ADJUDICATION OFFICER RECOMMENDATION
Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00010638
| Complainant | Respondent |
Anonymised Parties | A university teacher | A university |
Representatives | Frank Jones, Irish Federation of University Teachers |
|
Complaint:
Act | Complaint/Dispute Reference No. | Date of Receipt |
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969 | CA-00014078-001 | 21/09/2017 |
Date of Adjudication Hearing: 14/12/2017
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Catherine Byrne
Procedure:
In accordance with Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts 1969, this dispute was assigned to me by the Director General. I conducted a hearing on December 14th 2017, and inquired into the issues and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the dispute.
The complainant was represented by Mr Frank Jones of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT). For the respondent, the Head of the School was accompanied by the University’s HR Manager and the Employee Relations Officer.
Background:
The complainant has been employed in the university as an Arabic language teacher since 2010. He has the status of a part-time “adjunct language teacher” and for this academic year, 2017-2018, he is contracted to work nine hours per week. This dispute relates to the complainant’s request to be assigned to a role as a permanent lecturer, which, in this university has the title of assistant professor. The complainant seeks compensation for the university’s failure to create a post of assistant professor to which he could be appointed. He also seeks compensation for the fact that, in 2016, rather than offering him the additional hours, a second person was engaged to teach Arabic for two hours per week. |
Summary of Complainant’s Case:
The complainant holds a PhD from Trinity College, having completed his undergraduate studies at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. He currently teaches for nine hours per week and in the past, has taught for up to 11 hours per week. He has taught Arabic language classes on 2nd, 3rd and 4th year degree programmes, as well as extra mural classes. Having worked for eight years as a part-time teacher, often exceeding the hours’ quota of lecturers, he claims that he should be appointed to a permanent role as an assistant professor. In 2015, the complainant raised this matter with the then head of the school in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies. According to the complainant, the head of the school “had no issue” with the proposal to make his role permanent, but the decision had to be made by the department head. Nothing came of the engagement with the head of the department. Following the appointment of a new head of the school, the complainant met with him to again set out his claim that his role should be converted to a permanent lecturer position. The head of the school responded that the funds were not available to create a permanent post. Following this discussion, a new part-time teacher was engaged to teach Arabic for two hours per week. The complainant argues that, as the part-time teacher “in situ,” he should have been offered these hours, as this has been the established practice in the university. The complainant contends that, as an hourly-paid part-time teacher for eight years, he has made many sacrifices. He has no office, and not even access to a shared office. He has no library card or staff card, and is not permitted to park in a staff car park. Referring to the fact that, in 1762, the university creased a Chair of Arabic and that, from 1945, there was a lecturer in Arabic, he submits that a position of lecturer in Arabic studies should be created and that he is the most suitable person to be appointed to the role. |
Summary of Respondent’s Case:
For the university, the HR manager said that the complainant is employed to teach Arabic language classes during the academic term, as an elective option for students on the Jewish and Islamic Civilisations degree. Some religions and theology students also take Arabic language classes. He is paid on a fee per item basis, which for adjunct language teachers is €39.55 per hour. When they were considering the complainants’ dispute, the HR department discovered that he is actually paid the hourly rate for lecturers, which is €51.83 per hour. This is a mistake which the HR department accepts is not the fault of the complainant and they have taken no action to fix the error. Following a meeting with the complainant and his IFUT representative, Frank Jones, on June 19th 2017, the HR manager set out the university’s response to his request for a permanent lecturing role. This response was that new positions of assistant professor (lecturer) must be competed for in an open competition following an international advertising campaign. If such a post was created, it would be open to the complainant to apply. Having received this response, the complainant submitted his grievance to the WRC. The university’s position is that adjunct teaching staff are required to supplement the teaching capacity of academic units, and that they are employed on a part-time basis to deliver courses during the academic terms. In general, they are persons for whom the university is not their principal employer. They are not appointed as the result of an open competition, as they are usually people of special competence, whose expertise is not readily available among the regular staff cohort. The HR manager submitted that the use of such adjunct teachers is common worldwide and provides essential flexibility to meet the operational needs of universities in a cost-effective manner. An assistant professor’s role is predominantly research-led, developing out of their research and drawing on specialist skills developed as part of their explorative studies. They are also required to publish regularly in areas related to their subject and to contribute to the administration of the department and the university. In the case of the complainant, he is employed to teach the Arabic language and he is not required to undertake research or to contribute to a wider university role. Arabic is an elective option, with many students opting for a non-language alternative, which includes neither Arabic or Hebrew, and elective subjects in every discipline are subject to great variation and change. At the hearing of this grievance, the head of the school said that as Arabic is not a core element of a degree programme, they have not prioritised the creation of a lectureship in Arabic Studies. He said that there is enormous pressure on permanent roles, as out of every three retirements, only one role is replaced. There is no mechanism to convert the complainant’s part-time assignment into a lectureship position, but, in the event that a position was created, he would encourage the complainant to apply. |
Findings and Conclusions:
From the information submitted at the hearing, it is clear that a part-time teaching position is a role with a distinct character and purpose. There are hundreds of adjunct teachers employed throughout the university sector and they fulfil specific requirements over and above permanent lecturer positions. The availability of part-time teachers and access to a range of options other than those offered by permanent lecturers greatly enhances the academic offering for students. The role of lecturer / assistant professor is a separate role and adjunct teachers, simply by virtue of service, cannot be appointed to these positions. The complainant’s role cannot be “converted” to a lecturer role. The complainant referred to the fact that he was not offered two additional hours of teaching that were offered to another person in 2016. It is accepted that like the complainant, most part-time teachers have full-time jobs elsewhere, and he was already assigned to teach at least eight hours. On this basis, it makes sense to spread the load in order to ensure that the timetable is flexible enough to suit the requirements of the school. I appreciate the complainant’s aspiration for the university to have a lecturer in Arabic. The head of the school said that he would like to create a lectureship in Near and Middle Eastern Studies, but he accepts that this will not happen in the short or medium term. For a new assistant professor role to be created, the university council must approve a proposal submitted by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and no such proposal is under consideration at present. I also appreciate the complainant’s commitment to the university and his ambition to have a more substantial role. While adjunct teachers do not have the same benefits as lecturers, these reduced benefits apply to teachers across the university. The fact that the complainant is paid an hourly rate above what he is entitled to, could be considered as some compensation for the practical inconveniences of his position. |
Decision:
Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts, 1969 requires that I make a recommendation in relation to this dispute.
The staffing constraints of the university and the method of creating new positions exceeds the remit of my role as an adjudication officer. The process for creating a new lectureship position has been set out and there are no grounds for the complainant to be given the position of lecturer, on the basis that he has been an adjunct teacher for eight years. I have to conclude therefore, that there is no merit in this complaint and I recommend that the position of the university is upheld. |
Dated: 2nd May 2018
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Catherine Byrne
Key Words:
University, part-time worker |