I'm a qualified substitute teacher working in a classroom as a substitute para educator. I work alongside another employee who is just as qualified as me, but gets paid a substitute teacher's rate instead of a para rate like I do. When I inquired about this with my job recruiter I was told that a para sub gets paid para pay and a sub teacher gets teacher pay. 3 other sub teachers who are doing para positions get sub teacher pay, but I'm not. I was told by the teacher union representative that I could get sub teacher pay and he was going to send me the paperwork to do it. Today I got a phone call from my job recruiter saying that the head of my dept. said I can only get para pay, not teacher pay. I tried calling the head of Human Resources, but when I was put on hold for her my job recruiter got on the phone and just repeated what she had said earlier. I'm so p'd off. I wanted to talk to HR, not to her! I feel like I'm being discriminated against, but I don't know who I can talk to. I was told by the principal of my school that the reason sub teachers get teacher pay for doing a para job is because they need para subs and they pay them more as an incentive to work as a para instead of holding out for a teacher job. Now they're trying to do away with this system to save money because it does cost them a lot to pay teachers to do a para job. Does anyone have any advice? I've been working at this site for 2 months as a para and getting para pay. :mad: :mad:

Thanks

Unless you have a valid and supportable reason to believe that you are being paid less BECAUSE OF your race, religion, national origin or other characteristic protected by law, this is not illegal discrimination.

Well, I don't really mean that kind of discrimination. I'm just wondering if there is anyone out there who would know about this sort of situation and if there is any policy on it. It's not fair that one person should be paid differently than another for doing the same job just based on the discretion of the management.

If the union is looking in to it don't waste your time with H.R. Sometimes these things take a while.
JoeC

I'm kind of confused about the union. I don't pay union fees because I'm a substitute, but some people were saying that the union still represents me?? Is this true?

I doubt anyone here will be able to give you a definite answer to that. You will have to find that out on your own, however I suspect they do not represent you.

Paying sub teachers to fill in for para pros at the teacher rate is not uncommon in certain cases like with special needs students who require certain skills and at schools where it is more difficult to get subs. This is also usually the first cut made to the budget (along with paying long term sub rates for hard to fill short term positions). As long as the decisions aren't made based on legally protected characteristics and the union agreement does not specifically prohibit the practice (and I'd be shocked if it did) it is legal. While you may not be in the union, if this is something goverened by the agreement, then you can bring it to the union's attention if it is being violated. Chances are good that yours reads something to the effect that teachers can be paid at teacher rates when deemed necessary to fill the vacancy or support the learning environment.

So it's all at the discrepancy of someone? That's great. What about the fact that in my classroom there are two sub teachers filling para roles? Shouldn't we both be paid the same because we're doing the same thing? I was employed in the room before the new sub and the new sub gets paid the teacher rate.

Thank you.

I'm not your employer so I have no idea why those who work in the same classroom are being paid differently. However, it is not illegal to pay employees differently for doing the same job unless the reason for paying them differently is based on a legally protected characteristic. For example it would be illegal to pay only men who work as paras the higher rate, but not women.