What is a zero-hours contract?

A rise in the use of zero-hours contract is one symptom of rising casualisation in higher education, which is one of the targets of the current strike. Zero-hours contracts are a type of employment contract where the employer is not required to offer a minimum number of hours to the worker (note that people employed on zero-hours contracts are not legally considered employees, but merely workers), and the worker is not required to work a minimum number of hours. Zero-hours contracts can be useful when flexibility is required or desired on both sides of the employer-worker relationship, such as when a student wants to pick up a few hours here and there working at a shop during their busy periods, or a stay-at-home parent wants to earn a bit of extra money doing the filing for an office that sometimes gets behind.

Zero-hours contracts are clearly not suitable for work that has fixed hours, and where the worker can't say no to the hours offered. It may therefore come as a surprise to you to learn that most of your PGTAs and some of your lecturers are employed on zero-hours contracts. Despite the fact that teaching hours are fixed, and a TA or lecturer can't just decide to take a week off, decisions made at various levels of UCL have led to a situation where zero-hours contracts are often the easiest way for departments to employ non-permanent teaching staff like PGTAs and sabbatical cover. Many of these people teach for several years, but nonetheless don't have any job security or access to the benefits that people formally employed at UCL enjoy. That's why UCU is asking universities to stamp out zero-hours and other casual contracts.

You can read about the laws around zero-hours contracts here.

For personal stories of people affected by casualisation, see some of the posts on this blog (you can filter them using labels), as well as the following news stories:

Temporary work at £9 an hour. No wonder lecturers are balloting to strike The Guardian

University lecturers 'anxious' over casual contracts, union says BBC

Universities accused of 'importing Sports Direct model' for lecturers' pay The Guardian

This report from Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation:

‘I am a single mum. I don't feel like I can be as competitive as other people’: experiences of precariously employed staff at UK universities

And this report on the issue from the University and College Union:

Counting the costs of casualisation in higher education UCU