LOS ANGELES — LA Unified School District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said he will meet at any time with Service Employees International Union leaders, who have threatened to strike over hourly pay and benefits.

“I will make myself available day and night to solve this issue and prevent a strike,” Carvalho said Wednesday at LAUSD headquarters in downtown LA, hours before SEIU members were scheduled to rally. “Let it not be written or said that if a strike happens, it’s because we were not willing to do everything we could to avoid it.”

About 30,000 bus drivers, custodians, special education assistants and cafeteria employees work for LAUSD and belong to SEIU Local 99, which has planned a protest at Grand Park Wednesday afternoon at which they could announce a strike that would force schools to close for three days. Last month, SEIU workers voted to authorize a strike if negotiations with the district failed. 

The union has made multiple demands, including a 30% wage increase plus a $2 per hour equity wage adjustment effective July 1. It has also demanded health and welfare benefits for all part-time employees, as well as the elimination of unassigned days, the addition of hours for special education assistants, a pay boost for behavior intervention implementation positions and the establishment of an education fund to support employees’ professional development. 

The district has countered with more than 15% in wage increases over three years and an equity adjustment for employees making less than $30 per hour. It has also offered an additional, onetime 9% retention bonus and a minimum starting wage for SEIU workers of $20.76 per hour.

The district is also offering paid health benefits for employees and their dependents who work at least four hours a day or 80 hours per month. It has agreed that employees can use vacation days to receive pay on unassigned days and to establish an education fund. 

The district has also offered an extra hour of work they would be paid for per day to special education assistants and 5.5% additional pay for special education assistants assigned to perform behavioral support. The total value of the district’s concessions is $595 million for the 2023-24 school year.

"We remind @LAUSDSup that we are UNITED for the public schools our children and communities deserve!” SEIU Local 99 posted to Twitter Wednesday, hours before their rally.

Carvalho adamantly contested the union’s claim that the school district has $4.9 billion in reserves. He said the district’s true reserve is closer to $500 million, including $239 million, or 2% of the district’s general fund, that California law requires the district to hold in reserve for emergency use and $140 million in a “true uncommitted reserve” with “no strings attached.”

“We believe in the right of unions and the workforce to express their opinion and take full advantage of the ability to strike. That is sacrosanct. That is an inherent right of our workforce,” Carvalho said. “We also believe in understanding where our students are and considering the consequences of what we do in terms of the immediate and long-term impact on them.”

“It has not been an easy school year,” he said, as the district marked its 126th day of the 2022-23 academic calendar. “We dealt with a cyberattack. We’ve dealt with the issues of learning loss facing many of our kids. We began the year with a significant deficit in terms of student attendance, chronic absenteeism, kids expressing and manifesting serious issues with their social and emotional wellbeing. On the 126th day of school, many of those needs are still real.” 

Despite the challenges, Carvalho said the district has decreased chronic absenteeism by over 10%, improved math and reading performance and stabilized enrollment.

A strike, he said, would mean “learning loss, deprivation of safety and security that schools provide to our kids, deprivation of food and nutrition that many of our kids depend on.”

The district is prepared to counter the effects of a potential strike – which could happen as early as Monday – by having teachers prepare and distribute educational packets for students, Carvalho said. The district is also working with community-based organizations to distribute food at 60 different sites around the city. And it will work with groups to help provide child care for students whose parents need to work.

“Is it perfect? Is it ideal? Not really, but it is the best we can do considering the conditions we’re facing,” Carvalho said. “I am the eternal optimist, and I believe that people of goodwill can always carve out common ground to do something great for children in this community. That’s exactly what I’m asking our labor leaders to do. Come back to the table. Let’s sit and discuss for however long it takes until we find a solution.”