Man Bites Dog, and Union Wants Courts to Permit Layoffs of Its Members

The United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School Districts, is challenging a ban on layoffs at certain schools in court.

Yes, you read that right; a teachers' union is opposed to a legal settlement that would protect some of its own members from layoffs. That settlement protects teachers from being laid off at 45 struggling schools, which have been destabilized in previous layoffs.

Why? Because, as California Watch explains, UTLA supports one standard and one standard only for layoffs: seniority. Those teachers with the least seniority, no matter where they teach or how good they are or what their value is, must be the first to be let go. Since struggling schools have younger teachers, they get hit hardest by layoffs. That's why the American Civil Liberties Union sued to challenge layoffs at struggling schools, and won a ban.

This is a union whose leader told the LA Times this weekend that UTLA "is the face of reform." That would be funny. Except it isn't.

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