The University of Brighton has refused to extend the contracts of teaching staff on atypical fixed-term contracts, effectively sacking some of its most vulnerable workers during a period of unprecedented crisis. While management have consistently offered platitudes and expressions of concern to their employees, they have failed to put their money where their mouth is and actually look after the wellbeing of those affected.
These workers, some of whom were on hourly-paid contracts and some of whom were on fixed-term lecturing contracts, will be left without any income or means of subsistence once these arrangements come to an end over the coming weeks. The formal mechanisms for extending these contracts or for challenging the decision not to end them, such as face-to-face meetings with line managers, are impossible because of the ongoing closure of the university.
Brighton Education Workers are demanding that all fixed-term contracts be extended until at least August 31st, and that hourly-paid contracts be converted into fixed-term contracts, also running until at least August 31st. This would represent a real commitment to taking care of the university’s staff members throughout the ongoing disruption to their everyday lives caused by Covid-19.
We will be undertaking a public campaign to support workers in this situation across the university’s various departments, and to demand that the University of Brighton lives up to its rhetoric and commits to keeping precarious staff in work until at least the end of the summer.
Given the lack of clarity about the ongoing situation in the UK and the uncertain future this has produced for many people, such a commitment seems like the least the university’s senior management team can offer their staff.
Do you work at the University of Brighton and are you on a fixed-term or hourly paid contract? Get in touch with us at education@brightonsolfed.org.uk
