Don’t replace full-time teachers with substitutes
Furlough for most State of Hawaii employees is when you have a forced unpaid leave. The advantages of furlough are that we keep our jobs and our benefits. However, we do lose our pay and our income.
Recently, the state did away with furlough and renamed it “DLWOP,” or directed leave without pay, which is the placement of an employee temporarily and involuntarily in a nonpay and nonduty status by the employer because of lack of funds.
In the meanwhile, at the Department of Education, a regular full-time employee is out of work without pay and replaced with a substitute worker, which is totally outlandish. This situation not only contradicts its purpose but it is disconcerting to many who are struggling to make ends meet during these challenging economical hard times.
Until somebody can figure out the meaning of “lack of funds,” this matter remains in a class grievance with the union.
Lehua Cosma
Hana