Connie Llanos, Daily News
Becoming the first group of Los Angeles Unified employees to make concessions, bus drivers have agreed to take six unpaid days off this budget year, saving the cash-strapped school district an estimated $1 million.
The agreement by members of SEIU Local 99 Unit C comes as the district struggles with a projected deficit of about $1.3 billion over the next three years.
The district has agreed to restore full-time work hours for 1,092 LAUSD bus drivers in exchange for the furlough days.
Without the deal, work hours for full-time district bus drivers would have been cut – from eight to seven hours a day – affecting salary and retirement benefits, said SEIU spokeswoman Blanca Gallegos.
“This is a sacrifice, because it represents a pay cut for these workers … but it was important for these workers to protect full-time jobs and benefits,” Gallegos said.
“We are thankful to the district, who negotiated in good faith on this issue.”
District officials and the bus driver’s union will announce their agreement this morning at the district’s downtown headquarters. Representatives of the union along with school board representatives will be ferried to the event in yellow school buses.
“We have been talking about shared sacrifice and shared solutions … Well, here it is. This is what we were talking about,” said Monica Garcia, LAUSD board president.
Officials hope the agreement will motivate other unions to agree to concessions. District officials and LAUSD’s seven employee unions were unable to reach any agreements earlier this year, when the Los Angeles Board of Education approved layoffs of about 2,500 teachers, 400 counselors and 2,800 non-teaching school workers. Many of those positions were ultimately saved.
District officials have said that one district-wide furlough day would save the district $15 million. A 1percent across-the-board salary cut would save LAUSD about $40 million.
“I am grateful, but because of the climate there is more work to be done,” Garcia said.
“I am hoping this serves as a model for other employee unions.”
Eddie Reed, a district bus driver for 30 years and president of SEIU Local 99, said the decision to make the deal was not taken lightly by his members, who will see a pay cut.
“At the end of the day, we saw that there truly was no money anywhere,” Reed said. “Being here for 30 years, there is usually money somewhere, but right now it is so bad we really saw no other way.”
