Academic Piecework

Last weekend I went to see Up in the Air in which George Clooney plays a character who makes a living by sacking people. He works for a company which is contracted by other companies to do the dirty work associated with downsizing. When confronting distraught employees with their fate, Clooney gives them a formulaic pep-talk, offers a severance package and the promise of future vocational advice. It's cruel and heartless but at least it marks a clean break.

I was reminded of the movie today when I bumped into a colleague. I have never been particularly close to her but I could see she was distressed. With tears in her eyes she beckoned me into her office and told me that after eighteen years academic employment in the institution her contract will not be renewed. She had survived precariously for so long on a series of short contracts but from the middle of next week she will be unemployed. Glowing student evaluations of her work would not help her, nor would the admiration of her colleagues.

Late last year when she was worried about her future she repeatedly requested a meeting with the Dean and sub-Dean to clarify things, but neither responded to her emails. Eventually, the Head of Department was sent down to tell her that the course she had worked on is to be cut - a victim of efficiency measures. As her last day approaches she hopes for a stay of execution but unlike in the past, when something always came up, it appears this time nothing will. As yet she has not even received a letter from the institution telling her her term of employment is coming to a close and thanking her for her long service to the university. There is no farewell gathering planned - no gold watch, no card . As a contract employee she is not entitled to severance pay and in mid-career finds herself without a job. There is nothing calculatingly callous about the way she has been treated . She has simply been asphyxiated by official indifference.

Untenured staff are the institutional living dead. During teaching weeks they walk the corridors, deliver lectures, meet with students, attend meetings and seminars, but at the close of the semester, they are simply pushed out in the cold. It matters little that many short-contract staff are extraordinarily dedicated to their students to the detriment of their research careers. One day they're embraced as colleagues the next they join the dole queue. Along with the hospitality industry, universities have the highest levels of casual and short term employment of any sector of the Australian workforce, particularly in the humanities and social sciences where the number of doctoral graduates far exceeds tenured academic jobs.

There is, of course, no shortage of work. Student numbers have grown rapidly over the last two decades but the universities have largely absorbed this growth by employing people under precarious conditions. This provides employers with greater flexibility - to restructure and reallocate resources- than exists when most staff have 'continuing employment' (because tenure, as such, no longer really exists). But there are plenty of opportunities for middle managers in the corporate university. If you're prepared to join the chain of command, to contribute to the expanding catalogues of policies and procedures, to take measures to minimize institutional risk and maximize 'effiency', in short to leave your mark on the institution, then, boy, have we got a job for you. But woe betide those who ask whether this work is useful, whether it enriches collegial and student life. Such free thoughts are not welcome in the neo-liberal university.

So what are the prospects of my distraught colleague finding another job? As universities in Britain and the United States (particularly California) make people redundant there, aspiring academics in Australia are increasingly finding themselves competing in an international labour market, even for junior positions. Good people are having their ambitions dashed before they're even able to get a foot on the ladder. But this need not be the case if more real, secure jobs were created. It is clear that achieving greater security of employment should be the highest priority for academic trade unionism/ collective action over the next few years.