Posts tagged cafeteria workers
Commentary LAUSD avoided a strike and now wants a state taxpayer bailout to avoid fiscal disaster
May 1, 2026 // Caving to union demands is easy, but paying for them might prove difficult. LAUSD spends more money than it receives each year from federal, state, and local governments. They project a $1.3 billion budget deficit this year and a $1.5 billion hole in fiscal year 2027. A big reason for the deficits is that the district has too many non-teachers on its payroll. Despite losing about 75,0000 students since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, LAUSD has reduced staff by only 321 employees. Birth rates are down, families are moving out of the region, and parents are seeking other options, such as private and charter schools.
Lunchroom workers block Downtown street in protest as contract talks with CPS stall
April 29, 2026 // Lunchroom workers, who are among the lowest-paid full-time workers in Chicago Public Schools, want to be paid $40,000 a year. But the cash-strapped district hasn’t agreed to that minimum and is asking a federal mediator to step in.
Commentary: A teacher strike would hurt kids, but LAUSD can’t afford to give in to the union’s demands
April 13, 2026 // The bottom line is that LAUSD can’t afford the union’s demands. A lengthy teachers’ strike would harm students, but giving in to UTLA risks weakening the district’s ability to serve those students for years to come. For their part, teachers and other union employees could come to regret whatever concessions UTLA manages to squeeze out of the district. LAUSD has already approved a plan to lay off 3,200 employees, and they’ll need to cut more if UTLA gets its way.
Aurora School Board Approves Union for Support Staffers
February 19, 2026 // Since August, dozens of classified employees at APS have been wearing red shirts and rallying at the board of education meetings whenever their potential union popped up on the agenda, which happened in August, October, January and finally this month. Classified employees have said that they need a union for better pay and benefits as the cost of living rises, as well as protection from retaliation when they speak out, better retention of long-time classified staff and better training for their replacements. According to APS estimates, the district has about 1,800 classified employees.
Aurora Public Schools Support Staff Losing Support for Union Efforts
October 24, 2025 // At an APS board meeting on Tuesday, October 21, a few dozen APS classified employees such as cafeteria workers, secretaries and preschool and special education teachers rallied and then spoke during the public comments to renew their call for a union, which they had first brought up in mid-August. With the school semester fully underway, Cy Alison, a pre-school facilitator at the Sable Child Development Center, told Westword that “it’s extremely stressful” to keep up the fight while trying to work.
Connecticut workers rally for unemployment insurance after 2 weeks on strike
April 20, 2025 // He added that those who are opposed to the bill are not against it because of how much it costs. “They are opposed because they don’t want things to be remotely fair,” Stanley said. “They want all the power on one side. All that has led to is growing inequality. We need a change across Connecticut and across this country.”
A Connecticut school district is giving bonuses to teachers who show up for work
March 10, 2025 // The program has won such favor among teachers that in the first two quarters of the year, the district has already spent the $126,000 budgeted for the program. The incentive program started in July, the district's director of human resources said. Director of Human Resources for the district Kimberly Schulte said the Board of Education started the union-approved attendance incentive in response to teacher absenteeism. She said that because of open positions, the district's $38 million salary budget can cover the rest of incentive program this year.
OHIO UNION SETTLES, PAYS NONUNION WORKERS, TOO, WHO EARNED BONUS
December 27, 2023 // The Ohio Association of Public School Employees AFSCME Local 4/Local 673 (OAPSE) had negotiated into its collective bargaining agreement with the school district (CBA) a provision calling for the one-time distribution of $8,000 to a bargaining unit of employees consisting of bus drivers and cafeteria workers. This compensation (funded by the taxpayers through the district) was to be distributed to the employees according to work they had performed outside of normal working hours. The problem with the CBA provision, however, was that the district tasked OAPSE with fairly distributing the money.
‘It feels like it’s strike summer’: US unions flex muscles across industries
July 31, 2023 // “In the wake of the Patco strike, companies saw strikes as opportunities to weaken unions or even break them. That’s not the case today. Today there’s no fear that calling a strike will result in disaster,” said Lichtenstein. “Today there’s a sense that unions are on the offensive,” Lichtenstein continued. “Take the actors. They say they don’t want just a good contract. They want a transformative contract.”
400,000 Los Angeles Students Missed School As Union Employees Launch 3-Day Strike Demanding Better Wages, Benefits
March 22, 2023 // Aaron Withe, CEO of Freedom Foundation, a Washington-D.C.-based think tank advocating for public employees from political exploitation, told The Daily Wire in a statement that the organization frequently hears from teachers who are sick of union politics — especially after seeing what the COVID school shutdowns have done children, he said, calling the latest strike from union officials “unconscionable.” “They just want to teach their students reading, writing, and math, Withe said, adding, “they’re fed up.”.