Annie Mesina earns $8.69 an hour at her job running an elementary school computer laboratory in Bethel Park, Pa. Sounds like a decent wage, right? That's true only until you look a little deeper. Mesina works full time--37.5 hours a week, in her case--10 months a year. Last year, that added up to an annual salary of $12,391. Does that still sound like a decent wage?

In many ways, Mesina is a typical AFT paraprofessional--hard working, dedicated and underpaid. What makes her unusual is that she's a single mother trying to support two teenage daughters on a salary that's more than $2,000 below the current federal poverty level for a family of three. So Mesina does what scores of other workers do to make ends meet: She works a second job. In her case, this means selling souvenirs on commission at Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, and it often also means going straight to the arena from school.

"I make more money from that part-time work than I do from the school district," she says. "If I didn't have a second job, my kids would be eligible for free lunches."

While Mesina and virtually all AFT PSRP members earn more than the federal minimum wage--currently $5.15 an hour--many don't make a "living wage." The idea of a living wage is simple: If you work full time, you should be able to afford to support your family and have a roof over your head. The exact salary needed to reach a living wage varies according to local conditions, and especially housing costs. (Mesina is fortunate to own her house, although she carries a large home equity loan to help deal with accumulated debts.) Advocates for the living wage typically argue for salaries from $11 to $15 an hour, with full benefits.

AFT backs living wage

The living wage movement started in 1994 when Baltimore became the first major city to adopt a living wage ordinance, which applied to companies providing contract services to the city. Since then, about 60 living wage laws have been passed in communities around the country. The AFT lent its support to the movement in July 2000, when convention delegates adopted a living wage resolution. (See text of  the full resolution) The most successful local living wage campaigns have pulled together unions, community activists, religious leaders and others.

Although there's a huge need for better wages across the board in entry-level jobs, living wage laws typically cover only employees of local governments--sometimes including school employees--or private firms that receive government contracts. The city of Santa Monica, Calif., however, recently passed a more sweeping law. It applies to employers in Santa Monica's central tourist zone who benefit from money the city has spent to encourage tourism. So that means busboys, maids and other traditionally low-paid workers in the tourism industry now will make at least $10.50 an hour if the employer provides health insurance or $12.25 if employers don't provide insurance.

The AFT's living wage resolution grew out of efforts by the union's affiliate in Austin, Texas, to gain passage of a local wage ordinance for school employees. Although not entirely successful, the Austin campaign--which attracted support from many partners in the community--did win a $1-an-hour raise, up to $8 an hour, for the district's lowest-paid employees. "They still have a way to go in Austin, but it was a good campaign," says Julie Bowman, a Texas Federation of Teachers staffer who was president of the AFT's Austin PSRP local at the time. In addition to gaining modest raises, the campaign drew attention to the plight of low-paid workers and did create some embarrassment among school board members about those conditions, she adds.

In San Antonio, the AFT's PSRP local is working as part of a coalition with the local AFL-CIO Central Labor Council on a similar living wage ordinance that would apply to school employees.

A nasty cycle

Annie Mesina and the other members of the Bethel Park Federation of Teachers paraprofessionals unit would probably make a lot less money if it wasn't for the hard work of their local union. After two years of tough negotiations (during which time their wages were frozen), the union recently settled a seven-year contract that includes modest raises. Still, as local president Jan Sterrett says, "We can't even hope to approach living wages."

There's a nasty cycle at work in Bethel Park and countless other districts, especially when it comes to female-dominated groups like paraprofessionals. Most paras started working in the system because they were mothers who liked keeping the same hours as their children. Because the vast majority of paras have working spouses, school boards often view paras' salaries as simply a little extra disposable income.

"That's how they consider us--housewives making extra spending money," Mesina says. "But I have to live on this."

Even with her two jobs, Mesina has no college fund for her kids, a 10-year-old car and almost no vacations or meals out. Throw in unexpectedly high utility bills this past winter and soaring gasoline prices, and things get even tighter. It's especially tough on her children, she points out, because everything teenagers like to do costs money, and her kids don't have extra spending money. "I work here and I pay taxes here, but I can't get a decent wage here," she says sadly.

Despite similar heroic efforts by their union leaders and negotiators, the same thing holds true in many other AFT PSRP locals: You can't find a member who makes enough to support a family. In Albany, Minn., "a person just starting out could go to McDonald's or KFC and get paid more an hour," says Deb Solarz, president of the AFT-affiliated Albany EA/SRP. "If you were a single parent and you wanted to work at school, there's no way you could do it." Solarz herself works three jobs: She drives a bus in the morning and the afternoon, works five hours a day as an education assistant and also teaches swimming in a community program during the summer.

But even working eight hours a day during the school year, Solarz does not get health insurance because employees have to work 1,500 hours a year to qualify. Very few of her union's members get insurance--or even the opportunity to pay for it themselves through the district plan.

The local school board used to say support staff were "a dime a dozen," Solarz says, but that is changing. A worker shortage helped the local win decent raises in its last contract, but its members' wages were frozen for eight years--you read that right--just a few years back, so it's very hard to regain all that lost ground. "I know that the staff we work with appreciate us," Solarz says, "but you don't get that sense from the school board."

To the casual observer, the obvious question for someone like Mesina, who has marketable computer skills, is why she doesn't look for a different job. For one thing, she says, it's not easy to simply pick up and leave a job you enjoy and one that you've been doing for many years. "You spend seven years in the hope that you'll get decent wages and raises like everyone else," she comments. And there are the pluses: There's no long commute, so when she doesn't have to rush to her evening job, Mesina gets out of school by 4 p.m.

But to suggest that PSRPs need to leave their jobs in order to make a living wage is to imply that the work they do is not important or worthwhile. One of the problems, Mesina says, is that the community as a whole doesn't know very much about what PSRPs do, so the public doesn't value their work. "The focus is always on the teachers because they are the ones who teach the kids, which is fine," Mesina says. "But we are with them right alongside the kids."

More information on the living wage is available online from a variety of sources, including the AFL-CIO (www.aflcio.org/), the Employment Policies Institute (www.livingwage.org/) and ACORN (http://www.livingwagecampaign.org/).