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T I E O N N ISSUE 12/ Autumn 2014 PAGE 02

Fight casualisation Campaign what YOU can do l Check the website for activities and downloadable materials resources: www.ucu.org.uk/stampout Download campaign materials on fighting casualisation, l Contact your local branch about their plans. including Anti-Casualisation News: l Have they organised a meeting on casualisation? If www.ucu.org.uk/socc_materials not, ask them to pledge to hold one before the end of term and email the pledge to Or order them by emailing [email protected] [email protected] Are you

hourly paid ? Is there an anti-casualisation group at your b ranch? l

A r e y . ou ..

If not use a meeting of staff on casualised contracts

A re you

a r esearc her?

to help set one up, identify issues and campaign

(plenty of resources are available to help, see below).

R

and working in further

Distribute this newsletter! l

or higher education? hourly- paid, on a

fixed-ter m contract

o r part-time?

ASUA Be photographed with an C LI I support secure l I- S T A N T I O

A and N wo D rking in A 6 M Y a rch higher educatio O N n? employment for all staff poster available from: F IO A T C

www.ucu.org.uk/socc_materials and send it to: [email protected] and/or tweet it to @UCUAnti_Cas on #AntiCas14 – you can obscure your face with the poster if you feel more comfort - able, but please do let us know your branch. OPPOSE JOB Zero tolerance INSECURITY AND upport CA l Lobby your MP against zero-hours contracts and I s 4 Zero hours SUALISATION

Variable hours contracts that do not set minimum casualisation – more details will be coming to all contracted hours offer no guarantee of work. CUREUCU opposes zero-hours contracts. Variable hours SE contracts should only be used in exceptional members on this soon. circumstances and with guaranteed minimum hours. Are you hourly-paid, on a f ploymenHelpt us to support you in opposing these contracts. ixed-term contract em Send information about where these contracts are or part-time? being used to Ronnie Kershaw, national organiser, at: [email protected] Is your l Forward a recruitment email to colleagues job insecure, unfairly for ALL staff paid and not valued? Get involve d in the UCU campaig f n for increased job se or thousands of staff e curity mployed on casualised C contracts. ontact your branch or email: anticasualisatio g.uk M [email protected] Join the discussion on the Anti-Casualisation activists www.ucu.or ore information: www l .ucu.or casualisation g.uk/fthpcommittee UCU fighting Follow UCU AntiCasualisation on T join UCU today: join.ucu.org.uk witter: @UCUAnti_Cas

network to exchange stories, and campaign ideas. join.ucu.org.uk l Set up an anti-casualisation group within your branch campaign with local students using the postgraduate employment charter: www.ucu.org.uk/postgrads STAY IN TOUCH l Promote the UCU Learning for Life CPD programme http://cpd.web.ucu.org.uk Join the anti-casualisation email network, via UCU activist email lists www.ucu.org.uk There is a blogsite at http://ucuanticas.wordpress.com Twitter account @UCUAnti_Cas You can email [email protected] To get in touch with the Committee, please contact the Chair, Vicky Blake: vickysucu@gmailcom

ANTI-CASUALISATION NEWS / ISSUE 12 / AUTUMN 2014 PAGE 03 Planning an anti-casualisation campaign Jean Crocker at the Durham Miners’ Gala

Who are the staff on casualised l Use social media. Do we put our heads above the contracts? parapet? Finding-hourly paid staff Those on hourly-paid, bank and zero- The precariat have sometimes The union is legally entitled to know hours contracts (ZHCs), contracts for suffered after doing so, because of who are its potential members, services (non-employment contracts); lack of job security. Do we aim for ‘for the purposes of collective agency and postgraduate staff; and direct involvement in negotiations, bargaining’. Search for model letter people on fixed-term contracts – or to be primarily active within the requesting information on hourly- researchers, lecturers and academic - paid staff on UCU website. Ask for union, informing the committee related staff. names and departments – this info while branch negotiators front the How to contact them is readily available for other staff. issue? It is worth considering the Search the website for fixed-term local situation? l Organising staff. Working with members on l Hold meetings to include non- l Obtain lists of the hourly paid. members, and persevere. open-ended contracts l Build up support – many members l Reach out via members on Show UCU opposes casualisation l only need to know the facts. permanent contracts, departmental and ask the casualised what the Bring a motion to a general reps. issues are. meeting where the casualised Make sure ALL staff are in 'new l l Gather contact details and form explain what their lives are really staff lists' to UCU. an ongoing group. like. Encourage people to join in l Ask for ALL to receive staff induc - l Give meetings a purpose – to order to speak or vote. tion with UCU material. plan day of action ; agree on cam - l Where it's harder, say it's l Ask to speak at a training day. paign objectives; prepare for the important to fight casualisation annual meeting of members on l Ask HR, departmental heads, and welcome casualised staff contact people for postgraduates casualised contracts (motions, into membership, for the strength etc to send info. delegates, a nomination to the of the branch, and even because Anti-Casualisation Committee - management could try to get l Make your contact check local rules). impoverished non-unionised details known. l Have a survey – meet people, staff to break a strike. report back, discuss. Wider support

