FIXED-TERM and HOURLY PAID ISSUES

Fixed term contract?

Are you…A contract researcher? An hourly paid lecturer?

Know Your Rights!

Contract coming to an end? Unsure about how redeployment works? Should you be considered a permanent employee?

Fixed Term-Staff: a UCU priority

On 1st November UCU launched its campaign to “Stamp Out Casual Contracts”.
UCU believes that job insecurity, vulnerability, inequality and stress all come hand in hand with fixed-term and hourly paid contracts. The union believes it is in everyone’s interests to campaign against the casualisation of our academic and academic-related professions. The use of fixed-term contracts brings with it financial insecurity and inhibits the development of individual careers.

The UCU has a policy against the use of fixed-term (including fixed term hourly paid contracts). It believes that permanent full time or fractional contracts are the most appropriate types of contracts for our members.

Campaign Aims

To increase the use of permanent contracts;
To resist vulnerable employment;
To seek equal treatment for agency workers;
To oppose redundancy selection on the basis of contract type;
To transfer ALL hourly-paid staff onto full-time or fractional contracts;
To seek fair working conditions for ALL staff.

What should you expect as a fixed-term member of staff?

As a fixed term member of staff you should be treated in exactly the same way as your permanent colleagues - the only difference should be that your contract has a finish date.
If you are on a series of fixed term contracts and find yourself coming up to four years continuous employment, the University will be required to come up with "Objective Justification" as to why you are still fixed term. If they can't come up with this, then you should be made permanent.

Researchers’ Survival Guide

Nationally, nearly half of all academic and academic-related posts are Fixed-Term. This figure rises to 85% for research staff.
UCU publishes a Researchers' Survival Guide written by researchers for researchers. It is aimed particularly at those just starting their research career.
Issues covered include: networking; planning your career; publishing; finding your next post; the supervisor relationship and your employment rights. The guide emphasises how it is often down to the researcher to assert their rights if they are to achieve any improvements. It also shows how many researchers speaking as one voice can have much more impact.
The Researchers’ Survival Guide is free to all staff. Please contact us if you would like a copy.

What the Policy Makers Say

"The financial pressures faced by universities mean that it is risky for them to employ researchers for longer than the research grant. But universities have deflected the risk onto the researchers; this bad management has added to the plight of contract researchers. In this respect, universities have failed their research workforce and the UK's science base."
(Science & Technology Select Committee,
8th Report of Session, 2001-2).

The UK picture

UCU members in many universities have been hard at work campaigning for improvements in the situation of fixed-term contract researchers and hourly paid teaching staff. Here are some highlights of the campaign from around the UK:
In Liverpool University and University College, London, UCU have successfully negotiated that all research staff are automatically made permanent after 4 years’ continuous service.
Bristol University have established a "buffer fund" which can provide short-term bridging funding to retain research staff in the intervals between grant funding periods.
Sheffield University have been lobbying intensively to get buffer funding established and move fixed-term staff onto permanent contracts.
Leeds University UCU have just completed a major recruitment drive among fixed-term research staff. This boost to the number of fixed-term members has greatly strengthened UCU’s negotiating position in lobbying the university for transfer to permanent contracts. They report many stories of successful transfer to permanent contracts with UCU support.
Dr. Andy Ball of Aberdeen University successfully took his university to industrial tribunal to establish the principle that the expiration of a fixed-term research grant does not alone provide "objective justification" for ending a fixed-term contract. This ruling is a challenge to universities to change the way they think about research funding – to move away from the short-term view of a single grant with a single researcher, and towards a culture where the pool of research staff are seen as an essential resource for each academic department.

Support the UCU Day of Action on Fixed-Term Contracts

When: December 3rd
Where: Look out for the UCU stall around campus.
Sign UCU’s petition!

The Bradford picture

Here in Bradford, fixed-term research staff with 4 years’ continuous service are beginning to be transferred onto open-ended contracts. The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mark Cleary, addressing a recent General Meeting of Bradford UCU, expressed support in principle for the transfer of fixed-term staff onto permanent contracts. But there is a long way to go.
Large numbers of part-time teaching staff remain on hourly paid contracts. This group of staff have little protection against exploitation and limited options for career development.
Prof. Cleary’s ambition for the University is for it to be a regional and national leader in its research, teaching, and responsibility to the wider community. There is a great opportunity for Bradford University to demonstrate this commitment by being at the forefront in stamping out casualisation:

by transferring all fixed-term research staff onto open ended contracts, creating and retaining a flexible local pool of highly trained and motivated researchers;
by transferring all hourly-paid teaching staff onto permanent fractional contracts, guaranteeing stability for the staff and continuity of education and pastoral care for the students they teach;
by ensuring that access to career development, training and redeployment is available equally for all academic staff.

Join UCU

STRENGTH: UCU brings together professionals across further and higher education and uses its strength to negotiate for better pay and conditions on everybody’s behalf.
INFLUENCE: UCU speaks up when decisions are made about education policy that affect you.
PROTECTION: UCU protects your interests in the workplace.
SUPPORT: UCU supports members when they have a problem at work.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Dave Ewen, D.Ewen@bradford.ac.uk
Karen Jackson, K.Jackson2@bradford.ac.uk