Letters to the Editor: Why LAUSD teachers are out of line to strike with SEIU workers

To the editor: Schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District are closed because teachers are striking in solidarity with lower-paid workers asking for raises. The strike by teachers is pure foolishness, a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars and an irretrievable loss in learning time for students across the board.

Teachers should be in the classroom, teaching kids, and not marching with placards outside schools. They should keep teaching while negotiations between the LAUSD and Service Employees International Union Local 99 proceed. What's happening now is obscene.

The union is using this walk-out as a bargaining tool, and I think that's simply wrong, wrong, wrong.

Teachers should get the classrooms humming, and the SEIU and LAUSD should come to agreement on a new contract. Whatever raises and enhancement in benefits are achieved could be made retroactive to the beginning of negotiations.

What's wrong with this thinking?

Doug Tennant, Dana Point

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To the editor: I am an LAUSD food service worker, and I want to point out how long overdue this strike is. We are subjected to disrespect by our managers and area supervisors.

Management needs to be accountable for its unprofessionalism. We deserve respect and pay increases, along with full-time, eight-hour-day jobs.

Jo Ann Hurtado, Canoga Park

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.