Cafeteria workers, custodians, special education assistants, campus safety monitors and other school service workers have overwhelmingly approved a contract that raises the minimum wage for some 20,000 Los Angeles Unified School District employees to $15 per hour, their union announced today.
The draft agreement between the district and Service Employees International Union, which represents the workers, was announced Monday and approved by the LAUSD board of education. Voting by union members then began.
The wage increase will benefit about 20,000 LAUSD employees who make $8 or $9 an hour. The agreement calls for wages to be increased to $11 an hour for the upcoming school year, $13 an hour next year and $15 an hour by 2016. According to the union, employees already making $15 an hour would receive a 6.64 percent increase over the next three years.
The workers represented by SEIU Local 99 ratified the agreement in three days of voting, a union statement said this morning, adding that the minimum wage increase to $15 an hour by July 1, 2016, “will lift nearly 20,000 LAUSD school workers and their families out of poverty.”
Of the union members who voted, 82 percent voted for the agreement, it said, adding that voter turnout was 665 percent higher than the last time Local 99 members ratified a full contract.
“This historic agreement sets a new standard for ending poverty in our schools. This will be felt in school districts across Los Angeles and across the country.,” the statement said. “By raising the salary floor, this is a giant first step in making sure that school jobs are good jobs.
“Nearly half of the school workers represented by Local 99 are parents of children attending LAUSD schools. And most of them are women of color,” said SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Courtni Pugh. “This establishes a living wage that will mean mom and dad can help with their children’s homework instead of clocking in for their second job.”
SEIU Local 99 represents 45,000 education workers throughout Southern California, including more than 35,000 cafeteria workers, custodians, special education assistants, bus drivers and other workers.
