.5% salary increase and other pay and earnings totaling 4.2% for the 2014-15 school year. He said the cost exceeded the district's offer by $833 million. The district recently increased its offer to raise pay from 2% to 4%. Cortines also said the union's demands to reduce class sizes would require the hiring of an additional 5,000 teachers and staff at an annual cost of $525 million. That proposal, Cortines said, would shift the burden of layoffs entirely onto other non-teaching school employees. The union has failed to identify funding sources for its proposals or accept the district's invitation to review its financial books, Cortines wrote, while putting aside millions for a potential teachers strike. "UTLA leadership's persistent demands, coupled with its strike plans, therefore raise serious ethical and equity issues," he wrote. Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl sharply disputed Cortines' allegations. He asserted that the superintendent's cost estimates were inflated, and that the district had failed to provide numerous financial documents requested by the union. He also said the district could redirect money being used for legal services, outside consultants and its attempt to repair the malfunctioning student information system known as MISIS. Caputo-Pearl called Cortines' efforts to cast the union as selfish as a "fabrication." He said teachers have worked with other employees to support demands for more custodians, higher wages, immigrant rights and other issues. "It's unfortunate that Cortines is trying to divide us," he said. "He is using scare tactics to respond to our very successful organizing effort." In his letter, Cortines wrote that he had hoped the union's tough negotiating position was prompted in part by its feud with former Supt. John Deasy and that his departure last year would improve bargaining prospects. But he said he was troubled that no compromise appears in sight. He called on the union to reexamine its demands and "their single-minded pursuit and organization of a disruptive strike against our students and the community."

Cortines breaks silence on teacher talks, lashes out at union by Vanessa Romo | L.A. School Report |http://bit.ly/1zTMcLv January 26, 2015 5:05 pm * UPDATED :: A Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines today for the first time publicly inserted himself into the district’s contract negotiations with the teachers union, calling its latest demands “entirely unrealistic” and asserting that they raise “serious ethical and equity issues” for the district. Pointing out that all the district’s other unions have agreed to new contracts within the current economic landscape, he chided UTLA for its bargaining stance over 16 negotiating sessions, saying, “It is regrettable that the current UTLA leadership has gone in an entirely different direction.” Alex Caputo-Pearl, the UTLA president, told LA School Report that he found Cortines’s two-page letter to “Employees and Labor Partners” “unfortunate” and “unacceptable” at a time he and other UTLA officials have been meeting with Cortines and district officials apart from the negotiations in a “problem-solving mode.” “Unfortunately, the Superintendent is using scare tactics in response to our efforts to organize in our ‘school blitz’ campaign,” Caputo-Pearl said, adding that Cortines’s message comes as the state is putting more money into public K-through-12 education and the district is still finding money for huge legal settlements and the continuing array of technology problems. “To say he can’t do this,” Caputo-Pearl said of meeting union demands, “is just unacceptable.” Until now, Cortines had kept himself out of the spotlight except to encourage more dialogue between the two sides. But in his letter, he did not mince words, calling on UTLA leaders to “re-examine and reconsider their present demands and their single-minded pursuit and organization of a disruptive strike against our students and the community to achieve those demands.” The strident tone of the message suggests that Cortines had a wider audience in mind. The union, which has failed to win a raise for teacher for more than seven years, has been threatening a strike for many months. But mindful that any successful strike requires community support, the union has been drumming up for weeks as part of an “escalating actions” campaign. To this point, the district issued no district response, pointing to the disruptive nature of a work stoppage. Cortines used his letter to paint a bleak financial picture for the district and its 650,000 students if the district were to satisfy current union demands. “We must live within our means,” he wrote, insisting that meeting the union’s demands would bankrupt LA Unified and lead to the layoffs of thousands of employees, including many of UTLA’s own members. “[T]he sole funding source for UTLA’s persistent demands would be employee layoffs — in catastrophic numbers that would dwarf the impacts of the recent Recession,” he warned. District officials calculate the cost of implementing the union’s latest bargaining proposals over two years would be about $833 million above LA Unified’s current offer despite a drop in UTLA’s salary demands from 10 percent a year. Just last week, the union reduced its salary demand to an 8.5 percent raise, plus additional pay and earnings, as well as class size and staffing reductions that would add another 5,000 UTLA jobs. The district’s latest salary is for a 4 percent raise, plus pay for professional development days that the district says represents another 2 percent. “There are no dollars in the 2014-2015 budget or layoff options to fund any additional increases,” he wrote. “UTLA leadership’s persistent demands, coupled with its strike plans, therefore raise serious ethical and equity issues that must immediately be considered and addressed by all concerned parties,” he added. “I have been hoping that UTLA’s demands were simply reflective of future aspirations, or of their ongoing feud with the former Superintendent, so that as time passes they would be tempered by consideration of the reality of the District’s limited resources.” Caputo-Pearl took special exception to Cortines’s contention that UTLA’s bargaining position would target workers in other unions for layoffs. The union president took that as an accusation UTLA was being selfish, and “nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. He said UTLA meets with the district’s other labor partners monthly to work on such issues as living wages, immigration and training for teacher assistants. “In the face of all that collaboration, for him to insinuate we’re being selfish smacks of ‘divide-and-conquer,” Caputo-Pearl said. “That is really not appreciated.”