Stamp Out Casual Contracts

The UCU 'Stamp Out Casual Contracts' campaign is intended to be a high profile campaign highlighting the work that UCU is undertaking in fighting casualisation in further and higher education.

UCU has a long history of fighting casualisation and demanding fair treatment for all our members and we know that campaigns against casualisation are supported by all our members - not just those who are directly affected.

Casualisation in all its forms is a blight to further and higher education bringing with it inefficiency, inequality and personal stress.

We want to change that. The aim of the campaign is to challenge casualisation, making all members aware of the issues, giving branches the materials and support they need to make a difference locally, and encouraging staff on casual contracts to join and become involved in UCU.

Life on a casual contract

The Times Higher Education has launched a weekly blog detailing the daily struggles, petty indignities and insecurities of academic life on casual contracts. The idea is to start a debate in a similar vein to the one that kicked off with their Bullied Blogger's weekly posts. The first blog in this new series can be found here.

The specific aims of the campaign are:

• to increase the use of permanent contracts for the many professional staff employed on casual contracts across further, higher and adult education
• to resist vulnerable employment, including the imposition of zero hours contracts, bogus self-employment, pay lower than that of colleagues doing comparable work, detrimental variable (minimum) hours contracts; and to seek equal treatment for agency workers
• to oppose selection for redundancy on the basis of being on a fixed-term and/or part-time contract
• to transfer hourly paid and other staff on casual contracts to full-time or fractional contracts with the same terms and conditions as permanent, full-time salaried staff
• to increase the recruitment and activism within UCU of those on casual contracts, and to encourage their voices to be heard
• to push for fair working conditions for staff on casual contracts, including photocopying facilities and desk space.

The campaign pages contain a wealth of information for branches/LAs and members to help in the fight against casualisation. We hope that you find these resources useful.

Further information about the campaign can be obtained from:

• Andrew Harden (FE) - aharden@ucu.org.uk
• Jane Thompson (HE) - jthompson@ucu.org.uk

If you are a member who has a query about any issue please contact your branch or local association in the first instance: contact details can be found here