Warwick Anti-Casualisation (WAC) will be available to speak to in the Piazza today from 11am where they are highlighting the crucial role played by part-time teachers in Warwick.
UCU Warwick supports the work of this group and as today is ‘UCU’s day of action against precarious work‘, we ask that our members encourage all part-time teachers to sign up as UCU members and to visit the WAC website to sign the petition calling for fair teaching conditions.
Teaching conditions vary across the University and some departments may be examples of excellent practice in this area – we would be interested in any examples where members feel that their departments support of their part time teaching staff is exemplary.
These are the 6 demands of the WAC:
1) Hourly-paid teachers must be made employees of the University. Currently, hourly-paid teachers hold the inferior legal status of ‘workers’ but not of ‘employees’. This deprives them, unjustifiably, of the standard employment rights enjoyed by salaried members of staff.
2) Hourly-paid teachers must be paid for every hour worked. Assigned time allowances do not reflect the reality of teaching. As a result, teachers have to work many unpaid hours.
3) Hourly-paid teachers must be paid at consistent and fair rates. Some departments pay different rates for different tasks within the same job, despite them being interconnected and requiring the same skill level. To recognise the level of skill involved in the teaching delivered, we demand a pay rate of at least FA5 for all tasks.
4) There must be pay harmony across departments. At the moment pay rates vary across departments; we demand equal pay for equal work across departments.
5) Compulsory teaching as a condition for scholarships must be abolished. Teaching bursaries are exploitative because they basically require PhD students to work for free. Not only do these arrangements make it hard for postgraduate researchers to meet their actual living costs, but they are also not conducive to the long-term quality of teaching.
6) Hourly-paid teachers should be paid for the hours they spend undertaking teaching-related training. This should include all hours needed to achieve affiliate Higher Education Academy (HEA) status.