Latest news for the GTA Campaign
You can join UCU for free if you are a GTA: https://www.ucu.org.uk/join
1 October 2024
Wins in Archaeology and Adam Smith Business School
After university management published new guidance over the summer concerning postgraduate students who teach, many departments scrambled to implement new rules on a host of issues pertaining to GTAs ahead of the new academic year. One of the more pernicious changes among these was a cut to prep time.
Under this new guidance, many departments across the university are abolishing repeat prep time pay, amounting to a pay cut for many of our members – performing the same work as last year, but for less pay.
However, in departments where GTAs have raised these concerns, we have been able to push back on these cuts. In Archaeology, despite a bizarre and confrontational stance adopted by the department, including the sending of a guidance document to GTAs informing them of being moved onto zero-hour contracts, and asking GTAs to reapply for jobs which they were already in, we have been able to push back on these proposed cuts. The department has now abandoned plans to cut prep time, and has reverted to the standard which was applied in the previous year.
Similarly, in the Adam Smith Business School, a complete abolition of repeat prep time was put forward ahead of the new academic year. After talks with management between the union and ASBS, repeat prep time pay has been restored.
This shows the bullish attitude of university management is more than ready to capitulate when union members organise and make their voices heard! We encourage any member in departments where prep time pay has been cut to contact us so we can support you in pushing back on these needless and punitive cuts to our pay and conditions.
18 September 2024
GTA Launch Event
Many thanks to so many of our colleagues for attending the launch of our GTA Campaign on Secure Pay, Fair Pay, and Equal pay, and for making it such an energetic event where members were so empassioned in voicing their frustration at University management’s devaluation of our work!
At the event we heard from GTAs dismayed at being forced to implicate themselves in the evisceration of pedagogical standards in their departments, having been offered indefensibly small amounts of time to prepare. We heard from distressed GTAs whose take home pay has been cut leading them further into financial precarity as self-funded PhD students. We also heard from more senior members of teaching staff standing alongside us as they vented their frustrations at having their own workloads increased without compensation at the cost of hours being afforded to GTAs.
We discussed plans to better collate data on GTA pay and conditions across the university, particularly regarding prep time, and making this information accessible to members. We discussed where key areas are to fight on in improving our pay and conditions, such as the introduction of a much more unified and realistic standard of prep time across the university. Importantly, we also discussed the steps of getting our demands out and engaging with GTAs to mobilise our membership and our colleagues.
On this point, we encourage anyone who wants to be involved in the fight for improvement of our work conditions, Secure pay, Fair pay, and Equal pay, to join in fellow members who have already put their names to sign ups sheets for a door-knocking session on October 2nd at 1pm meeting at the union offices on campus, and for leafleting the university’s open day on the 26th.
After years of good faith engagement with management, the time has come for us to militantly organise and fight for the pay and conditions we deserve as a crucial part of university staff. Here’s to a year of engaging our membership, supporting one another as colleagues, and winning the compensation due to us as dedicated teachers at this university!
In solidarity,
The UCUG Anti-Casualisation Committee
4 September 2024
Please join us on Wednesday 18 September at 12 noon – 1pm in the Zoology Museum (back of the Graham Kerr Building) for the launch of our GTA Campaign: Fair Pay, Equal Pay, Secure Pay.
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are the future of the Higher Education yet are consistently over-worked, underpaid and undervalued across the sector. At Glasgow our GTA members have flagged the high levels of unpaid work they are expected to undertake alongside the inconsistent pay across the university – with GTAs in some Schools paid substantially less than GTAs in other Schools for the same work. UCUG has engaged with management in good faith for several years to progress GTA pay and conditions to no avail. We say enough is enough.
As we launch this campaign, cuts to GTA pay and conditions for the coming academic year have been announced in several Schools within Glasgow University. This is a shocking attack on those who were already our most insecure colleagues. We will fight these cuts as well as for an improvement in conditions for all GTAs. Please come along and join us.
