On 15 December 2022, Goldsmiths UCU officers sent the following statement to Goldsmiths Senior Management Team on behalf of casualised staff at Goldsmiths.
We are casualised academics working across Goldsmiths writing in response to the recent unauthorised deduction of wages of Associate Lecturers and Graduate Trainee Tutors. Right now, during a national cost of living crisis, many of us are going into the holiday period unsure whether we will be paid in full for a teaching term. To date, and following endless, distressing exchanges with College management, many of us have only received a 60% advance on previously withheld wages, and have been asked to trust that the College will pay salaries in full in the December pay period. This is after up to 50 members of staff were without pay for two months.
Legally, this is classed as an unauthorised deduction from wages and is a breach of contract. This should have been rectified as soon as the employer was made aware of the issue. Instead, Goldsmiths management has shown a complete lack of urgency in its response to this situation, refusing on countless occasions to (a) alert all staff of the situation, (b) provide clear channels for all staff affected to be paid and compensated, and (c) issue a public apology (rather than the meager, delayed apology on the staff intranet, which most of us cannot access).
We all depend on our income from teaching to get by, and many of us now find ourselves in a state of financial disarray. Many of us have gone into arrears, are unable to pay bills and have sought loans from family members and friends. The threats to our physical and mental wellbeing are very real and are exacerbated by the current cost of living crisis. It is entirely unacceptable that the most vulnerable teaching staff at Goldsmiths have been thrown into such a distressing situation at this time.
Many of us already feel marginalised in the university because our employment status distances us from departmental processes that shape our working conditions. We are paid the least and our terms and conditions are the worst. But we work tirelessly and passionately for this institution and care a great deal about the learning conditions of our students. Indeed, it is students and casualised staff working together that make up the core teaching activities that take place in the university.
Yet it is precarious staff and students that have been disproportionately impacted by the chaos of the ill-conceived professional services restructure – from the major administrative errors in the processing of grades, delayed timetables, dysfunctional attendance technology, and now the non-payment of wages. This is a direct reflection of how casualisation disenfranchises and harms both precarious academic staff and students. We live with the insecurities which allow the university to maintain its financial flexibility – the least the university can do is pay us on time when we do our job.
This treatment shows a complete lack of care for casualised staff. This comes after SMT has confirmed they will not be moving ahead with the full operationalisation of the Assimilation of hourly paid Teaching and Scholarship role profile holders to the Framework Agreement [Assimilation Agreement]. Goldsmiths committed to implementing the Assimilation Agreement “in a consistent and transparent way across all departments in the College” with the oversight of GUCU reps in the resolution to the 2021 local industrial dispute. The full and proper implementation of the Assimilation Agreement has been stalled by the college since the original assimilation of hourly paid lecturers to the college pay structure in September 2013 (9 years ago!). Senior Management’s continued refusal to implement one of the only policies covering hourly paid and fractional teaching staff demonstrates how little SMT values casualised staff.
GUCU has been told that the reason the Assimilation Agreement will not be fully and immediately implemented is because HR does not have the capacity to do this work. It is not at all clear, therefore, why the Warden is talking about a new 10 year institutional strategy, when Goldsmiths does not currently have the resources to implement a key internal policy from 9 years ago. Will we have our wages in 10 years time?
We demand the following:
- We demand that the employer financially compensates all affected staff to the amount of £1000 as has been put forward by Goldsmiths UCU. We have incurred debts through the institution’s failure to pay our wages. This compensatory payment would go some of the way to address the financial, psychological and health risks that we have been exposed to as a result of prolonged non-payment of wages. Given that the college intends to issue Cost of Living payments to staff, this payment should be given the highest level of priority. This payment should be made without demanding that unpaid staff provide evidence of the hardship they are being forced to experience, and should be made immediately and without unnecessary delay.
- We demand that the employer issues a full public apology in an all-staff email which acknowledges the risks and pressures staff have been exposed to due to unauthorised wage deductions. We expect a full explanation of why this happened and the measures that have been taken to prevent this happening again.
- We demand the full and immediate implementation of the Assimilation Agreement including the fulfillment of paragraph 12. If Goldsmiths management truly wants to provide casualised employees with security, it should begin today by fulfilling the promises of its own policy and its formal agreement with GUCU and prioritise the full implementation of the Assimilation Agreement. Students deserve better teaching conditions and we deserve better working conditions.
