City violated state labor law by hiring non-union paraprofessionals

The city's Department of Education violated state labor law when it outsourced work reserved for unionized paraprofessionals to three non-union employees at a Bronx elementary school, an administrative law judge ruled last week. Judge Kaitlin Santos sided with the United Federation of Teachers in the ruling, ordering the DOE to stop reassigning paraprofessional work to non-union employees and make whole any employee who lost pay or benefits because of reassignment.  

The ruling came as a result of the UFT filing an improper practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board in 2023 over the hiring of three paraprofessionals at P.S. 1, the Courtlandt School, from a non-union private employment agency. The DOE argued that the non-union paraprofessionals were hired through the employment agency due to an inability to recruit through typical, union pathways but the judge found that DOE made no effort to negotiate with the UFT for the hiring of more paraprofessionals, which it is required to do even in emergencies.  

"Here, the record is devoid of evidence that the DOE negotiated with UFT regarding paraprofessional staffing shortages," Judge Santos wrote.  

The UFT celebrated the ruling. 

"We won't allow the DOE to try to do an end run around our members receiving the fair pay they deserve," Priscilla Castro, chair of the UFT paraprofessional chapter said in a statement.  

The union has made supporting paraprofessionals, who have a starting salary under $32,000 a year, a key priority since eight candidates in the paraprofessional chapter aligned with UFT president Michael Mulgrew lost out to insurgent candidates in internal union elections in 2024.

“Low wages for our paraprofessionals have left the city with thousands of vacancies every year," Mulgrew said in a statement. "The positions are critical for the health and education of our most vulnerable students. As PERB has made clear, the Department of Education can’t sidestep this problem by relying on outside agencies.” 

Earlier this year, Mulgrew successfully pushed the City Council to pass legislation granting one-time $10,000 checks to paraprofessionals to secure the workers' relief outside of bargaining. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he does not support the bill, and his administration has sued to block it.  

One of the non-union paraprofessionals hired to work at the Courtlandt School took on many of the duties that unionized paraprofessionals do for a second-grade student. That included helping the student move around the building, accompanying him to counseling and speech sessions, helping him to the bathroom, assisting with classwork and social-emotional support. 

"NYCPS values the critical contributions and services provided by our employees," a spokesperson for NYC Public Schools, a subsidiary of the DOE, said in a statement. "NYCPS is reviewing the scope of the ruling."