A widespread strike that threatened to close schools across the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) was narrowly averted after marathon negotiations led to tentative agreements with three major unions representing nearly 70,000 employees.
The final deal, reached with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 just after 2 a.m. Tuesday, secured the opening of schools for the day. The agreement brought relief to the families of approximately 390,000 students who had been left in suspense, unsure if classes would proceed.
In a social media post around 2:30 a.m., SEIU Local 99 confirmed the agreement and instructed its members to report to work. United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) had already secured their own tentative pacts on Sunday.
Relief for families after late-night negotiations
The last-minute resolution followed days of intense, face-to-face negotiations as the clock ticked down to a Tuesday strike deadline. The district sent out its own alert around 2 a.m. announcing the breakthrough and confirming schools would operate on their normal schedules.
Because of your unity and readiness to take action, we secured major wins for our members. including significant improvements to wages and hours, stronger protections against subcontracting, increased staffing, and we successfully stopped layoffs for IT workers. This is what collective power looks like.
The threat of a walkout had caused significant anxiety for parents and guardians across the nation’s second-largest school district, many of whom were left scrambling to make contingency plans for childcare. The final agreement came after a Monday session of the Board of Education, which met in closed-door meetings on both Friday and Monday to receive updates and provide direction to negotiators.
This round of bargaining was historic, marking the first time that all three major campus unions. representing teachers, administrators, and support staff. had joined forces, vowing to strike together if a deal was not reached with each one. This united front gave the unions significant leverage throughout the negotiation process.
Details of the historic agreements
The agreements deliver substantial gains for all three unions, particularly for the district’s lowest-paid employees. SEIU Local 99, which represents about 30,000 teacher aides, bus drivers, custodians, and other support staff, secured what it described as “major wins.” Members, whose average salary is about $35,000 annually, will see a 24% wage increase over the life of the contract.
Other key provisions for Local 99 include increased work hours to ensure more families qualify for health benefits, the cancellation of planned layoffs for technology support staff, and stronger limits on the district’s ability to subcontract work to outside companies.
United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents about 37,000 teachers, nurses, and counsellors, reached a two-year pact that includes an average pay increase of 13.86%. A key victory for the union was a significant boost to the starting salary for new teachers, which will immediately jump from $68,965 to $77,000. The union argued the raise is essential to attract and retain educators in a high-cost region like Los Angeles.
The UTLA deal also includes provisions for hiring more than 450 new attendance counsellors, school psychologists, and other support staff, a move that aligns with broader efforts to improve student mental health services. This follows recent state initiatives, such as a $110 million investment to train more mental health workers for California schools. Additionally, the contract provides better controls on class sizes for students with disabilities and offers extra pay for teachers whose classes exceed those limits.
The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, covering about 3,000 principals and other managers, agreed to a three-year contract with an 11.65% pay raise over the first two years. Crucially for AALA members, the deal establishes a framework for a 40-hour work week, seeking to place boundaries on what the union described as expectations of unlimited, uncompensated work.
Echoes of past labour battles
The successful aversion of a 2026 strike stands in contrast to previous large-scale labour disputes within the LAUSD. The district has a history of contentious labour relations, with major teachers’ strikes occurring in both 1970 and 1989. Those walkouts led to significant disruption for students and families and underscored the deep-seated tensions that can arise between labour and the administration.
The 1989 strike, in particular, was a watershed moment, lasting nine days and involving mass rallies and demonstrations. The issues then, as now, revolved around pay, class sizes, and school funding. The recent unified stance of three distinct unions reflects a strategic evolution in labour organizing within the district, creating a powerful coalition that the district could not ignore. These negotiations also play out against the complex backdrop of California’s political and economic landscape. As noted by some political observers, the state often projects a uniformly progressive image while grappling internally with fiscal conservatism and debates over public spending. The unions’ success in securing these contracts, especially amidst warnings about the county’s budget pressures, highlights a major victory for pro-labour advocates in the state, akin to other political shifts, such as when Eric Swalwell suspended his gubernatorial campaign. Similar issues of public services being strained by increased demand have surfaced in San Diego, where hospitals see a sharp rise in ICE detainee patients.
What happens next
While the strike is off, the agreements are not yet final. All three tentative deals must now be put to a vote for ratification by the membership of each respective union. Following that, the LAUSD Board of Education must also formally approve the pacts.
The contract for SEIU Local 99 members had been expired since June 2024, adding a sense of urgency to their negotiations. One of their key demands was stabilizing work schedules, as budget-related reductions in hours had caused some employees to lose their eligibility for health benefits.
Should the agreements be ratified, they will represent one of the most significant collective bargaining victories for LAUSD employees in recent history. The outcome underscores what the unions have called the power of collective action, setting a new precedent for future negotiations.
