The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the second largest educational school district in the nation. LAUSD teachers have been in upset over the increase in students in classrooms, the low paying salaries and resources that have been cut from schools. For the past few months, the teachers union UTLA has been in talks with the district to negotiate a new contract for them. Negotiaions have been unsuccessful and teachers are on the brink of a strike.
This has become national news, as this will be the first strike in 30 years (Kohli, 2018). Thousands of educators gathered this past weekend in Los Angeles to rally and draw awareness of the impending strike (2018). From this weekend’s strike, hundreds of local and national news media covered the rally with reporting form the Associated Press (Associated Press, 2018). This impending strike continues to dominate headlines and just today a fact-finding panel released a report that confirms all the needs that the educator has been demanding (Blume, 2018). UTLA has leveraged this report to draw more support and awareness of the strike by sharing this information on the organizations @UTLA Twitter handle. A total of ten Tweets have been composed sharing the news and Re-Tweeting Tweets from influencers that support UTLA.
To show the power and reach that social media has, UTLA has announced via Twitter that tomorrow a big announcement will be made. In the announcement the Union also tags all Los Angeles media. This speaks to the power that social media now has over traditional media, as the Union forged the traditional media advisory and went straight to Twitter. Showing the dominance that this social media platform has and how communicators are leveraging this tool to distribute news at a faster speed.
References
Blume, H (2018). L.A. teachers strike appears more likely as a key report fails to bring the union and district together. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-lausd-fact-finder-report-20181218-story.html
Kohli, S (2018). Thousands of Los Angeles teachers march as potential strike looms. Retrieved from https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-los-angeles-teachers-march-20181215-story.html
Lyster, L (2018). LAUSD Teachers March in DTLA as Union Moves Closer to Calling First Strike in Nearly 30 Years. Retrieved from https://ktla.com/2018/12/15/l-a-teachers-supporters-march-in-downtown-demanding-more-funding-for-schoo