[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]eachers in Los Angeles are meeting with members of a fact-finding panel and representatives from the Los Angeles Unified School District Monday in an 11th hour attempt to avoid a possible walk out. Teachers have vowed to strike in January if they’re not offered a better deal.
The union representing some 30,000 teachers in the city has been locked in intense labor contract talks with LAUSD for more than a year. Those negotiations entered their final phase late last month with the convening of a state mandated fact-finding panel.
“It would be wrong of me to say I do not expect facts to come out of the fact finding report,” said Larry Shoham, a West Area representative on the union’s 50-member Board of Directors. “But from what I have heard in the past is that sometimes the fact finding process is biased toward the employer.”
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The three-person panel has 30 days to submit non-binding recommendations. Their deadline is Dec. 14. That's the same day teachers across the city turn in their final grades and the last day before schools start winter break. Teachers plan a march at Grand Park in downtown L.A. on Dec. 15.