Help Short Course Tutors Fight UALSC

CALL FOR SOLIDARITY: Help step up our legal fight for employee status!

UAL Short Courses:
• Has denied us employment rights despite years of service 
• Came up with its own criteria to refuse furlough 
• Changed our Terms and Conditions without notifying us

• Refuses to engage with UCU 
• Maintains that UALSC has no connection to UAL
• Is trying to grab the copyright of the courses we wrote, unpaid
• Puts Profit before People

We are a group of over 20 Short Course Tutors raising legal funds to hold our employer to account at Employment Tribunal. UALSC is a hugely profitable part of University of the Arts London – making a profit of nearly £4 million in 2021 . Yet its workers find themselves precarious victims of the 'Uberification' of UK arts education. 

UALSC contracts us as if we are freelancers, but we are paid and taxed as employees on PAYE, without any of the rights or benefits of employees. If we worked for UAL, we would be considered permanent, but UALSC say that they are an 'entirely separate' subsidiary, despite being based in UAL buildings, using UAL resources and equipment, and having the same company directors. 

 

UALSC employs us course by course, short contract by short contract. Many of us have worked continuously in this pattern for up to 20 years. We've been pursuing UALSC for basic employment rights and status for two years. 

In 2020, many of us were denied furlough. These refusals were based on spurious criteria set up by UALSC management – outside of the government guidelines – which was unfair and selective. Many were deemed ineligible and so were left with nothing. This led to many of us facing serious financial hardship and huge extra stress during the pandemic.

 

We have tried to have our issues heard by UALSC management on many occasions since, but our situation has only got worse, as UALSC attempts to push through a Terms and Conditions change that we weren't notified about. Tutors will no longer own their own Intellectual Property, of the courses they have worked to develop (unpaid) and delivered over many years.

Currently, UALSC still refuses to recognise us as members of UCU (University and College Union) and will not negotiate with our representatives. Throughout, they have insisted on individualising the issues, to intimidate UALSC tutors one by one, to simply tire us out.

 

Once our employee status is acknowledged, we can get what is rightfully ours: backdated holiday pay, redundancy pay, as well as be able to negotiate our job security and equal treatment alongside our UAL colleagues. Your donation to our cause will make things better for Short Course tutors now, and in the future.