Teachers at El Camino Real Charter High School filed an unfair labor practice charge against school administrators as they continued their strike outside the school for a fourth day despite heavy rain pounding on the San Fernando Valley.
The charge filed on Wednesday, Feb. 12 with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board alleges that school officials violated the Educational Employment Relations Act by threatening to lay off 44 teachers—nearly one-third of the 137-member bargaining unit represented by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA).
Negotiations between the teachers and school officials are set to resume at 10 a.m. Friday.
According to union leaders, teachers at the Woodland Hills school have been working without a contract since July and two mediation sessions failed to produce a deal.
Teachers say they are fighting for a fair contract that accounts for the rising cost of living, while school leaders argue they have already offered an unprecedented 15% salary increase for the 2024-25 academic year.
According to the complaint, the school’s administrators approved the sweeping cuts at a Jan. 23 board meeting, citing the ongoing labor dispute as a reason for issuing the layoff notices, even though the notices were not legally required until March.
During that discussion, school administrators denied that the layoffs were “blackmail,” but UTLA argued that this was essentially an admission that the move could be seen as retaliation for the strike, according to the complaint.
“It’s hard going into bargaining when you have that cloud of layoffs over your head,” said Daniel Zatarain, a science teacher and vice chair of the UTLA bargaining team at El Camino Real Charter High School.
“Like normal practices, they approve them by March,” he added. “When you listen to our board meeting, there’s a lot of stuff about like, ‘Oh well, we need to approve these because we don’t know how negotiations are going to go.’ So it really felt like they were using these less as a necessary measure, and more as a way to intimidate us.”
The school administrators pushed back against the unfair practice charge, calling the claim “meritless” and stating that the administrators are still in the process of formally responding to the complaint.
A school spokesperson said Thursday that “no layoff notices have been issued” and that any staff reductions must comply with contractual obligations, which require notices to be prepared and delivered before March 15.
“Before the notices can be prepared, the school is required to obtain board authorization,” the spokesperson said. “This is a long and complex process that cannot be accomplished overnight, and the school is working to avoid issuing any layoff notices altogether.”