SUBSTITUTE teachers who were due to work in schools that were shut during Storm Ophelia will be paid.
Exams were cancelled and schools, colleges and universities across Ireland closed to two days earlier this month.
More than 1,000 schools in the north from nursery to post-primary were advised to keep closed.
Unions said they received a surge in queries from those employed through the Northern Ireland Substitute Teacher Register (NISTR) asking if they would be paid for the two exceptional closure days.
Sub teachers, unions said, were in the same position as permanently employed colleagues and were "entitled to be paid in exactly the same way".
A sub can earn a daily rate of between £112.93 and £192.28.
In a letter, the Education Authority confirmed that sub teachers who were scheduled to work on October 16 and 17 "and was booked out through NISTR should receive payment for these days".
NASUWT national official Justin McCamphill welcomed the decision.
"While this is very welcome it is a confirmation of the legal position and all schools should abide by it," he said.
"We have been campaigning for this since the storm and we have written to every school to point out that substitute teachers who have been booked, but have then been informed, like their colleagues, that they do not need to come in to school, are in the same position as those colleagues who are on permanent contracts and are entitled to be paid in exactly the same way.
"Our supply teacher members had committed to working and were willing and prepared to do so. Whilst the principles of the law of contract do not, in most cases, require an employer to provide work, a decision not to provide work does not release the employer from the contractual duty to pay the agreed wages."
Mr McCamphill said his union expected that schools would sign off for these days as usual.
"To do otherwise would in our view would amount to a breach of contract, and an unlawful deduction from wages," he added.
"Any supply teacher who is unsure if they will be paid should make contact with the school next week as payments need to be processed by Friday 3rd November."
