A top London art school has been found to be using the same unfair employment conditions as Uber, the ride-hailing app. A group of academics who teach the lucrative short courses for Goldsmiths College, University of London, which range from art history to short story writing, have successfully taken the institution to an employment tribunal.
The short-course lecturers are now entitled to certain employment rights, including being paid at least the National Minimum Wage, the right to union representation, protection against unlawful deductions from wages, paid holiday and protection against unlawful discrimination.
As ‘independent contractors’, the lecturers were paid £55 per hour to teach short courses. They were only paid for teaching hours and not for hours spent in course preparation or student support. They did not receive holiday pay and absences were unpaid. However, despite this freelance-like relationship, if they took more than a two-week break, their services would be terminated.
The claimants pointed to a recent victory by Uber drivers who were awarded worker status at the Supreme Court earlier this year.
With this precedent in mind, Goldsmiths capitulated after months of protest.
In a statement Neda Genova, who taught a short course in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths for two years, said that she hopes the victory will set a precedent for staff battles at other higher education establishments. ‘I am glad that our decision to escalate the fight to an employment tribunal forced Goldsmiths to make a U-turn and start issuing contracts. However, we will not stop scrutinizing the actual working conditions of short course lecturers and work closely with the union branch to bring the terms in line with those of other staff in the College. Above all, I hope that our success will prompt other academics working under exploitative conditions to challenge the legality of their contracts and agreement letters. We have a very clear tendency for an ‘uberification’ of universities, which needs to be challenged collectively.’
In a statement sent to ArtReview, a spokesperson for Goldsmiths said: ‘We have agreed to settle claims with three short course tutors giving them ‘worker’ status. They join all other short course tutors at Goldsmiths who received new contracts in September 2021 that formally recognise them as ‘workers’ and see them earn more than £56 an hour, which includes preparation time and holiday earnings. This compares favourably with other providers of non-accredited courses such as these.’
