Open Letter

Dear Forge

We would like to provide a response to your article “Precarious Russell Group contracts ‘destroying the industry from within?’” (Issue 101, Friday 25 November).

Sheffield has many types of employment contracts and agreements - open ended contracts, fixed term contracts, Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) Agreements and Casual Workers Agreements. There is also the facility for engaging self-employed individuals and Agency Workers.

Whilst we agree in any organisation there is a need for flexibility, agility and responsiveness to business need, we disagree with the way it is implemented at Sheffield and although positive progress has been made, it has been slow and falls short in many areas.

The University is quoted in your article that “a-typical staff in reality make up 31.1% of the total workforce and do not employ staff on zero hour contracts”

Fact*: the University only considers ‘staff’ as those on open ended or fixed term contracts with an orange UCard. To say that the University does not employ staff on zero hour contracts is misleading, as that statement completely ignores GTAs and Casual Workers that are not regarded as ‘staff’ and seen as employed on ‘agreements’ rather than ‘contracts’. These ‘agreements’ guarantee zero hours of work. We are told that these are not the same as ‘zero hour contracts’ as highlighted in the media recently as these ‘agreements’ are non-exclusive and are therefore ‘good’. We are not in the business of dealing with semantics - zero hours means zero hours irrespective of exclusivity and at present there are many hundreds of GTAs and an undisclosed number of Casual Workers that the University engages on non exclusive zero hour agreements.

Andrew Dodman is quoted in your article stating, “We provide a very attractive total reward and benefits package for all our staff, including those on fixed term contracts. We also ensure those who work with us on a more flexible/casual basis are afforded the same rates of pay as those employed by the University.”

Fact^: GTAs and Casual Workers for a large part are our current students and are afforded only bottom of pay grade hourly rates, statutory holiday pay, statutory sick pay and do not get annual increments like staff. The university’s failure to provide standard annual incremental salary increases to GTAs and casual workers means that the university does not deliver equal pay for equal work. This hidden work force does not get access to ‘The Deal’ total reward scheme and the associated benefits that other staff have access to.

In a recent survey undertaken by Sheffield UCU, we received many harrowing accounts, many from current students working as GTAs and Casual Workers, which reinforces our call to the University to treat its own community with decency and respect.

GTA: “It is helpful for my career progression and I enjoy the teaching work. It is spread out over the year but not evenly so some periods can be very busy and distract from my own PhD work. It can be distracting when preparation time is not covered fully in the pay, you rush and maybe don't do a great job, but I need the extra money so it is necessary.”

Casual Worker: “It is insecure, unclear and under remunerated resulting in being unable to plan my life. Stress of uncertainty makes teaching less fun than it would be otherwise - I love teaching.

GTA: “I cannot focus on my own PhD as much as I would like or supervise my student as fully as I would like.”

GTA: “The tight time allocations for marking and limited time for teaching preparation mean that there is a conflict between wanting to provide fairness and quality to students and taking a stance not to work additional unpaid hours. “

Sheffield UCU calls on the University to take central responsibility and accountability to ensure GTAs and Casual Workers, often fee-paying Masters and PhD students, are treated properly in their early careers:

• To improve contractual terms and conditions, including access to staff benefits and fractional hour contracts instead of zero-hour agreements.
• To provide better central training and support - the current devolved model of local training, development and pay procedure is fragmented, inconsistent and unfair.
• To have robust mechanisms to ensure equal pay for equal work for GTAs and Casual Workers - currently no framework or central process exists.
• To provide regular central communications - to have the decency and respect of this workforce and develop a sense of belonging (without which so much would be lost in our community), to remind workers of their rights, when pay rates change, when they might be eligible for a back payment, to know that preparation time is in fact paid.
• To actively engage with these workers directly, for example by including them in the University Staff Survey and the THE Top 100 Employer survey.
• To actively engage with staff in departments that work with GTAs and Casual Workers so that local arrangements are consistent and fair - currently this is through word of mouth and the University doesn’t even have any training workshops for staff or quality checks in place before a staff member is allowed to authorise the registration of a new worker.

Sheffield UCU continues to campaign and engage with the University as an ongoing process but as we have explained, there is much further progress to make.

Sheffield UCU Branch Committee

*Following a meeting held on 17 January 2017, the employer has sought to clarify that GTAs are engaged as 'Staff' and have access to negotiated sick pay and holiday pay. Casual Workers are engaged on 'agreements' with access to statutory conditions only.

^Following a meeting held on 17 January 2017, the employer has sought to clarify that, if a task/role is initially graded appropriately within the Grade band equal pay is fulfilled.