Building an inclusive post-COVID higher education sector

Dr Audrey Statham, Deakin University

Deakin University Vice-Chancellor Professor Iain Martin’s announcement on 25 May of 400 job losses launched the Major Workplace Change (MWC) consultation process now underway at the universitywide level at Deakin. However, this figure did not enumerate the casualised, sessional and fixed term staff – numbering around 2,500 according to Deakin staffing data – whose jobs were cut in Trimester 1 or those casualised and fixed term employees who have significantly less work or have not been engaged at all in Trimester 2 at Deakin.

The Vice-Chancellor’s omission conveyed the message to staff that the mass job losses sustained by Deakin insecure workers weren’t considered by University leadership to be worth even mentioning.

That such an omission is not limited to just one university but is, rather, right now a sector-wide phenomenon was highlighted recently by an article in Times Higher Education, ‘Some staff are more equal than others’ (July 20). The article observed, ‘Somehow, the loss of casual and fixed term staff doesn’t elicit the same degree of pain – or precision’ on the part of Australian university managements as is evoked when announcing job losses among permanent staff.

The stark difference between the treatment of ongoing staff and insecure workers by managements as part of the Australian higher education sector’s response to COVID-19, is well illustrated by the article’s grim but apt analogy: ‘permanent staff are dispatched with full military honours while their casual and fixed term comrades wind up in mass unmarked graves.’ Of university managements’ attitude towards insecure workers, one NTEU Branch President interviewed in the article observed: ‘[they’re] just not seen as real workers.’

Image: Pxhere

"...the work of insecure university workers... does matter: it mattered in the past, it matters now, and it will most likely matter even more next year and into the future when we begin to navigate a post-COVID environment.

Insecure university workers: essential not ‘not real’

The sense that casualised and sessional staff job cuts don’t count or aren’t real is now being reinforced at Deakin by a MWC process that excludes casual employees from its terms and frame of reference, further compounding our feeling of being unseen, undervalued and disposable. Despite the University’s arbitrary figure and the exclusionary MWC process, the reality is that the work of insecure university workers at Deakin – and the Australian higher education sector as a whole – does matter: it mattered in the past, it matters now, and it will most likely matter even more next year and into the future when we begin to navigate a post-COVID environment.

The bulk of teaching, student support and research assistance at Australian universities, including Deakin, has long been carried out by sessional academics, casual professional, casual research and fixed term staff. Before COVID-19, insecure workers made up more than half of the Deakin workforce with around 6000 casual and fixed term staff employed by the University, 66% of whom are women. During the COVID-19 epidemic, the sectorwide shift from face-to-face to online teaching and student support would not have been possible without the work (often involving many hours of additional unpaid work) of casual, sessional and fixed term staff who helped to facilitate the transition.

The increase of domestic student applications at Deakin was confirmed recently at the meeting of Academic Board on 5 August, which suggests that next year Deakin and other universities will most likely need to rely again on sessional, casualised and fixed term staff. However, Australian universities currently engaged in culling insecure workers should not be surprised if those casual, sessionals and fixed term staff whose jobs were cut this year, are no longer available to work in the higher education sector next year. In the current issue of Advocate, former Deakin fixed term staff member, Dash Jayasuriya, describes how her job at Deakin was cut during COVID and explains why she’s decided to leave the sector after 6 years.

If the sector is to have any hope of effectively carrying out its vital role in rebuilding Australian society and the economy post-COVID through educating the new influx of domestic students, researching, and creating community connections, then there is an urgent need now – as university managements around the country launch Major Work Place Change processes which exclude casualised staff from their terms of reference – for our union to hold university managements to account for the brutal and short-sighted treatment they are currently meting out to insecure workers.

To this end, the NTEU Deakin Casuals Action Network submitted feedback to Deakin’s MWC process calling on the University to implement transparent employment practices regarding the ceasing of employment of insecure workers and the re-engagement of precariously employed staff, starting at the faculty and school-level.

What kind of post-COVID Australian higher education sector?

In Vice-Chancellor Iain Martin’s 27 March email to staff in which he identified the ‘principles’ for Faculty Executives to use when determining whether to retain or cease the employment of casual professional and research staff as part of Deakin’s response to COVID-19, Prof Martin said: ‘Our University is going to look different next year as we meet this challenge. We must begin to act now to help this transition. Many of the things that we will be asking will not be easy, but I can assure you that none of the decisions will be taken lightly’.

The kind of university that Deakin and other universities become over the next 12-18 months depends to a significant extent on the decisions now being made in relation to the employment of insecure workers, which will greatly shape the kind of higher education sector that will emerge post-COVID. A ‘better’ kind of Australian university system must necessarily be one in which insecure workers are seen as ‘real workers’ by management and are securely employed.

One way our union can begin to act now to help such a transition towards a better, inclusive higher education system, and defend against the emergence of one that is much worse, is by calling on university managements to implement transparent practices for employment of insecure staff such as the following steps identified by the NTEU Deakin Casuals Action Network in our feedback to the Deakin MWC.

NTEU Deakin Casuals Action Network calls on the University to undertake the following steps:

1. Keep a record and generate monthly reports of all casual staff who lost work in

Trimester 1, and those casual employees who had a reasonable expectation of work (i.e. have been employed on a regular basis across Trimesters 1 and 2 for more than one year) but have no work at all in Trimester 2.

2. Direct the relevant members of Faculty Executives to make an explicit commitment to re-employ recently employed casuals rather than make new external appointments. This is in line with the indication given by the Vice-Chancellor in a meeting with the NTEU Deakin Branch Executive and the Deakin Branch Casual-identified committee member on 28 April, that the University can give preference to any non-ongoing staff who were cut during the COVID-19 pandemic, when engaging staff for these roles in the future when the work is required to be done and the casual employee had a reasonable expectation of work (as defined in Step 1).

3. Direct the relevant members of Faculty Executives to make an explicit commitment to identify and action measures for keeping casual staff in employment, for example by re-directing affected staff to other work that is required to be done within and across Faculties. This other work should include duties in which the casual employee has competence to complete, not restricted to duties they have experience in specifically.

4. Direct the relevant members of Faculty Executives to send – where it is not possible to keep casual staff in work – an official communication expressing appreciation for the casual employees’ important contribution and outlining the possibility of future re-engagement in a timely manner from HR and/or Deans and Heads of Schools and Faculties.

5. Direct the relevant members of Faculty Executives to make an explicit commitment – where it is not possible to keep casual staff in employment – to keep affected staff connected to the Deakin systems and community through ongoing provision of access to emails, Cloud, Deakin Library and ongoing affiliation as Visiting Scholars. This will enable continuity of contact between teams and continuity of employment when campuses are re-opened by ensuring casualised and sessional staff retain their inboxes, contact list, and other connections to their colleagues and the University.

6. Direct the relevant members of Faculty Executives to make an explicit commitment in Faculty and/or School policy to consult casual staff and include them on a regular, ongoing basis in discussions around planning and delivery in the online environment in Trimesters 2 and 3. This should involve email newsletters, other forms of direct communication specifically targeted at and for casual staff, regularly scheduled online meetings, and casuals and sessionals should be paid for their time.