In October 2023, Oxford University and College Union (UCU) published a report on the effects of casualisation at the University. They found over 66% of academics employed by Oxford University are on fixed-term contracts. Similarly, Cambridge’s UCU branch found that 69% of research staff were working on fixed-term contracts, with 13% on contracts lasting 12 months or less, as noted here. For comparison, the national average for UK universities is ~33% on fixed-term contracts.
The Fixed Term Employee (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (2002) states that, after four continuous years of service on a fixed-term contract, an employee is generally entitled to a permanent contract unless the employer can show a valid reason to continue the fixed-term arrangement. Specifically, the Regulations say that if
(a) the employee has been continuously employed under the contract or under that contract taken with the previous fixed term contract, for a period of 4 years or more, and
(b) the employment of the employee under a fixed term contract was not justified on objective grounds …
then an employee who considers they are a permanent employee can then make an Application to an Employment Tribunal for a declaration to that affect.
Continuation of the fixed term contract can be justified only if: “(a) it responds to a genuine need; (b) it is appropriate for achieving the objective pursued; and (c) it is necessary for the purpose.”
How does this legislation affect the rights of postdocs and fixed-term workers in Universities?
This week has seen the publication of an important judgment, namely Dr Kearn Grisdale versus Oxford University, available here. Dr Grisdale has been employed at Oxford’s Department of Astrophysics since 18 October 2017 under a series of Fixed Term Contracts which have been exclusively funded by external Research Grants. He argued at Employment Tribunal that Oxford was obliged to offer him a permanent contract under the terms of the Fixed Term Employee Regulations (2002).
He lost the case.
The case turned on whether the fixed term contract responded to a genuine need.
The Tribunal reminds itself the test is whether there is a genuine need and it is clearly not for the Tribunal to assess whether the need is reasonable. The Tribunal has not therefore undertaken a detailed analysis of the rights and wrongs of how the Respondent [Oxford University] organises its finance and uses the funds available to it. The Tribunal concluded that use of successive contracts was appropriate and reasonably necessary for the specific purpose of responding to the needs identified.
The 21 Group is baffled by the reasoning. The judge has argued that the need to use a fixed term contract may simultaneously be “genuine“, but it also need not be “reasonable“.
Oxford has an annual net profit of £130 million plus £5 billion in liquidable assets. They clearly have the funds, they just choose not to spend them on offering postdocs permanent contracts. The very point at issue is the “the rights and wrongs” of how Oxford uses its funds.
The problem with the system is that the risk is entirely borne by the postdocs. Universities take the benefits but completely absolve themselves of the risk or responsibility of employing researchers longer than the project grants with which they are associated. Universities won’t update the fixed-term contract system — or even ameliorate its very worst features — despite simultaneously and insincerely insisting on their commitment to diversity and inclusion or treating staff fairly and respectfully.
The Fixed Term Employee (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations does still have some benefits for postdocs. Those employed on fixed-term contracts must be treated equally to permanent staff as regards terms and conditions of employment (e.g., pay, holidays, access to research funding, career development opportunities, office space, computer support, travel money). They cannot be excluded or treated differently just because they have a fixed-term contract.
The 21 Group doubts whether this is the case in practice, especially in such hierarchical places as Oxbridge. For example, a departmental office policy in which postdocs are hot-desking, while permanent staff have single offices would seem to break the legislation. Similarly, restrictions on the right of postdocs to act as primary supervisors of graduate students or to apply for grants as Principal Investigators would also seem to contravene the legislation.
7 Comments
Eileen Nugent · 6 March 2025 at 12:06
Employment law is mostly irrelevant. It’s the behaviour of the employer in relation to an individual’s role class that determines the quality of your employment and not the prevailing employment laws. Universities in the UK have little to no respect for employment law in any case, none of which is legally enforceable because an unfair dismissal cannot be reversed as reinstatement/re-engagement orders are not legally binding in the UK. This statutory instrument – The Fixed Term Employee (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (2002) – is completely unenforceable, it is legal junk, it has been instrument of mental torture for many a worker that assumes it gives them solid protection from an abusive employer when as this case shows it gives them no protection from abusive employers at all. One Employment tribunal will make one decision one day and another employment tribunal will make a complete different decision on the exact same set of facts another day. EAT (appeals part) when reviewing multiple decisions will say, “that’s the way life is”, “natural variation” i.e. ETs are a justice lottery.
Universities are unnecessarily stressing all their frontline knowledge worker for years – decades, they are losing organisational productivity and damaging the health of individuals who they put in these “stress holds” for years to decades. An employment law patch i.e. piece of junk employment legislation that is not compatible with the rest of the system, does very little to fix the real problems with the employment. Look at what happened during COVID, Oxford University wouldn’t even put the researchers refining the COVID vaccine in better working conditions to reduce the stress of that intense situation for them and reduce the probability of them making errors in the lab. Plenty of deeply Irrational decision continuously making on display in universities. The key to a better life is to find a rational employer, rational employers behave themselves in relation to all role classes and don’t continuously and needlessly mangle the minds of all their frontline knowledge workers with negligent employment practices (unnecessary stress) and irrational decision (unnecessary stress) culminating in an employment tribunal (lots of unnecessary stress) where the judge might not even recognise the existence of a single human right and likely wouldn’t notice if they were the one who was actively contributing to an ongoing human rights breach.
“The Tribunal reminds itself the test is whether there is a genuine need and it is clearly not for the Tribunal to assess whether the need is reasonable. The Tribunal has not therefore undertaken a detailed analysis of the rights and wrongs of how the Respondent [Oxford University] organises its finance and uses the funds available to it. The Tribunal concluded that use of successive contracts was appropriate and reasonably necessary for the specific purpose of responding to the needs identified.”
