The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the country's second-largest, closed its doors Tuesday on the first of a three-day solidarity strike by teachers who are backing a 30 percent pay raise plus $2 per hour "equity wage adjustment" for custodial workers represented by the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Keeping kids locked out of schools has become quite the specialty for United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). The union struck for six days over contract negotiations in January 2019, then successfully pressured LAUSD leadership to keep school buildings closed for more than a year after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, despite Southern California's famously temperate and ventilatable weather.
