Letter to the Executive Board

To: Executive Board (College van Bestuur)

Prof. dr. Rianne Letschert & Dr. Nick Bos

Minderbroedersberg 4-6

6211 LK Maastricht

From: Casual Maastricht

casualmaastricht@gmail.com

Maastricht, 12 November 2021

Dear members of the Executive Board (CvB), dear Professor Letschert, dear Dr. Bos,

We hope this letter finds you and yours well and in good health.

Throughout this academic year, a number of temporary and early career academics have come together to campaign for improved working conditions at Dutch universities. This group has come together as 0.7 (zero point seven) and Casual Academy [1] to highlight the precarious nature of our professional lives in institutions of higher education and research. We are joined in our efforts by WOinActie. Following Casual Leiden’s letter directed to their executive board, we present to you this call for change, a call that will be posed to all the executive boards of the VSNU members this fall.[2]

Since the beginning of our campaign, we have held public meetings, participated in demonstrations, and have created a network of employees in precarious positions, both locally and across institutions. We have been overwhelmed by responses of like-minded colleagues - on temporary and permanent employment contracts - as well as by students. It is clear that there is considerable frustration and disquiet regarding issues of structural temporary contracts, systemic overwork, and unsafe working environments.[3] Maastricht University is no exception.[4]

To be sure, these issues are not new and have preoccupied the leadership of the university for many years. They are also made apparent by many reports.[5][6][7] The latest collective labour agreement (CAO), however, did not offer anything for those in the most precarious positions, except a promise from the universities to address these problems in the local consultative bodies. However, we have seen the effects of the continued delay in solving these problems up close. Many of our colleagues got burnt-out, or chose to end their careers as academics because there was no change for such a long time.

The structural casualisation of labour at Maastricht University (handing out temporary contracts for ongoing work) affects a large and growing section of our academic community, including support staff members. The consequences are not only seen and felt by our colleagues in the most precarious positions but also directly impact the work of the members of permanent staff. They need to adapt to an ever-changing group of temporary co-workers: time and time again (every year, sometimes even every semester) new people have to take over while the contracts of more experienced staff (often tightly linked to a specific course or programme design) are not extended, let alone made permanent. Ensuring the quality of education under these conditions is a recipe for burn-out. Moreover, such structural casualisation directly affects students, particularly at a teaching-oriented university such as Maastricht University. Students are faced with little continuity regarding their tutors, mentors and even content experts. Students are now also increasingly being tapped as a precarious labour force to supplement education, for instance as “student tutors,” highlighting the extreme overwork affecting teaching staff. This multitude of problems proves the urgency of change.

At Maastricht University, it appears there is a structural practice of dismissing teaching staff while the very same jobs - their jobs - are immediately re-advertised in new hiring procedures. Laws and collective labour agreements made in the past years with the intention to avoid structural dependence on short-term contracts are not honored, but instead systematically circumvented by institutes, departments and faculties, which have rather increased the number of temporary workers over the past years.

In fact, during recent Casual Maastricht meetings, we heard dire reports from temporary staff members being hired on “teaching assistant” contracts that do not reflect the actual tasks they perform; we heard of temporarily employed assistant professors being “demoted” to teaching only contracts so as to avoid the obligation following the CAO to hire them permanently, and of staff members in critical situations of structural overwork affecting their health and well-being. The flagship “Recognition and Rewards” program, co-developed and advocated by the UM, systematically excludes a large portion of the academic staff by not addressing the issues of teaching-only staff. There are virtually no avenues for career advancement or professional growth for nearly a third of the academic labour force (and we are not even beginning to speak of the support staff, for which no such career development programme exists at all).

Of course, structural underfunding of academia is at the heart of the problem and a direct cause for exploitative working conditions. However, if universities fail to negotiate apt finances for education (even when actually booking annual profits like our university) they should eventually choose for radical changes in educational programmes to pressure the government into financing us adequately (less money means less fte means less teaching hours), not casualisation on the back of their members of staff. A number of task forces have now produced evidence of dangerous amounts of stress related to overwork in the Maastricht University community of workers. They have also suggested promising plans for action.[8][9] Nevertheless, you have yet to respond to these plans with appropriate and concrete milestones and deadlines to affect and assess the necessary changes. We have yet to see you crack down with dedication and force on obvious malpractices and the exploitation of hideous loopholes regarding temporary employment.

Obviously, precarious labour conditions directly tie into the harmful imbalance of power that is often at the basis of recent misconduct cases at Dutch universities, which have been documented in a series of worrying reports.[10][11] The latest report on sexual violence and harassment among Maastricht University students demonstrates again that there is a lack of clear procedures for reporting misconduct as well as for adequate responses to reports of misconduct at the UM.[12 ] While we applaud your initiative to sign the Amnesty International Manifesto to counter sexual violence in academia, we miss a specific policy response from you (with goals and deadlines for new procedures and evaluation of those procedures) that reflects the urgency and seriousness of the problem.

Today, we present you with a series of demands, which we believe will go a long way to resolve the dire situation we are in. It is our view that the Dutch universities, including Maastricht University must:

- End casualization by making the appointments of all staff performing structural work permanent.

