The union representing about 33,000 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District announced Wednesday it has set a strike date for Jan. 10, if no labor agreement is reached.
United Teachers Los Angeles made the announcement at its Koreatown headquarters, saying there's been no movement from the district on key issues after months of negotiations.
"Enough is enough,” stated UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, adding that the union does not plan to return to the negotiating table.
"We're not going to go back and do what we've already done for 20 months and sustain more disrespect," he said.
Overcrowded classrooms, lack of school counselors, psychologists, librarians, and inadequate technology are among the concerns laid out by UTLA.
The union has asked for a 6.5 percent pay increase retroactive to July 1, 2016, and criticized district officials, saying LAUSD has a "record breaking'' reserve fund of about $1.8 billion that should be used to make improvements in school staffing.
News of a strike date being set comes after LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner spoke with reporters a day earlier, saying the district was willing to negotiate with UTLA, but he warned that increasing salaries would lead to less money being allocated for other areas.
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A state-ordered neutral fact-finding report released earlier this week recommended that the district adopt a six percent salary increase for teachers, with three percent retroactive to July 1, 2017, and the other 3 percent retroactive to July 1, 2018.
Beutner said the teachers' union, "Has agreed to the 6 percent salary raise,'' and suggested that the agreement on that issue, "Can provide the basis for a reasonable settlement of the remaining items.''
However, the UTLA released a statement a short time later saying there was no agreement.
“Implying that an agreement has been reached tells us he is more interested in perpetuating falsehoods than finding a real path to an agreement that respects teachers, parents, our students and communities,” said Caputo-Pearl in a statement Tuesday.
If the union does walk out, it would be the first LAUSD teachers strike since 1989.
City News Service contributed to this report.