By Mark Smulian | 5 September 2013
A row has broken out between the management of universities and staff over how widespread zero hours contracts are in the sector.
The University and College Union said institutions were twice as likely to use the controversial contracts as were other workplaces, but employers said the methodology used gave ‘very misleading’ results.
Some 145 responses to the UCU’s Freedom of Information requests showed 53% of UK universities used the contacts, rising to 61% of further education colleges in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
By comparison, it said Recruitment and Employment Confederation statistics showed only 27% of companies across all sectors did so.
Of the universities that use zero hour contracts, 46% had more than 200 staff on them and five had more than 1,000 people employed in this way.
Only one quarter of respondents said their zero hour staff currently had work, and the contracts were more prevalent for university staff involved in teaching than in research.
UCU president Simon Renton said: ‘Our findings shine a light on the murky world of casualisation in further and higher education. Their widespread use is the unacceptable underbelly of our colleges and universities.
‘Employers cannot hide behind the excuse of flexibility. This flexibility is not a two way street and, for far too many people, it is simply a case of exploitation.’
The UCU is due this Sunday to lead a debate on zero hour contracts at the TUC Congress in Bournemouth.
However, responding to the figures, a Universities and Colleges Employers Association spokesman said: ‘We do know that zero hours or other variable contracts are offered to thousands of students signed up for casual work to fit around their studies and to highly skilled professionals contributing specialist teaching on specific courses.
‘Some individuals may only contribute a few hours on a course, so using a headcount for the sector is very misleading [as] such people make up only 3.7% of the full-time equivalent higher education workforce.’