Signed:
- Roberto Mozzachiodi, MCCS
- Marleen Boschen, Art
- Melissa Schwarz, Design
- Yari Lanci, Sociology
- Laura Montecchio, Politics and International Relations
- George Kalivis, Sociology
- Vaida Stepanovaite-Kobialka, Visual Cultures
- Giovanna Iozzi ECW
- Celine Brouillard, Psychology
- Ethan Faith, Confucius Institute
- Camilla Palestra, Visual Cultures
- Thomas Wadsworth, Sociology
- Georgia Perkins, Visual Cultures
- Teresa Facchetti, Psychology
- Tiziana Morosetti, Theatre and Performance
- Mercedes Fernandez, Visual Cultures
- Naya Polychroni, Psychology
- Tessel Janse, MCCS
- Luis Garcia, Theatre and Performance
- Hannah Brett, Psychology
- Fabiana Palladino, Music
- Vincent Pisters Møystad, MCCS
- Louise Tucker, Counselling
- Paige Isaacson, MCCS
- Deniz Ünal, Art
- Carla Ibled, Politics and International Relations
- Catherine Nugent, Anthropology
- Grace Tillyard, MCCS
- Georgios Mastorakis, Computing
- Llewelyn Fernandes, Computing
- Mohammad Fathnejad, Computing
- Avery Delany, Anthropology
- Leo Watkins, MCCS
- Leila Prasad, MCCS
- Alice Channer, Art
- Celia Redondo Pedregal, Psychology
- Francesca Telling, Art
- Larisa T. Carranza, Anthropology
- Caterina Sartori, Anthropology
- Bianca Griffani, Anthropology
- Liam Mullally, MCCS
- Kirsty Hawkins, Psychology
- Kate Pickering, Art
- Elly Clarke, Art
- Lily Ash Sakula, MCCS
- Ifor Duncan, Visual Cultures
- Zoe Walshe, Sociology
- Fanny Wendt Höjer, MCCS
- Rebecca Carson, Art
- Regan Bowering, Music/ MCCS
- Catrina Schwendener, Anthropology
- Thomas Fearon, Anthropology
- Anousheh Haghdadi, Sociology
- Louise Rondel, Sociology
- Lucy Mercer, ECW
- Sarah Charalambides, Visual Cultures
- Leila Zimmermann. Visual Cultures
- Chitra Sundaram, TaP
- Simonetta Alessandri, Theatre and Performance
- Jessica Ussher, Politics and International Relations
- Lenka Vráblíková, Department of Visual Cultures
- Jennifer Warren, MCCS
- Hannah Catherine Jones, Art
- Fred Gwatkin, Art
- Kavitha Balasingham, Art
- Natalia O’Hara, Illustration
- Linda Mortimer, Psychology
- Olaf Jubin, TaP
- Hayden Vernon, MCCS
- Dr Ray Campbell, TaP
- Dr Chiara D’Anna, TaP
- Eva Sbaraini, Art Dept
- Emma Wingfield, Visual Cultures
- John Clay, Educational Studies
- Adrian Hillman MCCS
- Michael Klontzas, MCCS
- Eric Harper MA Psychotherapy, STaCS
- Ash Reid, Art
- Alicia Suriel Melchor, Department of Visual Cultures
- Ed McKeon, Music
- Helen Omand STACS
- Jaeyoon Jeong, MCCS
- Florence Platford ECW
- Lizzy Stewart, illustration MCCS
- Tom Trevatt, PIR
- Brian Callan, STACS
- Tom Clark, Art
- Diana Georgiou, Visual Cultures
- Alicja Rogalska, Art
- Tom Percival, Visual Cultures
- Mikko Gordon, Music
- Ruth Beale, Design
- Marie-Alix Isdahl, Art
- Tomáš Kašpar, Music
- Lara Paquete Pereira, STACS
- Hwee-San Tan, Music
- Peter Coles, Sociology
- Hiya Deb, MCCS
- Marcos Ortiz, MCCS
- Beulah Lambert, STACS
- Kim Dee, STACS
- Ali Eisa, Art
- Josh Armitage, MCCS
- Jennifer Farmer, MCCS
- Tom Greenwood, MCCS
- A.Biressi MCCS
- Jedrzej Niklas, MCCS
- Kaelynn Narita, Politics and International Relations
- Kim Harding, Sociology
- Ilaria Lombardo, MCCS
- Simon Vincenzi, Theatre and Performance
- April Agustudottir, STACS
- Sola Adeyemi, Theatre and Performance
- Rhea Ebanks, Sociology
- Mojola Lawal, MCCS
- Stephanie Guirand, Sociology