CUSD and the Strike
Letter to the Editor

The stage was set for a showdown nearly one year ago. Being unsuccessful in freezing teachers’ pay raises, known as step in column, the reform platform board of trustees for the Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) was forced to lay off a couple hundred low-seniority teachers, as well as classified and administration staff. The State had reduced funding to all school districts, a cut that amounted to $25,000,000 for CUSD.

As of June 2009, the two-year contract with the Capistrano Unified Educators Association (CUEA) had ended. Seeing the inevitability that additional cuts would come to CUSD, the board pushed for immediate negotiations with CUEA, knowing that for each month negotiations might be delayed the salaries would require an additional one-half percent reduction in order to offset a second round of cuts imposed by the State. Those cuts came this year as an additional $33,000,000 reduction to CUSD.

Though the board is barred from participation, it directed the negotiation team to propose a 10% overall cut in salary and benefits, to be taken as CUEA saw fit. “Any layoff of teachers and resultant increases to class size would be unacceptable” was the quote most used by the seven-member board.

Hopes for a quick resolution faded as meeting dates offered by CUEA were extended by several weeks of inactivity. Six months into negotiations (early by most complex negotiation protocols), the call for “fact finding” was initiated whereby an “impartial” appointee assesses the financial situation and then issues a report that addresses findings with possible suggestions. The report confirmed that CUSD needed a 10.3% cut from the employee package to remain solvent.

Mediations started, but they too stalled when CUEA refused to continue participation. Nine months had passed since negotiations began while the State’s economy continued to worsen. Frustrated, but now given the legal ability to impose a reduction due to CUEA’s nonparticipation, the board elected to impose a 10.1% reduction in salary and benefits that included a combined 3.7% salary reduction, benefit caps and furlough days. The 10.1% reduction was to be spread over 15 months for an overall 8.1% annual pay cut. The cuts were neither temporary nor permanent but to be tied to the State’s ability to reinstate funding back to schools at historic levels.

CUEA conceded the fact that at least a 10% cut was required; however, they touted that since no specific date was given as to when teacher’s pay would be reinstated, then the cuts were permanent. Strike posturing began almost immediately, and the mantra associated with strike chants built upon the word “permanent,” even though the word was never part of the imposed language.

Though pre-strike rhetoric against the board was disseminated on a daily basis, the board honored the precondition to remain quiet about their reasons or viewpoints in order not to violate fair practice laws by negotiating in public. CUSD offered a date to meet with CUEA to resolve the remaining issues and to set language for a new contract in order to avoid a strike. CUEA set that very same day to strike. Three school days later, after CUSD became a national news story, the strike ended. A three-year contract was accepted in concept that included the originally proposed percentage cut to the salary/benefit package that is to expire at an unspecified date if and when the State reinstates funding to historic levels.

Larry Christensen
CUSD Board Trustee

Christensen’s letter was first published as a guest column in the June 2010 edition of Trabuco Canyon News.