Friday 19th June – Anti-casualisation Assembly, Warwick
University of Warwick has been intending to ‘insource’ all of its hourly paid academic staff via a scheme called ‘TeachHigher’. The scheme entrenches a two-tier system where hourly paid academics are contracted by a third party and further separated from those on secure contracts. It also makes it increasingly easy for the university to take on more hourly paid staff on casualised, insecure contracts, decreasing the number of permanent positions. The staff working through TeachHigher would have been employed on worse terms and conditions than are currently offered to hourly paid staff.
In addition, the Warwick Employment Group were planning to sell TeachHigher as a commercial franchise to other universities, and so there was a real risk that we could have ended up in the same situation here at Bath.
However, Warwick UCU, Warwick for Free Education, and NCAFC, along with Warwick Student’s Union, have successfully campaigned against the programme, building for a large demonstration on University of Warwick’s open day in June. As a result, it was announced on Tuesday that the scheme would be disbanded!
This is a great example of how collective action works – through public meetings, extensive media coverage, direct action and a departmental boycotts of the scheme, staff and students at Warwick have achieved a massive victory. As well as the abandonment of TeachHigher, the university has announced it will run pilot schemes in individual departments to improve the current casualised system and to ensure PGs are paid at nationally-agreed rates.
There will be an assembly at Warwick university on the 19th to discuss how best to campaign against casualisation nationally – TeachHigher was indicative of a movement towards casualisation in HE that is still a real threat to job security and quality of teaching. If you would like to join our delegation, please contact ucu-sec@bath.ac.uk
More info:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/insite/news/intnews2/th_update
https://www.facebook.com/events/877394662349003/
https://warwick4freeducation.wordpress.com/