UCU has today hailed a landmark win as The Open University (OU) began rolling out a programme of new permanent contracts for 4,800 previously casualised Associate Lecturers, the biggest decasualisation programme ever to take place in the higher education sector.
As a result of the new contracts, which were introduced on 1 August 2022, staff will benefit from enhanced job security, a pay uplift of between 10-15%, additional annual leave, and staff development allowances.
The new contract follows extensive negotiations between the university and UCU, and the union has called on other universities across the UK to follow suit and end the scourge of casualisation. Currently, over 70k university staff across the UK are on fixed-term contracts.
