Ninnette García was born in Guatemala, but she has lived in Los Angeles for more than four decades. As an English and history teacher at the Utah Street Span School, she works in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, east of California's largest city. García teaches sixth grade students, who in many cases come from low-income families and belong to the Latino community. Ninnette is a member of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), and she joined the historic strike in recent weeks that achieved 30% wage increase for educational workers and forced personal mediation by African-American Mayor Karen Bass. In an exclusive dialogue with LPO, the Latina teacher explains the reasons for the protest and tells who the protagonists of the movement are.
How was this strike possible? What have happened for workers and teachers to organize themselves?
It started with the workers of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), because since 2020 nobody wanted to recognize what they were asking for: a salary increase, job improvements in the work field and also that they have benefitis, such as health and dental insurance. They are the teachers assistants, the ones who care for the children at lunch and breaks, those who drive school buses, cooks and other workers who do not work directly as teachers. With the negotiations, they had not achieved anything, the Superintendent Alberto Carvalho continued to ignore them and what he said were negotiations in their favor did not reach even half of what they were asking for. On our side, we had planned a protest for our pay and Local 99 did not have enough resources to go on strike alone, so the teachers' union decided to join them. The superintendent had decided to close the schools and we teachers were told to report to work. He closed schools because the other workers would not be able to be there. With the negotiations, they had not achieved anything, Superintendent Carvalho continued to ignore them and what he said were negotiations in their favor did not reach even half of what they were asking for.
Many people think it is an unprecedented protest.
Our last protest was in 2019. It lasted almost 9 days. The novelty is that now we and the workers of Local 99 are united. They had no history of such a protest.
How is it possible? Is it because of the union organization, because of inflation, or because the government behaves badly?
Los Angeles school district receives federal funds distributed by the central government and the funds they have received have only been accumulated. With the pandemic, a fund of 4.9 million was accumulated and, even with that money they had, they did not want the negotiations to increase.
Does Superintendent Carvalho follow Karen Bass, or does he have autonomy?
That is what we do not understand or it is not clear. Carvalho is the superintendent who took over after the previous one withdrew. He comes from Florida, where he supposedly had great prestige, although some media say otherwise. He did not agree with the increases and negotiations that he proposed did not come close to the 30% increase workers demanded. The first time it had been 14%, then 23%, but the assistants earned less than $20,000 a year, far below the poverty line.
Is the unionization process moving forward in Los Angeles?
It is very strong on unionization, it always has been, and many politicians, especially Republicans, have wanted to kick the union out of California. For some reason, it has not been achieved, although Trump did backtrack on some union rights.
How was the union victory achieved?
Bass did look for a solution, she got involved to be a mediator and spent three days working with Carvalho to find out what the workers were asking for and they practically got almost everything they asked for.
Bass was decisive, it was important for her to end this conflict.
I think so. Schools were closed for three days and many parents were complaining because they had no one to leave their children with. They feared a domino effect. I know she worked almost three days in a row with Carvalho, reviewing what they requested, and I think that somehow Carvalho had no choice: he had a budget to pay.
The strike was going to continue...
It was declared for three days and, without any agreement, the union was going to continue negotiations with its members and one possibility was that it would continue.
Who are the protagonists of this strike?
They are mixed. Most of them are Afro-Americans and Latinos, but there are many Anglo-Saxons as well. The Los Angeles unified school district has 600 schools, it is very big. On the days of the protests, I realized that most of the protesters at my school were Latinos, but outside there were many African-Americans. There is diversity.
How has the presence of Latinos changed in all these years?
It depends on the areas, but at least where I work there is more acceptance, maybe we have better job opportunities, but sometimes you still see certain racism in some areas.
However, politicians are going to look for the Latino vote during elections.
We are a lot of people, we are many in my area and at one time there was no voice, most were undocumented and those who are called legals in the country sometimes did not get involved in political issues because somehow there was a certain... On a personal level, I cannot speak for others. For a while I was afraid to get involved in anything because I already had the system in Guatemala behind me, anything you do there is considered subversive. Sometimes we resisted participating because we did not know what the consequences could be. With time and being able to assimilate the culture, personally I felt free to do it.
How are the new generations compared with you, the ones who arrived a long time ago, like?
It depends, because many young people -the second generation here- practically do not know where we come from. Their ideas have more to do with how they grew up in this country. Sometimes there is no affinity. The way it happens when your parents transfer it. Otherwise, sometimes they are apathetic, I would say. Most of those who participate and are aware are university students who have become involved in the community.
For many years, California has been a state ruled by Democrats, and inflation is a big problem.
Yes, especially housing and food, gasoline is very expensive. Recently, in conversations with colleagues, the three days of the strike we supported, somehow it seems incredible to us that we are the only professionals who need a bachelor's degree or who even have a master's degree and we are the only ones who come out to claim for our salaries. Doctors do not do that, neither do graduates, so I think that somehow this profession is not respected, and the truth is that everything we do at school goes far beyond how we teach everyday. Sometimes we are working with children who come from totally dysfunctional homes, children from foster homes, others whose parents are in jail, children who come from what they call gangs, and we have to turn the environment neutral so that they can learn. Administrators are totally disconnected from that reality. There is a form of oppression, I do not have a better word to describe it.
Can this influence and lead other professionals to also claim for increases?
I think so, and I think one of the reasons UTLA joined Local 99 is because we are also in negotiations. Now Carvalho is able to know that at some point who we support can support us. And I don't think he wants the same thing to happen again, so we may have a better chance of making our contract negotiations more feasible. The authorities are sometimes disconnected from the reality of a teacher, from what we live at school. It is not like that in my school, but I have gone to other schools where doors fall down, bathrooms do not have a door, there are children with few discipline officers, we live with our souls on a thread, because they sometimes come and shut us.
Translator: Bibiana Ruiz.
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"En un tiempo no había voz, pero ahora la mayoría de los que protestan son latinos"
