Victory for SEIU/UTLA

budging on any of their priorities, Gallegos explained. She said workers were left with no other choice.

“That this was really what it took for the district to come back to the table and address issues of respect and also issues that were in negotiation,” Gallegos said.

Much had been said about the relative silence of school board members in this labor fight. However, Gallegos expressed appreciation for the social media posts by school board president Kelly Gonez and Rocio Rivas and the outspoken efforts of school board member Jackie Goldberg in the media.

“But outside of that, we didn’t see too much from board members,” Gallegos said.

offices, and downtown rallies. What was evident was the unity and strength of all the workers, parents, and students. In the Los Angeles Harbor, the International Longshore and Warehouseman’s Union (ILWU) members joined the picket line, adding strength to the SEIU labor actions.

One SEIU Local 99 member on the picket line at San Pedro High School, Ms. Perez, was thrilled with the solidarity shown during the strike.

“I think that the teachers are there to back us up. They are a strong union,” Perez said. “They’re all about solidarity. I am retiring soon. So hopefully people in the future will have better wages, better treatment, and I’m just hoping they sign that contract quickly so I can get a piece of

“It took some back and forth with the county to demonstrate to the Coast Guard that there was actually a diesel motor and a diesel fuel tank, and lead keel, and two 12-volt batteries, at the fiberglass sailboat,” Havenick said at the March 20 meeting of his neighborhood council. “That took longer than one would have thought, because the Coast Guard reported to the county, and the county accepted and stood by the Coast Guard report that the sailboat contained no such materials. So that was a hurdle to overcome. It is hard to understand why that hurdle was such a problem.”

Odendahl said that Hahn’s office told the Coast Guard about the mistake, and that local residents, including Havenick, provided photo proof.

“After those residents provided photos, the Coast Guard agreed to change the error in their report,” Odendahl wrote via email.

Havenick said there was a resistance to accepting factual information about the sailboat from residents.

“I shouldn’t have to provide photos [that] document the facts that contradicted the report that I was told by the Coast Guard,” Havenick said.

Havenick said he just wanted the wrecks to be cleaned up, which they were shortly afterwards. Havenick also expressed appreciation for the Coast Guard, and said he wanted to be able to trust their reporting.

“The Coast Guard also informed the owner of the boat that it was their responsibility to clean up the wreck,” Odendahl wrote. “Because the owner did not comply, the County Department of Beaches and Harbors has engaged professional salvage companies who will be contracted to remove the remains of that boat as well as the second boat that came ashore.”

Havenick said that neither boat poses a significant threat, but that the residents could not have known that at first. The neighborhood council passed a motion requesting that the Coast Guard remove the boats, shortly before their removal.

“I think it’s important that we say there should be an immediate response, that we’re concerned about environmental damage, and that we want it not just removed but cleaned up,” board member Robin Rudisill said.

Odendahl said that the second boat, the one that crashed on March 15, may have been a scuttling attempt. This is based on a report from divers who said the propellers and rudders have been removed, and the cabin gutted.

“They further reported that the vessel had been towed out into the ocean before it appeared,” Odendahl wrote. “Per the Department of Beaches and Harbors, USCG [Coast Guard] performed an assessment and stated that the boat contained mostly water and a sheen that indicated a small amount of fuel.”

Odendahl said that the Coast Guard worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency to find out what actions were needed based on the environmentally sensitive habitat.

“They indicated that none were determined to be in that area and that the sheen would dissipate in a few hours with no marine life being affected,” Odendahl wrote.

Victor Posod, a member of the Facebook group Scenic San Pedro, posted photos of the second boat in the group and described it as an about 40-foot Sportfisher.

“I guess it’s cheaper to abandon it at sea and let the taxpayers pick up the cost,” wrote group member Russell Forsythe in a comment on the post.

The Coast Guard did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Throughout the three-day strike, picketers have called this labor action a fight for respect. Some have described being treated as heroes after continuing to keep schools clean and serve students through the pandemic to being treated as “the help.”

Local 99 has filed nearly a dozen complaints with the Public Employment Relations Board charging the school district with surveilling union members, interfering with members’ ability to participate in union activities, and retaliating against union members, among other charges. And there’s nearly a dozen more that are pending to be filed.

“It has been a year, and throughout the process, we hope that this turned a new page,” Gallegos said, adding that he understands that those frontline workers are part of the school community and that they have a voice. They need to be respected and valued for the contributions they have made to student learning.

This reporter was on the picket lines at San Pedro and Banning HS, Harry Bridges middle school, the mobilizations at the Gardena LAUSD

Gallegos said Local 99 will be putting the contract to vote next week with the results returned by April 8.

This strike represented another advance for organized labor in LA coming out of the 2019 UTLA strike that won significant demands, though not all of them. There are still problems with overcrowded classrooms and a lack of nurses at all schools. And there is the ongoing issue of making school curricula more relevant to the students’ history, especially around the campaign to include the issue of Palestine in ethnic studies.

Tens of thousands of students, led by Students Deserve, are continuing to fight against cops on campus, a positive outcome of the national and local protests against police killings of Black and brown youth especially.

School districts nationally face the same issue of a tremendous disparity between teaching staff and support staff that in LA, for example, is 84% Black and Latinx. This victory should help advance other strikes nationally of these lowest paid, starvation wage slaves, hopefully with the same unity and solidarity demonstrated by UTLA.