Skip to main content
Back to King's College London homepage

King's College London

Everyone has the right to job security, as part of the universal human right to social security.

Fixed-term contracts

We oppose fixed-term contracts. We believe the standard employment relationship is, and should be, an indefinite contract on fair pay.

Fixed-term contracts result in:

  • a lack of job security, due to the use of temporary contracts
  • staff being forced to reapply for their jobs every year
  • inequality, as casualisation tends to disproportionately impact women, Black, Asian and minority ethnic colleagues and those from underprivileged economic backgrounds
  • the sector losing talent as more people find academic careers to be unviable.

We oppose casualised and precarious employment resulting from fixed-term contracts and will do everything we can to ensure that indefinite contracts and secure employment are the defaults in academic life.

In law, everyone has the same statutory rights to fair dismissal protection as a permanent employee after two years, so there is no reason why King’s shouldn’t confirm indefinite employment.

See also: UCU research on precarious work in higher education

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) contracts

At King’s, Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are on a particular type of fixed term contract and their payment system isn’t clear.

GTAs’ work is rated as being equivalent to Grade 5, Point 25 on the national salary spine scale, plus the London Weighting Allowance, with pay calculated as a fraction of a 35 hour week for the number of hours spent teaching, preparing and marking.

However, many GTAs can’t yet see the connection between the hours they work and pay.

Improving the transparency of contracts and terms and conditions

The increasing insecurity of academic and university staff comes from the loss of accountability in how contracts are written and how people are hired or dismissed.

We support an open, accountable and democratic structure of decision-making. This could be achieved by creating an Academic Board or Senate at King’s, which would be democratically elected by members of staff (not appointed by managers) to have the power to oversee all hiring and dismissal practices.

There should be a restoration of accountable structures like those seen at the University of Oxford (Statute XII.B), University College London, or the University of California (Bylaw 40.3), where academics determine the proper system of job security for each other.