l Have departmental meetings, but l Inform the students and seek not in the department if potential their support. members feel they could suffer. l Use publicity to build up support

l Seek active regional involvement in the local community. in sharing successes and Jean Crocker strategies. Anti-Casualisation Committee

AUTUMN 2014 / ISSUE 12 / ANTI-CASUALISATION NEWS PAGE 04

The personal misery of academic casualisation

CU consider that at least 40% of academic, research To that extent the strategy being favoured by UCU promises Uand support staff are now casualised and some institu - to reap some benefits for academic, academic-related and tions are much worse. Casualisation offers short-term non-academic staff groups across the higher and further flexibility for higher and further education financial education world. But it would be naive not to see this as planners – fiscal benefits which are almost in perverse an uphill struggle! And behind the awful contrast to the personal misery of affected staff. collective reality of the statistics on casualisation, are Casualisation not only leads to lower wages and benefits, the individual stories of personal misery. but also directly increases the ratio of unpaid to paid Terry Duffy, Anti-Casualisation Committee labour, and the intensity of workloads for everyone. It is a process where a dual labour market develops, stratified and mutually isolated: a core of permanent workers with a My experience as a periphery of workers on fixed-term contracts. We need also to ponder how people subjectively experience what is variable-hours further inevitably a miserable process. Staff at the sharp end of casualisation are atomised, desperately moving from con - education lecturer tract to contract or forced to use recruitment agencies. This In June 2013, I was made redundant from my permanent is also a barrier to the development of solidarity with other post as a lecturer of LLDD individuals. To mitigate the workers, and frustrates workplace organising. circumstances of my redundancy, I was given a zero-hours In many cases casualised staff don't qualify for full contract. Problems emerged in a number of areas of benefits: maternity pay, sick pay, pensions and holiday enti - my work and homelife as a result of losing my stable, tlements etc. As a result of EU legislation, agencies have to permanent employment. I have experienced problems extend rudimentary benefits but this is often a with paying my bills due to having very little work during PR con-trick with the incorporation of holiday pay into the holidays. I am a few months behind on my mortgage hourly rate or other benefits being offered only on paper as and am afraid of losing my home. part of a crafty exercise in shuffling numbers. This has all resulted in a level of depression and anxiety Throughout the tertiary education sectors managers are which I have not experienced in the past. And, I do not shifting staff into ‘McJobs’, often socially subsidised and feel as if I am able to enjoy my life as much as before. highly casualised. Often even course co-ordination is Senior managers in further casualised. In such environs, staff are conditioned to tone education are using variable- down their expectations and to accept inconveniently hours contracts to satisfy their peripatetic work. Consequently in looking at this depressing need for flexibility and to seek terrain, we need to be aware of the development of new ways of reducing their total subjectivities. In responding to atomisation we should staffing budgets, but they certainly consider our collective identity based on the have no idea about the impact shared experience of casualised work but we must also these actions can have on the assert our position in the entire academic workforce. individuals involved. This is The encroachment of fixed-term contracts and the reduc - Casualisation can cause a direct result of the Coalition real financial difficulty tion of job security are threats to everyone. If a casualised government's move to reduce academic worker finds a better job, they leave behind a further education funding, to increase the disparity position that another worker must fill. The most promising between further education colleges and schools. route for our anti-casualisation struggle is the development Sarah Guymer, Anti-Casualisation Committee of stronger links between temporary and permanent staff.

ANTI-CASUALISATION NEWS / ISSUE 12 / AUTUMN 2014 PAGE 05 Pay and grading fair treatment for part-timers

hree universities in my UCU NEC Tconstituency (Higher Education in the South) are making changes to their promotion criteria. These move in the direction of requiring a wider range of skills, for example leader - ship, or professional practice, as well as teaching and research. One obvious concern is workload, which potentially affects all staff; another is fair treatment of part-time staff, which is what I want to consider here.

