Legal Fund: Short Course Tutors Vs Goldsmiths

www.sctutors-case.uk 

21/06

UPDATE (from £2,380 raised)

The Laura Kinsella Foundation has generously pledged to match the next £5,000 of donations that we receive, so that the next £5,000 of donations from supporters will be doubled to £10,000.

This means for every £1 you donate they will match this!!

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Who are we?

 
Short Course Lecturers at Goldsmiths are precarious members of staff (PhD scholars, early-career academics, workers in the creative industries), who make a living by teaching non-accredited evening and weekend courses open to participants from any professional area. As other lecturers, we teach  in media and cultural studies, creative writing, anthropology, history or politics, yet unlike others, we aren't even considered as workers by the university. This is what we are now challenging in court by following the example of Uber drivers  who won the legal case for recognition of their worker status. We, too, are challenging the fact that Goldsmiths University of London is failing to grant us with even minimal employment rights.

The situation so far

Instead of being recognised as workers or employees of the university, Short Course Lecturers are treated as self-employed (‘independent contractors’). This means that Goldsmiths refuses to negotiate with the recognised trade union on campus on our behalf, despite repeated requests by Goldsmiths' branch of the UCU. It also refuses Short Course lecturers holiday or sick pay , payment for teaching preparation or for conducting additional administrative duties - all of which other academic members of staff benefit from. Goldsmiths also has full control over courses' cancellation and arbitrarily changes aspects of our terms of engagement without any consultation (for example, in December a new rule for minimum recruitment was introduced, which meant that a range of short courses were cancelled with no warning, thus exacerbating an already very difficult financial situation for many of us).

Many of the Tutors who teach Short Courses at Goldsmiths have been running their classes for years, making money for the university, yet not receiving recognition for their work in the form of adequate payment or a minimal job security.

What are we doing?

We have instructed a solicitor from Leigh Day (the law firm which successfully worked with Uber drivers in their case) to support us in bringing Goldsmiths to an employment tribunal. We are confident that we have a strong and winnable case, and now need to raise funds to cover the legal fees that we will incur in the months, perhaps even years, ahead.

We need your support: please contribute and share this page now!

What are we trying to achieve?

If we win this case (and we are sure as hell that we will!), this success has the potential of becoming a landmark case for the higher education sector in the UK. Increasingly relying on precarious staff on fractional, fixed-term contracts to deliver teaching, universities are now going a step further by refusing to issue contracts to teaching staff. We need to stop such practices before they become the norm for the entirety of an already decimated sector subjected to permanent cuts and restructuring.

The good news

We are not alone - Short Course Lecturers at University of the Arts London are also bringing their employer to court in an attempt to establish their employment status. Our two cases are about something more, but a few lecturers going to a tribunal - they have the potential to instigate a conversation and structural change in the employment practices of higher education institutions.

What is the next step in the case?

Three claims have been sent to the South London Employment Tribunal, which already contacted the Respondent and notified it of our action. Goldsmiths has now until July 1st to submit its Grounds For Resistance (its initial response).

How much are we raising and why?

Our initial target is £20,000 as these are the costs that we will likely have to pay over the summer for the processing of our claims (3 existing claims, which we hope to be processed together by the employment tribunal, plus those of any potential eligible joiners). We also need these funds to cover the fees for instructing Counsel to attend 3 days of preliminary hearings at an employment tribunal, and other legal fees that may well accumulate during a protracted legal battle.

We would be grateful for any donation!

Please contribute to our fundraiser and share it in your networks to help us fight Goldsmiths’ damaging employment practices!

Thank you for Helping Short Course Tutors Fighting for Better Working Conditions!