LAUSD Widens Health Benefits
Daily News, August 31, 2007
LAUSD widens health benefits
BY NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 08/31/2007 12:00:00 AM PDT
In a split vote, L.A. Unified's new school board agreed
to pay health benefits to part-time cafeteria workers - a decision that will
cost the cash-strapped district $105 million over three years and could force
layoffs of other workers to cover the expense.
Board members who voted against the plan Tuesday said it
could set a dangerous precedent and open the floodgates for other unions
demanding full health benefits for their members.
Since the district's preliminary budget has already been
submitted to county education officials without the benefits package,
Superintendent David Brewer III has about a week to find $30 million in his
2007-08 budget to pay for the first year of the plan. The district's budget
must be finalized by Sept. 10.
Two board members - Marlene Canter and newly elected
Tamar Galatzan - opposed the controversial plan.
"It sets the precedent that collective bargaining
can happen through board motions, that part-time workers can get health
insurance - and they passed a policy where nobody knows where the money comes
from," Canter said. "It's just irresponsible to pass motions we
cannot afford. I don't know where this board thinks they're going to get that
money."
The 5-2 vote raised the hours on the job from three to
four each workday for about 2,352 cafeteria workers - officially labeling them
full-time workers eligible for full health care benefits.
But cafeteria workers and Service Employees International
Union Local 99 officials insist that after two years in which action was
postponed, the vote will ensure adequate staffing for every child to be able to
eat at lunchtime.
"They have a multibillion-dollar budget. I know it's
hard, but sometimes the kids and the workers have to come first," said
Bill Lloyd, interim executive director of SEIU Local 99. "It's just there
has to be the desire to make the hard decisions. This was an agonizing
decision, but I think putting kids first is important."
Board President Monica Garcia said the vote moves the
district in the direction of full health benefits for all workers.
"We have a precedent - where 80 percent of our
employees have health insurance, and we have to find a way to get that to 100
percent in a way that doesn't bankrupt the district," said Garcia, denying
that her vote was influenced by the unions.
But district staff members, concerned about the motion
given the budget constraints, raised questions about behind-the-scenes
political maneuvering driving the vote. Sources said Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa, who successfully placed a majority of four supporters on the
school board, called his allies to urge them to back the proposal. The Mayor's
Office declined to comment on Tuesday's vote.
Still, Galatzan - who is one of the mayor's supporters -
voted against the measure.
"I thought it was fiscally irresponsible, and it did
nothing to help kids," she said. "I truly believe that working people
deserve health coverage, but this district is in very precarious financial
straits, and ... I don't think it was responsible to add a group of people to
the health care system when there was no business necessity shown."
The policy will take effect Saturday, and cafeteria
employees will be bumped to four hours of work, but the benefits will go into
effect for the 2,352 cafeteria employees Nov. 1.
District officials critical of the plan said the school
district does not have the money to fund the full health benefits for three
years, and it sets a poor precedent.
The costs of the board action are projected at about $30
million for the 2007-08 year, then $37 million in each of the next two years.
Critics said other unions could now make demands for
full-time benefits for their part-time workers. If the remaining 18,000
part-time employees demanded to be bumped to full-time status with full health
benefits, the district would face an additional $250 million in ongoing costs.
The LAUSD is currently in negotiations with all its unions.
But giving workers an extra hour will not improve service
to students, critics insist. In 1999, there were only eight cafeteria clerks
assigned to more than four hours, the district said. By 2002, that increased to
96, but there was no increase in students buying lunch at schools.
Matt Sharp, Los
Angeles office director of California Food Policy
Advocates, said none of the three studies that looked at low student
participation in lunch in 2007 suggested bumping three-hour employees to
four-hour workers as a catalyst to improve student participation.
Adding a second lunch period at secondary schools,
developing the service and eating areas, and investing in tastier entrees - all
actions the board has begun to implement - would make the most difference,
Sharp said.
The board has postponed a motion to get health benefits
for cafeteria workers for years, but when the school board returned from summer
break, the motion had been disguised as an action to increase the hours of
cafeteria workers so kids have enough time to eat, Canter said.
"This was just a camouflaged, nontransparent motion
to get full benefits for cafeteria workers," she said.
The cafeteria vote was the first big one in which
Galatzan departed from the other three "reformers" - Garcia, Yolie
Flores Aguilar and Richard Vladovic.
In some cases, the LAUSD will be paying cafeteria workers
- who make between $10 and $11 per hour - more in benefits than in salary.
Health care costs $600 per month for each employee, said David Holmquist, the
LAUSD's interim chief operating officer.
Lorraine Rojel, an LAUSD cafeteria worker for nine years
who is a diabetic, has put off eye checkups and dentist appointments because
she didn't have the money. After years of attending board meetings to demand
health care benefits, she said the vote should have been no surprise.
"I just think it was about time that some people on
the school board took a stand for us," said Rojel, who works at Sun
Valley's Byrd Middle School.
naush.boghossian@dailynews.com
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