“Unmeasured” and never-ending working hours in UK higher education: time for workers, unions and employers to reinterpret the law?

ABSTRACT

Higher Education staff in the United Kingdom (UK) work long hours to complete their duties. In a 2021 survey, staff reported a weekly average of 51 hours: a fact well understood to undermine health and educational quality. Yet, UK law sets a maximum working week of 48 hours, and failure to uphold this maximum is a criminal offence for employers. Seeking to understand this contradiction, the article reveals that staff are denied otherwise universal legal Health and Safety protection by the development and reinforcement of legal interpretation that assumes they have sufficient ‘autonomy’ to avoid overwork. As this is a position mutually constructed and accepted by both employers and unions, all efforts to reduce hours, including Industrial Action, have worked from this premise. However, critical analysis of university Terms and Conditions, against relevant jurisprudential developments, adds significant original value by questioning the validity of the status quo legal interpretation. Specifically, a landmark legal ruling against the UK by the European Court of Justice, and the resulting 2006 amendment to the UK Working Time Regulations, strongly suggests most University Terms and Conditions are legally noncompliant. As such, HE stakeholders should pressure powerbrokers involved in this omnipresent dispute to revisit the law: specifically with a view to re-establishing any fundamental rights of which they are currently illegitimately deprived. Where this was successful, empirically informed weekly workload modelling – rather than irrelevant, abstract annual calculations – would become a legally enforceable necessity for the benefit of staff and students alike.

KEYWORDS:

• Working time regulations
• terms and conditions
• employment
• industrial relations
• working hours

Acknowledgments

This paper emerges out of personal advocacy as an individual employee, UCU Representative, Case Worker, Casework Coordinator, Committee Member and Whistle Blower. I am deeply indebted to many anonymous colleagues with whom I have interacted as friends, co-workers, employees in-need, mentors, and formal advisors, all of whom have contributed knowledge and support to this publication. Most importantly, the article is a tribute to one individual who, unwitting, sacrificed their career, highlighting an otherwise entirely invisible issue. I also sincerely thank two anonymous referees for their normative support and sustained critical intellectual engagement. Without my wife, none of my work would be possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declaration

This paper emerges from research undertaken while employed by the University of Warwick as an Associate Professor of Global Sustainable Development. Notwithstanding, the research and all associated work towards the publication of this article has been in my capacity as an independent academic not a university employee: as per my contractual status as an ‘autonomous worker’, with the associated legal right to define my own working time in schedule and duration.

Notes

1. For analysis and recommendations on how universities can better support students with workload expectations see Smith (2023).

2. The University College Union (UCU) become the unitary Trade Union representative of – being those part of ll academic and professional service staff in 2006, following the unification of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) and the Association of University Teachers (AUT).

3. Interestingly, one non-public facing UCU asset, advising members on Action Short of a Strike (ASOS), breaks the status quo, in noting that legal advice suggests members are subject to maximum working week protection.