No more one-year contracts for lecturers: four years will become the standard
The UvA wants to offer temporary lecturers from scale 10 onwards a four-year contract. This was announced by the President of the Executive Board, Geert ten Dam, during a press conference this morning. She is fed up with lecturers without research duties moving from one temporary contract to another and has announced a new policy that should be in place by this summer. “We are going to take a firm stance.”
“The advertisement published earlier this month in which the Faculty of Humanities announced that it was looking for ten to fifteen lecturers on a temporary basis has been withdrawn, because such an advertisement is contrary to the new UvA lecturer policy.” This was a strong statement made by UvA President of the Board Geert ten Dam this morning during a press conference on the UvA’s new lecturer policy. If it is up to her, this policy will be implemented at the start of the new academic year. “We are still in talks with the UvA representatives of the trade unions, but we expect that an agreement will be reached.” In the meantime, the advertisement has already led to comments in the media.
Four years
Ten Dam’s statement was a strong one, especially since these types of advertisements are usually placed under the responsibility of the dean of the faculty concerned. That will remain the case, but they must comply with the new centrally established criteria for teaching staff policy, which are currently being finalised. “The teaching policy that has been pursued in recent years is outdated and no longer appropriate,” says Ten Dam. “The UvA is one employer.” In other words: there will no longer be double standards.
The way in which lecturers without research time (job classification D4 to D1) are treated is a thorn in the side of many academics. The UvA wants to change that. From now on, they will be appointed on a 0.8 or 1.0 FTE basis and given four-year contracts. This is still temporary, but the temporary nature of the appointments will be significantly reduced. Lecturers who receive a new contract every year or two will then be a thing of the past. At D3 level or higher, a permanent contract will even be the starting point.
For the record, this does not concern lecturers in the “U line” of PhD-qualified university lecturers, but mostly non-PhD lecturers who supervise working groups and teach small groups. Ten Dam: “Lectures will remain the responsibility of PhD-qualified lecturers in the U line.”
Courses
“We are also going to invest in lecturers and professionalise them, which may also involve a PhD programme. Lecturers will also be eligible for the Basic Teaching Qualification (BKO) course and the senior variant SKO, and we will guide them in their orientation towards a possible job outside the UvA,” says ten Dam.
“At present, lecturers are often not eligible for such professional development, or they have to beg for it. Appointing people on a temporary basis and then leaving them to their own devices is really not acceptable. The attitude has been too much that we focus on the U-line, with lecturers being a sidecar for sickness and peak periods. I don’t want that anymore.” It is not expected that short-term contracts will be discontinued altogether, as it must be possible to replace a lecturer who is ill, but the UvA believes that these contracts are currently too much the rule and too little the exception, which is not how it should be.
Workload
Ten Dam also talked about task transparency and workload and the connection between them: anyone with an unclear job description or a job description that is ignored is likely to have an excessive workload. For example, a lecturer at level D3 has a coordinating role, but these tasks are regularly carried out by lecturers at level D4, who are actually only required to teach seminars. “This results in work pressure and a heavier workload. Lecturers who are required to perform tasks that are not included in their job description will be able to take their case to an internal disputes committee to rectify this.”
Ten Dam has noted that the situation at other universities is often even worse than at the UvA. “But that doesn’t mean we’re doing well, and we want to do well. We owe it to our position. We’re going to sail close to the wind.” The new lecturer policy is being implemented in close collaboration with Robert Grem, director of the UvA’s HR department, who was also present at the meeting and has a significant say in the new policy.
Strike
Lecturers with flexible contracts have been on strike for some time, demanding better working conditions. They have not marked any exams or assignments for almost two months. Action group Casual UvA, which initiated the strike, wants fewer temporary contracts to be offered and “systematic overtime and exploitation” to be tackled more effectively.
