Teacher Groups Assail Culver City Pay Proposal

Negotiators for Culver City teachers have reached a new agreement on salary and benefits with the Culver City Unified School District, but leaders of the two teachers groups that spearheaded last month’s defeat of a tentative contract say the new proposal is still not good enough.

The new tentative one-year contract, announced Tuesday by the Culver City Teachers Assn., calls for a 7% pay raise and an 8% increase in school district contributions to fee-for-service health plan premiums, according to association President Bess Doerr. The contract rejected in October contained increases of 6% and 7%, respectively.

“I think it’s a good agreement,” said Doerr. “I think we got everything we’re could get.”

But David Mielke, president of the rival Culver City Federation of Teachers, disagreed.

“I’m encouraged, but I don’t think it’s the best we can do,” he said.

Mielke, whose union was ousted last year as bargaining representative by the Culver City Teachers Assn., said that because the district made some concessions with little pressure from the community or teachers, he wants to see what happens if teachers start speaking up at school board meetings or walking picket lines.

“My instinct tells me that if you can move them without pressure, you can move them more with pressure,” he said.

Referring to the Los Angeles teachers strike in May and the recently concluded strike in Beverly Hills, Mielke said: “This is the year where there’s a real heightened awareness of teachers’ salaries. . . . This is the year to bring that pressure to the board.”

Howard Bennett, chairman of School Employees Assn. for Lifetime Health Coverage, had harsher words for the proposed contract.

“It’s terrible, it’s just bad,” said Bennett, an English teacher who for the last two years has waged a boisterous campaign to win full health coverage for present and future retired teachers. “I call on every voting member to vote no on it. Let the (union) go back and do better.”

Eliminated from the revised agreement was a provision that capped the amount of money the district paid for health insurance for retirees between 55 and 65, Doerr said. Retirees are currently provided full coverage for those 10 years.

Under the old contract, retirees 65 and older have no health coverage at all--not even Medicare--unless they were enrolled in the Social Security system in another job. An apparent consensus has emerged among the various teacher factions and district officials that the new contract needs to provide some health coverage for these retirees, although there continues to be disagreement over how to do so.

The district agrees in the new tentative contract, as it did in the rejected one, to take advantage of a new state law that, starting next year, will give teachers the option of buying into Medicare, a benefit from which California teachers were excluded before 1987. The district would split the cost--2.9% of annual salary--of entering the system and also provide $1,250 a year for a Medicare supplement for retirees 65 and older.

Under the new proposed contract, the district will postpone from Jan. 1 to July 1 the date it will allow teachers to enter the Medicare system, according to Assistant Supt. Ralph R. Villani. The money saved from the postponement will cover the increased salaries and health benefits. Each raise of one percentage point in salary costs the district about $100,000, Villani said.

The first tentative contract was defeated on Oct. 10, 111 to 86. Doerr of the teachers association said several factors contributed to the defeat: high expectations brought on by the 8% raise striking Los Angeles teachers won earlier this year; the continuing political battle between the rival Culver City teacher organizations, and the vocal opposition to the contract from Bennett and his allies, who are seeking comprehensive lifetime health coverage.

Bennett maintains that the coverage provided by Medicare and a supplement is insufficient.

Doerr, however, said that although Medicare and a supplemental plan may not be the perfect lifetime health benefits, “they’re four giant steps forward.”

She said that although she expects the new proposal to be criticized, several teachers told her after the last vote that all they wanted was “just a little more money,” and she thinks that it will pass when it is voted on later this month.

Others did not share Doerr’s satisfaction with the district’s latest offer.

Dave Ruebsamen, a history teacher at Culver City High School, said that he and many of his colleagues are waiting for Doerr’s group to come through with the 10% raises and lifetime health coverage it promised during its campaign to decertify the rival federation as bargaining representative.

And pointing to Los Angeles as an example, Ruebsamen said he’s not ready to let the district off the hook when it pleads financial hardship.

“Other districts that have suffered the same financial crunch have made the adjustments,” he said. “This district has not. Never.”

Ruebsamen said the morale in the district is the lowest he’s seen since he started 17 years ago. Administrators and teachers “used to talk about keeping a positive teaching environment. We were a family. Now, I think there’s an attitude of it’s us against them.”

When asked about morale in the district, Villani said he thinks that morale in the profession as a whole is low.

Besides, he said: “Whenever there’s negotiations going on, a favorite thing for teachers to say is that their morale is low,” he said. “I’d like to see teachers get paid more. We’re not getting paid what we should, but what can the board do? We have a limited budget.”

Doerr said the district’s 280 teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians will most likely vote on the proposed contract the week after Thanksgiving.