The ‘Uberisation’ Of Teaching Contracts
The gig economy is a growing sector in the UK, involving jobs such as courier services, tutoring, and consulting. Since 2016, the size of the gig economy has increased rapidly, doubling between 2016 and 2019 from 2.3 million to 4.7 million. A gig economy is characterized by the use of short-term contracts and casualised work in comparison to fixed, long-term contracts. The term ‘gig’, initially used to define informal live performances by musicians, has bled over to the teaching industry and resulted in employment disputes as the prevalence of short-term contracts has increased.
This type of employment has attracted a large number of individuals into the economy, specifically after the pandemic as the younger demographic entered the job market, with a 7% increase in deliveries and online gig work during the pandemic. This type of employment is pursued by some due to its increased flexibility, independence, and personal satisfaction due to its ease of entry,and offers a plethora of options. Furthermore, it is also pursued as a side job to supplement income or as an alternative while seeking a more stable job, due to the increased uncertainty and redundancies following the pandemic. However, the disadvantage of this flexibility is unstable income levels, job insecurity, a lack of work and healthcare benefits, and no workplace rights. Thus, gig economy workers are often left unprotected and lack basic employment rights, leaving them susceptible to abuses of power by higher education institutes.
While these short-term contracts are more concerned with courier or freelance services, this area has extended to higher education where teaching professionals are suffering the consequences of a move to a hyper-casualised economy. Two academics at Oxford University are suing for being employed as gig workers, as opposed to being classified as employees. For 15 years, they have been employed on fixed-term ‘personal services’, and this misclassification has led to the violation of several workplace rights and exploitation of their services. Low pay, insecure contracts, and improper conditions are problems faced across the teaching space in higher education institutes, which have led to a series of strikes in order to gain union recognition and workers’ rights. This has stemmed from an array of factors, including a 35% cut to guaranteed future retirement income and the use of insecure contracts.
Casualised contracts involve inconsistent work hours and overwhelming workloads, leading to an unstable income. For example, due to the lack of protection involved in these training contracts, PhD students can have their hours suddenly cut, making it difficult to make ends meet because of the low wages provided. Many PhD students take up teaching undergraduate supervision and tutorials to develop teaching experience and supplement their income to continue their research, however, the instability and poor conditions negatively impact their research and lifestyle. This issue is also prevalent at some Cambridge colleges, where supervisors are forced to work 75-hour work weeks to teach only 25 hours of supervision a week, and this points to the fact that those studying for a PhD are some of the most exploited workers in universities. There is no recognition or compensation for this effort, as minimal income is earned and no pension is accrued.
A report by the Joint Committee of Experts of UNESCO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) highlighted that the expansion of casualised contracts is correlated with a decrease in academic freedom, affecting the quality of teaching and research in higher education institutes. It also illustrates how this issue has been exacerbated by the pandemic; this period exemplified the important role of teachers, but also significantly impacted their workload and well-being. The report stated that while the public perception of teaching had become more positive and recognized, “there had been little change in their material conditions and system-wide conditions are failing to attract a new generation of educators to the profession.” This has resulted in teaching becoming an unattractive profession, with 48% of respondents agreeing with this statement.
It is an indisputable fact that teachers and educators are key figures in educational and social transformation, however, according to the International Commission they “remain under-recognized, underappreciated, underpaid and inadequately supported.” Therefore, efforts must be made to bridge this gap and provide an improved support system in this field, reversing the bureaucratic and top-down nature of higher education institutions.
