Los Angeles Unified School District has canceled classes today as
employees of the second largest school district has entered day
one of a three day strike on behalf of support workers.
Now the union representing the 30,000 workers, these are service employees,
International Union Local 99 says that members will walk off
the job as they did today after nearly a year of failed negotiations.
Now, when we're talking about service workers,
we're talking about the workers in the school cafeterias, the custodial workers,
the security workers on some campuses.
They're not the educators per se, but they're incredibly important in
ensuring that the school operates and runs smoothly.
Now, they are severely underpaid and have been underpaid for quite some time now.
I should note also the last time the LAUSD shut down over a strike was back in 2019.
That strike lasted six days.
Teachers had demanded smaller class sizes, more school staffing, and higher wages.
And it was part of a nationwide effort by educators to improve their
working conditions and their wages.
Now, what do the LAUSD workers want in this case?
Well, the union wants equitable wage increases, more full-time work, respectful
treatment, and increased staffing levels for improved student services, it said.
Workers average salary, get a load of this, $25,000 a year, and
most work part time, which has led to staffing shortages, the union said.
We're talking about Los Angeles, okay?
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities to live in, in the United States.
No one can survive on $25,000 a year.
No one.
And that is, in fact below the poverty line in the United States,
much less California.
>> I don't even understand how they can get away with it.
It must not be full-time jobs, cuz it's literally less than $15 an hour,
$15 an hour for a full-time job gets you about $31,000 a year, right?
So, but either way the wages are ridiculously low, okay?
So, look, there's a couple problems here.
Number one is, the framing is all wrong and unfortunately union leadership
not sophisticated enough to frame this correctly.
Yeah, I said it.
I'm gonna say more about union leadership in a second.
But, so the corporate media always wants to frame every strike as the fault of
the workers, right?
So they'll say the workers went on strike,
the workers refused an offer, the workers say this etc.
And and it's gonna cost the county the school system here $100 million and
all these kids are gonna be out of school and the workers did it, right?
And so, I saw the quote in the L A Times from the union leadership and they're
like, it's regrettable and unfortunate, but we were forced to do this.
Now, don't say that.
>> Yeah don't.
>> Say no, they created the strike by paying people $25,000 a year.
>> In one of the most expensive cities in the country.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah.
>> So Just frame it as they are the aggressors,
they are the ones that are choosing a status quo that is unbearable, right?
Ask it, what would you do if somebody was saying, hey,
your work is only worth 25,000 a year and somehow figure out
a way to survive on that in LA and by the way, deal with our kids, okay?
So there's 10,000 times better way to frame this issue when the workers
are absolutely right, okay?
So, and by the way, I'm affected, my kids are in public school in L A.
And that's a hassle for us, it's not good for the kids, etc.
And I don't blame the janitors and the cooks.
I blame the people not adequately funding these schools.
>> Right, and just to share my personal experience related to this story,
my mom was a school cafeteria worker for a number of years when I was a child.
And I actually talked to her about the strike over the weekend,
because it hadn't happened yet, there were reports that it could happen.
And I asked my mom, I'm like, well, what do you think?
I mean, $25,000 a year, is that enough?
And my mom talked about the challenges of doing that job.
It's not an easy job.
I think that people just think you have adults just hand over a tray of food
to kids.
But no, they have to prepare the food.
They have to organize everything.
They have to clean everything, their so, their real jobs, right?
And $25,000 is not enough.
And that is the reason why the teachers have
decided to also strike in solidarity with the support staff.
Now, what do they want specifically?
Members of the Los Angeles school support workers union said that they want
a 30% pay raise, plus an additional $2 an hour over the next four years.
Now, 30% sounds like a lot until you remember that they're only paid
$25,000 a year now.
They want increased employment hours for part-time workers.
And Cenk to your point earlier, most of the support staff do in fact work
part-time, they're not full-time, but they would like more hours,
they wanna work more, and they want to get paid for the work they do accordingly.
Now the response that they received from the school
district fell short of what they were asking for.
The latest offers announced by the Los Angeles school district on Monday included
a 23% pay increase, plus a 3% cash in hand bonus, a $20 an hour minimum wage,
and full health care benefits for those working at least four hours a day.
Now, that is an improvement, but clearly not enough of an improvement,
certainly when it comes to wages.
So the workers decided to follow through on the strike.
>> Again, understand that that's why it's 25,000,
because $15 an hour gets you 31,000 for the whole year if you work full time,
and then obviously $20 will get you more than that.
So, but still the numbers are far too low.
It's a fine counter offer and they should get to the table and
get to the right conclusion, which seems like they're not too far off,
which gets me to my second criticism of the union leadership.
Among the different tactics they used, and
I've seen this happen in other cases too with old school union leadership, is they
set up a meeting with the people in charge of the schools at the very end there.
They don't show up.
What are you guys doing?
They do these super old school tricks and tactics from the 1960s and 70s and
stuff, like haha we got them, they went to a meeting and we didn't show up.
No, that makes you look like you're the bad guys, right?
And then that goes in the papers and
you're hurting the cause of your employees by doing stupid little tactics like this.
And it's always something we're all we're gonna make the other side look like bad
guys, but we're gonna do it in such a ham handed way.
You don't have to do silly little strategies like that.
Just tell people how low the wages are.
Again, these are the people taking care of your kids.
We're on your side, and besides which Los Angeles is massively progressive,
they're very much largely on your side.
All you have to do is not blow it.
Anyway bottom line is though, I support the strike.
I'm glad they're doing it.
They should get paid what they deserve and, and they are taking care of our kids.
And the real problem is, the massive underfunding of public education in
California and other states, cuz rich people moved all their kids into
private schools and pay so much money for the private schools,
that they're super bitter about funding public schools on top.
>> That's exactly right. >> And
that's why the hell out of the budget.
>> The other thing I'll just quickly mention is the LAUSD used to be one of
the top performing school districts in the country
until it was gutted through a ballot initiative in the 1970s.
I believe it was prop 13, if I'm not mistaken, which essentially capped
property taxes in California at about 1.2%, something around there.
That gutted the funding for public education, specifically because of
the fact that public education is mostly funded through property taxes, right?
So, the effort to dismantle public education has been in the works for
many, many decades now.
And it's important to understand that history to understand why we got to where
we are today.
But with that said, clearly, these workers do an incredibly difficult job.
I mean, we're talking about some special education assistance as well.
They deserve to get paid a living wage for what they do every single day for
the school system.