We must ask whether someone on a part-time contract, can carry out a range of activities such as teaching, research, leadership and professional practice all at the same time to the standard expected for promotion? And if not, how can we get fair treatment? Part-time staff who are requred to concentrate mainly on teaching or another single activity should not be penalised The law is not a perfect instrument, but there are two judgements worth part-time staff from some duties may, able to do it all contemporaneously. noting. The first is the Matthews in certain circumstances, itself be a In some cases it may be useful to judgement, which found the work of form of less favourable treatment. argue that their contribution over a longer period should be considered, a part-time retained fire fighter Fair treatment for part-time staff including the last few years and sufficiently similar to those of full- was not explicitly factored into the what they are able to contribute in time fire fighters for the Part Time National Framework Agreement, the future. If the employer decides Workers Regulations to apply. The on which pay and grading in most Part Time Workers Regulations that they should concentrate mainly universities is based. However, now (www.ucu.org.uk/3544) require part- on one activity, eg teaching, they that some universities are reviewing time workers carrying out the same should not be penalised for this. promotions and grading, we must or broadly similar work to be treated become more proactive in securing Fair treatment of all part-time staff, no less favourably than full-time fair treatment for part-timers. both fractional and hourly-paid, must comparators, unless the employer form part of UCU’s public platform if The contribution expected (eg can objectively justify the different we are to successfully recruit and number of papers published) must treatment. The other judgement represent them. be proportionate to the (paid) hours followed a case brought by Sue Birch, Lesley Kane of work. Where a range of activities a part-time lecturer. She won, and it UCU National Executive Committee was found that deliberately excluding is expected, part-timers may not be

AUTUMN 2014 / ISSUE 12 / ANTI-CASUALISATION NEWS PAGE 06 The curse of zero-hours contracts

ero-hours Act, including changes to employment ZHCs and this practice has taken off Zcontracts tribunals; the Equality and Human across Europe and North America. The (ZHCs) are the Rights Commission and the Equality private sector corporations are making curse of 21st cen - Act 2010. These Con/Dem changes record profits and are paying senior tury employment have benefitted employers at the employees massive sums of money culture. According expense of the rights and benefits of in pay and bonuses, whilst large to some estimates working people, particularly those numbers of frontline workers are paid as many as five million workers are who are most vulnerable. barely the minimum wage, which is employed on ZHCs. Four million far from a living wage. children living in impoverished The trade union movement must households in Britain are related to continue the campaign against ZHC. It The fight against ZHCs is a just one, someone on a ZHC. This cruelty must be a high priority for the UCU as which the UCU and the whole trade against working class people is nothing increasing numbers of full-time and union movement must win. UCU must less than legalised robbery and an part-time and fractional posts are unite with other education and public insult to workers and their families. converted in ZHC positions. This sector unions and use every means callous and uncaring practice not necessary to expose and resist ZHCs. I have been sending information on only creates employment and financial Unity is our strength as working the horrible stories relating to ZHC, to insecurity; stress and anxiety; reduc - people. The injury to staff employed the Labour Party to persuade Chuka tions in income, professional status on ZHCs is substantial and unbear - Umunna MP, Shadow Business and career development; but also able. Let us put an end to the ZHC Secretary, to legislate against such forces many excellent teachers and blatant and cruel exploitation of epidemic by lobbying our MPs, writing lecturers from jobs they enjoyed, workers. The Labour Party is commit - to the Secretary of State for Business valued and excelled at. ZHCs also ted to addressing a range of issues Investment and Skills – Vince Cable, damage professional relationships on employment law including ZHC, if Chuka Umunna and Ed Milliband, among staff, students and the institu - they are returned to power in May Leader of the Labour Party to express tions that operate such contracts. 2015. The Coalition government have our disgust and rejection of ZHCs. made a number of changes to the Both private companies and public Jim Thakoordin Employment and Labour Relations bodies are increasing their use of UCU National Executive Committee

ANTI-CASUALISATION NEWS / ISSUE 12 / AUTUMN 2014 PAGE 07

My experience A GOOD CONGRESS FOR US as an hourly-paid At Congress in May, all the Anti- Casualisation Committee motions, lecturer at Sheffield which took into consideration the motions agreed by members at the Hallam University annual meeting, were passed. This means that there is UCU policy for:

l casualisation issues to be in both FE and HE national pay claims, love teaching. I spent 20 years in underpaid for a period of six months and present in publicity materials, Ithe IT industry carrying out roles with the final underpayment being and our different needs during that more or less suited me as a over £1,500 I was unfairly targeted industrial action to be recognised