The workers remind the tribunal system that workers have also identified needs that need to be responded to, health that needs to be maintained, individuals (including children) that need to be housed in stable accommodation conditions, mortgages that need to to got to protect individuals from landlords continuously serving them no fault eviction notices, food that needs to be put on the table. These needs are more fundamental than the needs that these employment judges are superficially considering with their low quality judgements on these issues. The University of Oxford also has needs that were not addressed the judgment – the need improve the working conditions for its frontline knowledge workers to reduce unnecessary stress and to endure it conducts its medical research with as few errors as possible so that the cures it produces are actual cures and not just new diseases.
This judgement from the ET is short-sighted, irrational and fundamentally flawed. It’s what you would expect from the employment tribunal system, it’s one big engine for driving the continuous waste of societal resources. Universities are continuously dumping all their unsolved internal problems into this employment system thinking that this is going to magically fix all their unsolved internal problems and yet all the unsolved internal problems remain in universities, still there, still unsolved, lurking there for the next person to fall into the exact same internal problem, the next employment tribunal case, the next waste of outstanding intellectual talent and other societal resources.
Eileen Nugent · 6 March 2025 at 12:27
These light bulbs seem to have blown, must be a problem with the light bulbs, let’s replace them and leave all the power surges in place, that will fix the problem. Get in some fresh new light bulbs ready to be blown.
These individuals have broken down, must be a problem with the individuals, let’s fire them (through an ET if necessary) and leave all the unregulated organisational work-related stress (e.g. excessive use of short duration fixed-term contracts) that has the potential to generate work-related stress surges (e.g. COVID, major external organisational stressor, hiring freeze – no next career move with the continuous threat of a contract ending in very soon – continuous cycle of threat and reprieve on a three month timescale over many cycles – left years in this state) for particular individuals in place. Get in some fresh new individuals ready to be broken down.
Eileen Nugent · 6 March 2025 at 12:37
Universities can break an entire generation of individuals with their broken processes, they will be the last ones they break. Others don’t have to enter into their irrational systems full of broken processes.
Eileen Nugent · 6 March 2025 at 13:57
Note the statements above should not be taken to imply that Oxford University does not produce robust cures for diseases, it does do so, but It could produce robust cures for diseases at a higher rate and increase the rate of impactful academic output in all its other knowledge domains if it improved its working conditions instead of wasting all its time in employment tribunals in a continuous state of denial about there being problem. Frontline knowledge workers have left Oxford University because they didn’t want to die in their unsafe working conditions – there seem to be no organisational work-related stress safeguards in place to prevent a work-related stress death there.
If Oxford University wants to take legal action against one of its alumni for making these statements, then legal action away. I will go to jail and I will stay there for as long as it takes for the jail to serve me a no-fault eviction notice to make way for the next occupant of that jail cell who poses a higher risk to society. I will ignore universities and any junk legal actions in relation to this specific issue for as long as it takes.
Juvenal · 6 March 2025 at 15:08
Postdocs should be able to act as supervisors of graduate students and should be able to apply for grants as PIs themselves.
Very often, they do this anyhow, but don’t get any acknowledgement or paid.
Eileen Nugent · 6 March 2025 at 18:57
A system where Postdocs and graduate students are assigned independent funding when they enter into the organisation and then have some flexibility to move between PIs within the a bigger departmental structure might work better than the current system. A system where postdocs are given the opportunity to act up i.e. where they can apply for grants as a PI and attract other postdocs and graduate students already accepted into the organisation to try to nucleate a new group within a bigger departmental structure might also work. If the postdoc-PI transition works out and a new well functioning group is nucleated the departmental structure might then decide to keep it or it might support the functioning group to transition to another organisation in a controlled manner that maximises the probability of it staying a functioning group throughout the transition. If the postdoc-PI transition doesn’t work out and a well functioning group cannot be created [for whatever reason] rather than the PI being pushed out of the academia in an uncontrolled exit, something that has an impact on their whole group, the bigger departmental structure could reabsorb the group and the individual trying to make the transition to PI could return to being a postdoc. Anyone in the system could opt for a role/career transition pathway at any time to effect a controlled exit from academia. Still opportunities to try to do something challenging but with some safety nets.
DestroyingAngel · 7 March 2025 at 07:47
Put simply, postdocs do the work. They’re the motor that drives the research of any university. Without them, a university’s research ranking will collapse.
They are (in Cambridge) one of the most unhappy segments of the community. Unlike grad students, they rarely benefit from Colleges, particularly the cheaper accommodation offered by Colleges. University accommodation (like West or Eddington) is restricted in scope, and all maintenance is outsourced with catastrophic results. So, postdocs often have to find accommodation in the private sector in a very expensive city. Salaries are lowish and rent sucks up a large proportion of salary (ditto London, Oxford, Boston, California, NY).
Some departments don’t even offer proper office space. There is an increasing tendency to offer hot-desking to postdocs as the university wants to slim down its estate.
Work-life balance is awful. There must be one outcome of a postdoc – publications, and lots and lots of them. Otherwise, there is no next job. That means ultimately long, long hours in the lab or the department or the library or whatever. Something needs to lead to multiple publications in a short period of time (1–2 years typically). This puts enormous pressure on postdocs. And now there are very few university jobs anywhere, and this is likely to be the case for the next decade.
Postdocs must be always networking (initiating collaborations, helping graduate students, going to conferences and writing grant proposals) and most importantly, applying for jobs whenever they become available. And in Cambridge, a lot of postdocs end up helping out in lecturing, supervising Masters students & giving supervisions. They do this for little money, usually persuaded by someone that it will help their prospects of getting a next job (not really).
So, they are the most miserable section of the university.