Universities have been criticised for “tearing away” wages, pensions and rights from low-paid staff amid a steep increase in the number of outsourced cleaning, security and maintenance staff working on campuses.
Data released by 42 universities in England, Scotland and Wales to the Guardian under freedom of information laws reveals their spending on outsourced workers – often employed on zero-hour contracts by separate companies to work on campuses – has more than doubled in seven years, increasing by almost 70% from 2010 to 2017.
Employing staff via third parties means that workers are not entitled to the same rights as people hired directly by the university, generally resulting in outsourced workers having vastly inferior pension schemes, as well as hourly, sick, maternity and holiday pay.
Incomplete data from a further 17 universities also shows the consistent rise in spending on outsourced workers, who are often migrants from low-income backgrounds.
At Oxford Brookes, spending on outsourced cleaners, security and maintenance more than doubled from almost £4m in 2010 to over £9m in 2017. Elsewhere, St George’s spending almost tripled from £1.5m to more than £4m, Brunel’s increased from £777,000 to £3.65m and Surrey’s grew 960% from £14,000 to £145,000.
The representative organisation for British universities began to encourage the increasingly popular yet controversial practice in 2011 as a means to “drive efficiencies” and ensure “value for money”, amid reductions to the grant received from the government.
Unions criticised the “exploitative” practice and called for workers to be brought in-house, making them direct university employees.
“The growth of outsourcing is of huge concern,” said Unison national education officer Ruth Levin. “While some universities are under great financial pressures, tearing away the pay, pensions and conditions for thousands of often low-paid staff isn’t the way to solve these problems.”
United Voices of the World described how their members were often left in “brutal poverty” due to the nature of their contracts.
“The same universities that market themselves to students as ethical and critical of exploitation use outsourcing to absolve themselves of any responsibility towards their most marginalised employees, who are overwhelmingly migrants and people of colour,’’ a spokesperson said.
“The exploitative practice of outsourcing means that universities operate a two-tier system, whereby some workers are valued and represented, while others work all hours for poverty wages, can’t afford to take breaks and are often forced to work while ill or injured due to the measly statutory sick pay offered by their direct employer.”
Kevin Brandstatter, national officer at the GMB union, said outsourcing companies inevitably focused on cost-cutting, with workers’ pay being a prime target.
“Outsourcing has proved to be a disaster, companies may end up being owned by private equity only interested in profit,” he said.
“In theory all staff transferred to a private company are guaranteed protection of their contracts but the safeguards are minimal. The drive to the bottom means that workers in the public sector who could be on £10 per hour or more are replaced by minimum wage workers on £8.21 per hour with no sick pay, only stakeholder pensions and other inferior conditions.”
Unions have also alleged that prominent service companies profit from employing workers on less secure terms after winning contracts from universities.
Angry with the apparent injustices, cleaners at the London School of Economics are believed to have been the first outsourced workers to force a university to bring them in-house back in 2017.
The victory sparked successful workers’ campaigns at other universities last year, including at Goldsmiths and at King’s College London – which spent almost £110m on outsourcing between 2010 and 2017.
At UCL, hundreds of outsourced cleaners, porters and security workers are to vote this month on whether to strike. Prof Michael Arthur, UCL provost, has now committed the university to providing equivalent pay and benefits by August 2021, starting with holiday entitlements from December.
Out-of-house staff at St George’s University and the University of East London are to be balloted next month. Outsourced workers at the University of Greenwich cafe voted to strike this October to challenge the creation of “two-tiered, racially segregated workforces” amid rising concern over a failure to address racism at universities because of denialism.
Acampaign is under way in Birmingham to bring workers at the Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre – set up as a subsidiary company by the university in 2018 – on to equal terms to those working on the main campus.
MPs have written to the university requesting staff receive the real living wage and for the gender pay gap to be addressed, while noting that the university holds more than a billion pounds in reserves. The local Unison branch is boycotting the company. The university have said the staff are not outsourced.
A multinational services company that provides services to a number of universities said employees were “generally” transferred to them on the same terms and conditions as they were employed on before.
“ISS is a fair and open employer and remain committed to operating our business in a responsible way,” a spokesperson said.
“We refute any allegation which suggests that we systematically remove or replace employees with lower-paid employees. When employees do leave we naturally have a contractual obligation to sustain the services and this generally means recruiting new employees into the same positions. We take the welfare of all our employees very seriously.”
Brunel University said having outsourced maintenance and security staff provided them with “flexibility”.
“We take care to select suppliers who match our values and high integrity, and who provide evidence over the long term of fair and transparent working practices,” a spokesperson said.
