At Parmelee Elementary in South L.A., Margarita Gasca bundled up in thick black boots, a heavy coat and a beanie toThe 48-year-old food service worker has worked at Parmelee for a year and has been with the school district for 16 years. She makes $16.91 an hour and feels like she is “basically working for benefits,” she said.“They pay us too low for the work that we do,” Gasca said.
Joining her on the line, for instance, was Elina Velasco, 37, a senior food service worker who has worked in the cafeteria for a year and makes $18 an hour. They cook — including making hundreds of cookies from scratch — fill the plates, do the dishes, clean the kitchen, take the students’ names and input them in the computer system, serve the meals in line.
When striking workers pulled up to the locked employee parking lot, they were greeted by an administrator who told them that if they didn’t work, they couldn’t park there, one striking worker said. Rioverde schedules classes for parents, helps run English as a second language programs and health classes for parents.Rioverde grew up in this neighborhood and has been working on this campus for nine years.
He said his family doesn’t eat at restaurants much because of money, and he plays baseball and needs better equipment that she can’t afford, he said as his mom laughed.
Inflation will do that to ya..
The way LAUSD wastes food is a tragedy. These same cafeteria workers collect unused milk from the breakfast programs and have to dump them by the bucket load into the sink like something out of Stalinist Russia.
Give taxpayers a refund, privatize LAUSD, have them compete with each other for the best talent, and the parents decide for themselves which schools they should send their kids to with school choice. Problem solved.
Maybe she can find another job. It’s amazing to me how the LA times it’s not covering that close to 500,000 people who have no child care for their children.