L.A. teachers union pursues big salary hike and bold ideals in opposition to Trump agenda
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- The L.A. teachers union is pushing a platform heavy on progressive priorities while seeking a big pay raise.
- Their union agenda is at odd with key Trump administration policies that target diversity efforts.
At a time when President Trump has threatened to cut education funding to institutions that cross him, the Los Angeles teachers union is having a throwback moment: It’s pushing an aggressive social justice and diversity agenda — and demanding a big raise from the L.A Unified School District.
United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz said her members are fully cognizant of Trump’s hostility to union priorities but are determined to stick with theirs.
“Trump’s laser-like focus attacks on immigrant families; LGBTQIA+ community; diversity, equity, inclusion; our kids — is hitting our communities hard,” Myart-Cruz said in a recent briefing to lay out bargaining demands ahead of the June 30 expiration of the current contract. “We are hearing those fears and seeing the concerns and worries throughout classrooms and school doors daily.”
The union’s platform “is not only about protecting Los Angeles students, educators and families over the next three years, but it means continuing to build a future that is monumental,” she said. “In a time when the federal government is trying to tear everything down, we will keep on building.”
At the center of the union platform is a push for automatic annual salary increases — meant to reward experience and additional education — at a proposed 3.25% a year for the first 10 years of an educator’s career. That would be more than 26 times the current annual bump in some cases, and the higher annual raises would be built in, without having to bargain for them in every contract cycle. Additional across-the-board raises would still be possible, and UTLA is proposing such a 3% raise in the second year of a two-year contract.
Wages aside, UTLA’s wide-ranging, socially conscious platform springs from 665 member meetings held at schools in the fall, when the union also sought broad input from students, parents and other community members. The union’s official bargaining team has 140 members.
In a direct challenge to Trump’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion practices, known as DEI, UTLA is calling for support of “new educators, with targeted investment in the recruitment and retention of BIPOC, multilingual and immigrant educators and service providers.” BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous and people of color.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, canceled some $600 million in teacher training grants nationwide, alleging that these programs are promoting inappropriate and “divisive ideologies” linked to DEI. A judge has issued an order temporarily blocking this action.
The UTLA contract proposal also calls for “support for, defense and expansion of the school district’s Black Student Achievement Plan and Ethnic Studies.”
Even before Trump won election to a second term as president, Los Angeles Unified had made changes to the Black Student Achievement Plan. Under pressure from the Biden administration to abide by court bans on affirmative action, district officials had revised the program to take in students of all races and ethnicities — a concession that UTLA opposed.
The dismantling of the department has been unofficially in progress for weeks, but Trump’s impact on education already has been substantial in California.
The Trump administration has characterized programs that single out any group for help based on race as illegal discrimination. Trump-appointed Education Secretary Linda McMahon has testified before Congress that a Black history course could come under scrutiny based on its content.
UTLA also is calling for “strengthened policies to support LGBTQIA+ students, educators and staff” at a time when Trump has announced that the government will recognize two genders only — male and female. Trump has removed nonbinary individuals from among the groups that will be protected from discrimination.
While Trump has authorized immigration officers to enter schools to arrest immigrants for deportation, UTLA calls for “increased support for immigrant students and families, with and without documentation, including support for newcomers.”
Leaders of L.A. Unified are closely aligned with the teachers union on protecting immigrants and LGBTQ+ rights. Before and after Trump won election, school district leaders embraced the role of being a “sanctuary” for immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals.
The Trump administration’s slashing cut the state’s Office for Civil Rights, responsible for providing students protection from discrimination.
These L.A. Unified’s policies put the district in the crosshairs of Trump directives, said Will Swaim, president of California Policy Center, a group whose projects include persuading government employees to drop union membership.
“The district’s DEI initiatives and self-declared sanctuary status make it a potential subject of investigation by the federal government,” Swaim said.
Swaim’s organization has been involved in the March 3 filing of a Title IX complaint to the federal Office for Civil Rights, now headed by Trump appointees. Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in any educational program or activity that receives federal financial assistance. This complaint alleges that L.A. Unified is violating federal civil rights law by allowing students to use the bathroom and locker room that best conforms to their gender identity. The complaint also targets San Francisco Unified and Capistrano Unified.
L.A. Unified defines its policy as complying with California law.
The complaint, in turn, also takes aim at state officials, accusing the California Department of Education of violating federal law — which, the Trump administration said, does not permit gender identity to factor into the use of restrooms and locker rooms and eligibility for sports teams. The administration has opened investigations into San Jose State and the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school athletics.
The UTLA agenda also includes minimizing or eliminating school police, pursuing low-income housing for both union and community members and investing in campus green spaces and recycling.
Contract negotiations will hinge on what the district can afford to pay the 37,000 employees that UTLA represents, who include teachers, psychologists, counselors and nurses.
“LAUSD has the money to fund these contract proposals, but you will hear that they don’t,” Myart-Cruz said. “Don’t believe it.”
Myart-Cruz and leaders of other district employee unions point to a record $6.4-billion ending balance.
District officials declined to comment on UTLA’s demands, but have said repeatedly that the size of the reserve is misleading, saying that most of the dollars already are committed to future obligations and that currently the district is spending at a rate much higher than it is taking in money. School district leaders, including Supt. Alberto Carvalho, have said LAUSD is spending at a pace that would nearly wipe out its reserves over the next three years.
District officials also said they are concerned about future federal funding, which accounts for about 8% of the district total, or an estimated $1.26 billion per year.
Another significant cost element in the UTLA proposal would boost the minimum teacher pay from $69,000 to $80,000 — a 16% increase, as both a recruitment incentive and to offset the high cost of living in Southern California. The maximum pay — for a 30-year teacher with full education credits — would increase from about 119,000 to about $134,000.
In addition, UTLA wants to lower the number of education credits needed to earn salary bonuses by nearly 30%. This also would make higher wages available earlier in a teacher’s career. UTLA claims that teachers currently must earn the equivalent of two master’s degrees to get the full bonus — a heavy lift, they say, amid ongoing classroom duties.
The proposed automatic pay-scale bumps alone would immediately provide a 10% pay increase for 95% of UTLA members, the union has calculated. And the average salary increase over two years would be 20% under their entire proposal.
Negotiations are just beginning to ramp up in intensity. The union has gone on strike twice since 2019.
The district’s other mega employee union, Local 99 of Service Employees International Union, has been working under a contract that expired in June. Local 99 represents more than 30,000 L.A. Unified employees, who include bus drivers, teacher aides, campus supervision aides, cafeteria workers and custodians.
Although its members won wage hikes as high as 30% in the previous negotiations, union Executive Director Max Arias said more gains are needed in salary raises and increased working hours to get all his members above the poverty line.
In connection to the demands of UTLA, Arias said: “There’s a lot of alignment. And there’s a shared analysis that LAUSD can definitely afford to fulfill all of these things that are essential for education.”