project manager. Then I stood in by an unparticularised and anony - l strike money to be available to front of a class of postgraduate mous complaint. I subsequently lost hourly-paid members in FE – in students at Sheffield Hallam as a out on recruitment for a potentially HE the feasibility of establishing visiting lecturer and encouraged permanent position that I had a fund when casualised suffer them to debate the topic of project reasonably expected to get! This disproportionately is to be looked risk. I was hooked. was the last straw and I took at (our HE motion was amended, Sheffield Hallam to an employment we wanted an actual fund straight I worked as both an associate tribunal for constructive dismissal. away!) lecturer and an IT consultant for I had a very good case and would three years. The postgraduate l an anti-casualisation officer, and have settled out of court for a rea - representation of other vulnerably- module in project management was sonable sum. The only offer I got employed groups, on branch run over eight weeks which meant I was for £500 which was the committees could fit assignments around this university assessment of what I two-month window. I developed the l plans to be drawn up for regional had lost. I was reliably informed by classroom module and also deliv - committees to have an FE and HE a UCU official that if I had been a ered the material on a 100% online member on casualised contracts, permanent member of staff then I distance learning class. to be elected by members in would have been offered a reason - precarious employment The modules changed to 12 weeks able settlement figure. a freedom of information request and I decided to take on more l I won my case for constructive unfair about researchers and their terms higher education work. The payment dismissal and the judge was very and conditions system had always been flaky; critical of the way Sheffield Hallam however as a second income it l assessing the impact on casu - treated its hourly-paid academic was bearable. When my hourly-paid alised FE members when hours staff. I now have a permanent earnings were my only income the are taken from them and added contract. It was a tough 18 months vagaries of a complex contract and to the workload of permanent and I got a lot of support from family staff for 'efficiency'; and pushing unreliable invoicing system became and friends which I am so very for more security. problematic. grateful for. On our own we can be There was also a good and lively My experience of underpayment or picked off and dismissed as ‘a anti-casualisation fringe, including non-payment of salary due to me for minor irritant’ – together we have a contributions from the SOAS work carried out was not unique – fighting chance to make changes to campaign Fractionals for Fair Play . my fellow hourly-paid lecturers at a system that disadvantages the Hallam were in a similar position. weakest members of the academy. So we are moving forward. When I complained about being Louise Webb Jean Crocker

AUTUMN 2014 / ISSUE 12 / ANTI-CASUALISATION NEWS ISSUES FOR MEMBERS IN STCHOETL ABNUD SINESS CASE FOR RESEARCHER STABILITY

he last few decades have seen others need to create a much, T a big change in the way much better environment to compete research is funded. There has been with them. Some universities such a huge increase in research fund - as Oxford, Cambridge and City ing, which should be a good thing. University have bridging funds However the income model has designed to create stable research moved from funding teaching posi - environments. Strong, stable pro - tions to funding research projects and fessional research teams can build many university managements have international reputations, boost REF A more stable research environment not yet figured out how to optimally scores, and ultimately attract both would give universities a huge balance this type of uncertain research income and increased advantage over their competitors income with a stable, productive international student fees through project-based companies often environment suitable to maximising this reputation. But there is no describe our current churn-based REF scores. incentive for any of this under the practice as ‘insane’ for this reason. old-fashioned system that assumes Research work is no longer a Professional university manage - it will make everyone redundant temporary stepping stone to teaching ment and professional career every four years. – around 5/6 of academic salary researchers need to work together funding is now for purely research Creating a stable, professional to create a more efficient and sta - work, with only 1/6 for research- research environment is clearly ble research environment. And the and-teaching work. In research-led in research-led universities' overall first universities to do this should universities it is now a 150 million business interest as it will improve expect to gain a huge advantage pounds-a-year business. Research research output, REF scores, and in research output over their has become professionalised in its teaching income at little or no cost. competitors. own right in some institutions, but Project-based staff at real-world William Green

This edition of Anti-Casualisation News has been put together by an editorial team from the Anti-Casualisation Committtee: Jean Crocker ([email protected]), Terry Duffy ([email protected]) and Sarah Guymer ([email protected]) FOLLOW US ON TWITTER UCUAntiCasualisation Due to space constraints, articles have had to be abridged. The original versions can be Search for us as found on the blog at http://ucuanticas.wordpress.com @UCUAnti_Cas To contribute to the next issue of this newsletter please email articles to [email protected]

FURTHER INFORMATION: If you would like to get in touch with the Committee please contact the Chair, Vicky Blake: [email protected]. For more information about UCU’s work on anti-casualisation visit www.ucu.org.uk

If you have a problem or query please contact your local branch or association in the first instance. Contact details can be found at www.ucu.org.uk/contacts. For more information about the Anti-Casualisation Committee go to: www.ucu.org.uk/2973