If surviving on a job that pays $9.24 an hour is difficult, having your pay cut to $7.65 an hour is gut-wrenching. But this is what happens each September to some of the bus monitors who work for the Providence School Department.

Under an unusual employment system, Providence hires substitute bus monitors to replace permanent monitors who are absent. The pay is $7.65 an hour, with no benefits, but after 60 work days, the pay increases to $9.24 an hour with health insurance.

So far, so good. Or so thought Juana, a bus monitor who asked that her real name not be used for fear of retaliation. Last winter, Juana, who lives in Providence, became a monitor, completed her 60 days, and ended the school year earning $9.24 an hour. She also received health insurance, to replace her state-funded RIteCare plan. But when she began work again in September, her hourly wage was reduced to $7.65 and she was without health insurance.

Juana's situation is not unique. In fact, Susan Lusi, chief of staff for the Providence School Department, says it is school policy. So is the rule that the 60 work days must be consecutive, so a worker who is ill on their 59th work day, or who is not called in for lack of work, loses their accumulated service and must start all over again to reach 60 consecutive work days.

Things could be worse for Juana -- she could be a substitute secretary for the Providence School Department. The secretaries earn $7.65 an hour with no benefits and do not receive an increase, according to John Burns, a representative of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 94. Some current secretaries have worked every day for two or three years as substitutes, says Burns, and still make $7.65 with no benefits.

The workers are trying to change the situation. A majority of about 45 substitute secretaries hope to join Council 94, and some of the approximately 50 substitute bus monitors are working with the activist group Direct Action for Rights & Equality (DARE).

After meeting with DARE, Lusi says, the school department hopes to resolve the bus monitors' pay problems in several weeks, but she cautions that more pay means less money for classroom needs. "I understand the problem of the particular individual," Lusi says, "but I also understand the difficulty of balancing our budget." Meanwhile, Burns expects a Rhode Island Labor Relations Board hearing on the clerks union sometime early in 2003.

Burns and DARE executive director Sara Mersha point to the workers as evidence that Providence needs a "living wage" ordinance to require the city to pay all employees at least $10.19 an hour, or 130 percent of the poverty level for a family of four. In 2000, DARE successfully pressured the school department to improve conditions for substitute teaching assistants by permanently filling about 60 positions. Consequently, says Mersha, substitutes' pay increased more than $3 an hour, to $10.81.

Issue Date: December 27, 2002 - January 2, 2003