When the heads of three Los Angeles Unified School District unions stood side by side at City Hall to announce their new contracts after nearly going on strike hours earlier, one of them looked out of place.
Max Arias was decked out in a purple letterman’s cardigan emblazoned with “99,” for Service Employees International Union Local 99. United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz wore a tie-dyed T-shirt that read “Solidarity LA.”
And then there was Maria Nichols, who looked like the school principal she once was.
Shiny black shoes. Black slacks. Light makeup. Tight smile. The only flash of color was her green V-neck union T-shirt, the logo peeking out of a black blazer.
Arias and Myart-Cruz gave impassioned speeches hailing the last-minute deals, which still need to be approved by union members and the school board. Nichols, who leads the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles/Teamsters Local 2010, started with a joke about her mere year and 10 months as a union leader.
“I’m the new kid on the block,” the 60-year-old said. “But we made a commitment. It’s not about equality, it’s about equity. … We are all better today for our collective work.”
AALA’s tentative contract calls for raises of more than 11% for the LAUSD’s 3,000 principals, assistant principals and middle managers — a lower percentage increase than SEIU’s 24% and UTLA’s 14%. But the contract also secured a 40-hour week with flex time off for extra hours, addressing long-standing complaints about grueling schedules.
On top of all that, Nichols has led her members into a new era.
“For a long time, principals have been perceived” as a class apart from other school employees, Arias said at the City Hall news conference Tuesday.
Not only are they many workers’ bosses, but with median salaries of $160,139 for elementary schools and $174,628 for higher grades, they make a lot more money. When UTLA went on strike in 2019, AALA stayed on the job.
This time, AALA and the other two unions vowed to all go on strike together if any one of them failed to get a contract.
“So them coming in,” Arias continued, “really shows our members that it is important to start figuring out how we work in solidarity.”
Nichols “called us and said, ‘I know that you guys have already been rolling, but I want to join in,’” Myart-Cruz added. “Having the leadership to be able to articulate that message to her administrators is a great thing. Solidarity is a great thing, but we now have unity.”
“I may be the new kid on the block,” Nichols told me afterward with a grin, “but I’ve been fighting for better schools for 42 years.”
We met a few days later at AALA’s Echo Park office.
“Excuse the mess,” Nichols cracked as we walked to her corner suite. She now wore a bright red pantsuit, union pins on her lapel. Hundreds of signs reading “Enough is Enough” leaned upside down against desks and cabinets. Chips, water and other snacks were piled inside collapsible carts.
“This was all going to be used for the strike,” she said. “You know what they say — expect the best but prepare for the worst.”
AALA /Teamsters 2010 President Maria Nichols hugs UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz during a news conference announcing a tentative agreement between LAUSD and the unions representing teachers, principals and workers at City Hall in Los Angeles on April 14, 2026. Above them is SEIU Local 99 President Max Arias.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
A breakfast of blueberries and yogurt sat untouched as Nichols recounted her life story. She moved to Los Angeles at age 5 from her native Peru to join parents who left after a military coup. A star volleyball setter at Fairfax High, she gave up a University of Arizona scholarship her freshman year after breaking her wrist and finding it “too hard to watch the games and not be involved.”
Back home, she joined LAUSD as a bilingual teacher’s assistant while pursuing a degree in physical therapy at Cal State Northridge. Thanks to a succession of bosses she called “angels,” she stayed in public education. She worked in San Fernando Valley elementary schools as an assistant, a teacher and an assistant principal before a decade-long run as principal at Vena Avenue Elementary in Arleta, which was designated a California Distinguished School during her tenure.
That led to a promotion as a regional director for Valley schools, a job she loved despite the difficulties of shrinking budgets and enrollment. Nichols credited then-LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner with granting autonomy to principals in the district.
“We were all administrators from the field that had served time in this district and gone up the ranks,” she said. “That disappeared with [current Supt. Alberto] Carvalho. Gone. Gone.”
She pointed to a flow chart on the wall, titled “Ready for the World,” that Carvalho’s team distributed after he arrived in 2022. He brought in his own people instead of empowering existing administrators, she said.
“It’s a great plan,” Nichols said with no sarcasm while reading its goals aloud. “Because that is what we want. But we don’t invest in staff because we have a shortage. … We can’t have joy and wellness if your people are drying on the vine because they’re exhausted.”
Friction between principals and teachers over budgets and educational strategies increased. Frustrated, Nichols attended her first AALA meeting about two years ago.
“There were like 20 people there. And I thought, ‘This is it? This is where we are?’” she recalled.
Some principals urged her to run against the union’s incumbent president. One of them was Kathie Galan-Jaramillo, whom Nichols had hired to lead Sylmar Leadership Academy.
“Our union was very small, and it was very difficult for us to stand for what we believe in,” Galan-Jaramillo said. “But Maria knew all of the things and hurdles that we [administrators] had to do and go through, and the expectations.”
To prepare for negotiating a new contract, Nichols studied the existing one.
“It was so weak. The language was so antiquated,” she remembered thinking, especially when it came to making sure members weren’t being overworked. “And then I looked at UTLA’s contract and I said, ‘Holy crap. No wonder they get everything.’”
At the end of 2024, 85% of AALA members approved a Nichols-backed merger with Teamsters 2010, which represents higher education workers in California, to shore up their resources and try a different, tougher mindset.
“She has what’s lacking among many leaders — she has the judgment and humility to say, ‘I have things to learn and I’m up to it,’” said Teamsters 2010 Secretary-Treasurer Jason Rabinowitz, who sat with Nichols in contract negotiations. “And she’s a learner and quick study. That’s not always easy to do, because labor leaders have ego.”
After contract talks hit an impasse in February, Nichols reached out to Arias and Myart-Cruz to share research and strategy. They sold her on a united front. But initially, not all AALA members embraced the move, with some questioning why the union would still strike after getting a new contract.
“I was getting a lot of push back from members — ‘But if we get a TA [temporary agreement], why would we strike?” Nichols said. “But it wasn’t about the TA anymore. It was about the coalition. It was about sticking together. It was about power and unity. … My folks were not used to that.”
Nichols expects that AALA members will ratify the agreement.
“We’ll be done, and in May, we [Arias and Myart-Cruz] will go out and have some dinner, and, you know, adult beverages,” she said with a loud laugh.
Maria Nichols, head of the LAUSD principals union, AALA/Teamsters 2010, at her AALA office in Echo Park.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Then comes what she describes as the new alliance’s “heavy lies the crown” moment.
LAUSD plans to bankroll the contracts with money from Sacramento that may or may not come through, even as it plans to cut more than 600 jobs and school enrollment keeps dropping. SEIU’s new contract includes extra hours for members — who include custodians, bus drivers and cafeteria workers — so they can qualify for health benefits, Nichols pointed out.
“They deserve it,” she said, citing her respect for them because her father was a dishwasher and her mother cleaned houses. “But that impact of health benefits, it’s going to be directed at school budgets. OK, great. We got all of these wins, but how is that going to impact our budget at schools? Where’s the money going to come from?”
But these were issues for another day.
The conference room table was now covered in stacks of the same green T-shirt Nichols had worn at City Hall.
“We were going to give them out during the strike,” she said as her staff busied for a flurry of meetings. “But we’ll still give them out. We’ve got a job to do.”