Western Sydney U announces 60 new continuing academics as part of its program to reduce its reliance on short-term teaching staff.
They join 100 staff, appointed in 2023 and ’24. These are positions with the full research rights necessary to build academic careers and take people off the time-eating treadmill of teaching-only positions. Their presence significantly changes the WSU staffing profile, by reducing the role of continuing casuals, employed on Semester-long contracts with no research time.
The program was negotiated by previous Vice-Chancellor Barney Glover and David Burchell, long-serving president of the university branch of the National Tertiary Education Union in the context of the 454 academic casuals then on WSU’s books.
The WSU deal was especially extraordinary for the collegial approach to funding new continuing positions. WSU staff accepted a (slightly) lower payrise under the-then being negotiated enterprise agreement.
The University moved at the peak of a sector-wide controversy over the treatment of what came to be called the academic “precariat,” focusing on employment insecurity and particularly pay with revelations of casual teachers not being paid agreement-specified rates for particular tasks in teaching, marking and student support. The Fair Work Ombudsman has acted against universities for years in relation to these issues and there are still cases in the courts.
WSU was joined in 2022 by Australian Catholic U, which committed to creating 85 new academic positions with priority for existing sessionals.
However, not all managements are willing to abandon the flexibility of teaching staff who do not have research time or on-costs. And winners with continuing jobs means people lose work.
“The push to end casualisation of a small part of the university workforce that was claimed to provide ‘secure employment’ has in fact led to fewer jobs and disenfranchised people who like the flexibility of casual work,” Craig Laughton from the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association said.