- Create progressive career paths, and invest time and resources for tailormade professional growth - for all staff.

- Provide full transparency about workload calculations, end the decade long practice of watering down “norm hours” as a response to budgetary constraints, and take concrete steps against structural overwork.

- Ensure a safe working environment by adequate and fair, open and transparent, as well as accessible procedures for reporting misconduct, evaluating the effectiveness of these procedures, and appointing an ombudsperson or other independent organ with a mandate to investigate and give advice.

In short, we demand dignity and respect at work for all!

We demand that as the executive board of Maastricht University you take full responsibility and cease to delegate these issues down the ladder to the faculty boards and departments without sufficient monitoring and oversight. We therefore demand that you take the initiative and publish a proposal to address these issues, with clear and specific targets and deadlines - owned by you as the executive board and the responsible employer at our university.

For the sake of the present well-being and professional future of academia, we expect that you will want to tackle these issues conclusively in 2022, the year in which a new collective labour agreement will be negotiated. If you fail to come up with a concrete plan of action specific to Maastricht University before our joint countdown clock expires on the 20th of December (see zeropointseven.nl/countdown), we will – together with anti-casualization groups at other universities and WOinactie - enter a disruptive trajectory of escalation.

Given the scale of the problems and their long-standing nature, we ask you to issue a public response to this letter as soon as possible. Because of the vulnerable employment positions of many members of the Casual Maastricht initiative, we are afraid to sign this letter with our names. Our members fear that speaking out will negatively affect their current and near-future employment (which in some cases is directly tied to individual residence permits in the Netherlands). This difficulty in voicing our concerns is yet another illustration of the current dismal labour situation. Please be informed that we will make this letter public and encourage colleagues across Maastricht University to endorse the national anti-casualisation demands.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Casual Maastricht

casualmaastricht@gmail.com

Sources

[1] https://www.zeropointseven.nl;

https://sites.google.com/view/casualleiden/home?authuser=0

[2] https://www.zeropointseven.nl/Countdown/

[3] FD.nl. “Wetenschappers in opstand tegen de uitgedijde flexschil van universiteiten,” October 21, 2021. https://fd.nl/politiek/1416727/wetenschappers-in-opstand-tegen-de uitgedijde-flexschil-van-universiteiten.

[4] Rathenau Instituut. “Tijdelijke contracten bij universiteiten in perspectief,” November 5, 2021. https://www.rathenau.nl/nl/wetenschap-cijfers/wetenschappers/personeel-aan-de universiteiten-en-umcs/tijdelijke-contracten-bij.

5] Koens, Lionne, Margot Schel, Suzanne Vogelezang, Nelleke Van den Broek-Honingh, and Alexandra Vennekens. “Balans van de wetenschap 2020.” Rathenau Instituut, 2020. https://www.rathenau.nl/nl/vitale-kennisecosystemen/balans-van-de-wetenschap-2020.

[6] Jerak-Zuiderent, Sonja, Jonna Brenninkmeijer, Amade M’Charek, and Jeannette Pols. “Goede Wetenschap: Een Visie van Binnenuit,” September 2021.

https://pure.amc.nl/en/publications/goede-wetenschap(bfe8a78f-f9c0-4e62-b0ca 7956e5959d0a).html.

[7] Jongsma, Marijtje, Willemien Sanders, and Claire Weeda. “Inventarisatie Omvang En Gevolgen van Structureel Overwerk Aan de Nederlandse Universiteiten.” Woinactie, AOb WO&O, FNV overheid, January 2020. https://www.aob.nl/wp

content/uploads/2020/01/WOinactie-Inventarisatie-Structureel-Overwerk-Universiteiten.pdf

[8] “Report of the Taskforce Educational Workload.” Universiteit Maastricht, June 2017. https://www.vsnu.nl/files/documenten/Taskforce Educational Workload.pdf.

[9] Zijlstra, Kant, Houkes, and Fleuren. “Taskforce Sustainable Employability: Plan of Action.”

Universiteit Maastricht, February 2021.

https://www.vsnu.nl/files/documenten/Taskforce Educational Workload.pdf.

[10] Vries, Jouke de, Cisca Wijmenga, and Hans Biemans. “Harassment at the University of Groningen.” Young Academy Groningen, October 2021. https://www.rug.nl/research/young academy/files/yag-report-harassment-at-the-ug.pdf

[11] Van der Woerdt, Loes, Tom Buster, Sabrina Van den Brink, Rivka Bruins, Veronique Stokkers, Wieke Holwerda, Sam Langelaan, Cas Van de Laar, Mariet de Boer, and Robin Wisse. “Adviesnota Melden (Seksueel) Wangedrag Universiteit Utrecht.” Actiegroep Wangedrag, February 2021. https://dub.uu.nl/sites/default/files/NOTA%20UR-leden.pdf

[12] Wellum, A., G. Lange, E. Adams, and P. Hurks. “Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment among Maastricht University Students.” Maastricht University, 2021.

https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/sites/default/files/um report sexual violence and sex ual harassment def web.pdf