Sacramento teachers and staff authorize a strike. No date has been set

Members of two unions representing teachers, maintenance workers, bus drivers and other staff in the Sacramento City Unified School District voted Thursday to authorize a strike if district officials continue “to negotiate in bad faith on key issues related to staffing, the quality of instruction, and health and safety protocols,” the labor organizations announced.

The vote does not trigger an immediate strike. Instead, it gives union leadership the green light to call a strike in the future if they believe no progress has been made in their months-long negotiations with district officials.

Officials with the Sacramento City Teachers Association and SEIU Local 1021 cited several issues behind the call to strike.

They said due to a teacher staffing shortage, hundreds of students go without a full-time teacher or substitute each day. They also said hundreds of students who opted to enroll in independent study programs are not receiving adequate instruction.

The union is also objecting to a district proposal that the labor group characterized as seeking “a five-year wage freeze for certificated staff and a $10,000 cut in the average educator’s annual take-home pay ... through cuts to health benefits targeting SCUSD employees with families.” The union said the district, like others, has received “a significant infusion in funds from state and federal sources.”

“We don’t have a money crisis, we have a values crisis,” said David Fisher, president of the teachers’ union. “We suffer from fiscal mismanagement and district managers with misplaced priorities.”

In an email to district families on Wednesday, Superintendent Jorge Aguilar said the district has offered to provide extra pay for teachers who volunteer to instruct students in independent study, extra pay for substitutes and extra pay for nurses “who took on COVID-related duties after regular work hours.” He said the district also provided “simultaneous in-person and remote instruction for students in short-term independent study.”

Aguilar wrote that a strike would cause “chaos” for families.

“After nearly three school years of interrupted learning due to COVID-related school closures, illness, and quarantines, it is unconscionable that SCTA is threatening a strike to shut down our schools,” he wrote. “This is offensive to all of our families that have been waiting for their children’s school experience to get back to normal.”

The SCTA last authorized a strike in 2019.

This story was originally published March 10, 2022 at 7:48 PM.