The Strike That Must Not Happen : Parties to school crisis must lock themselves in a room

Los Angeles is very close--perhaps closer than any of the parties involved actually realize--to finding a way out of the threatened teacher strike that everyone agrees could prove a real disaster for this tense, troubled city.

The district’s 28,000 teachers are furious, to put it mildly, over the district’s plan to compensate for the unprecedented $400-million revenue shortfall with a cumulative 12% teacher pay cut. And who can blame them? This kind of pay reduction represents real money. With a median salary of $43,497, teachers aren’t exactly in the same compensation league as, say, a mediocre-fielding, weak-hitting backup outfielder for even a dreary big league baseball team.

And don’t forget that many teachers work a lot harder than most ball players. They are on duty from the moment they go to school to the moment they leave at the end of a deeply exhausting day-and even then many take home student papers to grade and lesson plans to finish. As class sizes swell, they are having to teach more and more students; and in many cases they are teaching more and more students for whom English is not a first language.

But it is precisely this dedication to education that must govern their judgment in this trying economic period. Teachers must not go out on strike. In return, however, all parties must work furiously to negotiate a way out of the present impasse.

Los Angeles gets a great deal from its teachers for the money it pays; the problem right now is that it has very little money to go around and no prospect of getting any more from Sacramento. Under these circumstances, the options are to take the salary cut--or something like it--or walk out. That teachers must not do. And, in fact, few teachers want that. They have only authorized their union leader, Helen Bernstein, to call a strike in the event that negotiations fail.

There is no reason they should fail. A solution is achievable--it’s a job fit for mortals. It is possible that teachers can be convinced that accepting the pay cut this year is a cruel but inescapable destiny. But they must also be convinced of the palpable probability that they won’t have to suffer anything like this next year.

Surely a combination of private-sector money coupled with aggregate labor cost-saving could produce a financial package to provide teachers with a measure of comfort. But the two parties--acting Supt. Sid Thompson and Bernstein--must lock themselves in a meeting room and stay there until a package is hammered out. They must not delegate the job to subordinates--though if they require a third-party mediator from outside Los Angeles that should be provided. Already LEARN, the private-sector educational reform coalition, and the impartial panel headed by former state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp have been helpfully involved. But they cannot be expected to settle a possible strike.

That job is one for the school board and its designated executive, Supt. Thompson, on the one hand, and United Teachers of Los Angeles leader Bernstein on the other. Neither has anything more important on his or her agenda. Nor do Los Angeles parents and schoolchildren.