Stop the use of fire and rehire

Stop the use of Fire and Rehire in the Open University!

The Open University has announced a consultation with a group of OU Associate Lecturers (ALs, also known as Tutors). They are being asked to sign a new contract that reduces their fractional contracts (FTE or full-time equivalent) and pay with meagre compensation or told they will be fired and rehired. This means they would have a pay reduction imposed, without compensation.  

The context for this is long-term growth in high workloads that was allowed and even encouraged by the OU. The university’s actions breach the AL Contract Agreement (2018) which replaced casualisation with permanent FTE.  

Fire-and-rehire is a discredited employment practice which the Labour Government in Westminster has pledged to ban. Yet the Open University seems determined to press ahead instead of finding an alternative solution. Nearly 800 staff signed an open letter to the senior leadership objecting to this threat. It’s a simple fact: if fire-and-rehire is used, no job or contractual term is safe. 

The Unacceptable Practice of Fire-and-Rehire

The Labour Government issued a statutory Code of Practice in July 2024 as a stop-gap measure before legislation can be introduced to outlaw fire-and-rehire. This requires that fire-and-rehire is only used as an absolute last resort. 

The Open University is the only four-nations university. It receives significant funding in the devolved nations and is committed to “following the most progressive standards or regulations University-wide when this is possible” (Building on our uniqueness as a university for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). It is also involved in a number of initiatives for trade union education. 

But hang on: the Scottish Government opposes the use of fire-and-rehire. Anyone looking at this situation might ask if senior leaders of the university are fully committed to a four-nations approach, or to fair and progressive employment practices.

In 2018 the university made a promise to ALs that they would be issued with permanent fractional contracts so that pay would not fluctuate from season to season, and staff wouldn’t have to keep re-applying for their own jobs. 

We believe this is the first time that the senior leadership has ever threatened to use fire-and-rehire. Frankly this demeans the history and values of the Open University. The institution and the staff deserve better. 

If you haven’t done so already, please sign the petition. 

Or you can contact your MP or elected representative, using our template letter here. 

Background to Threat of Fire-And-Rehire at the Open University

In 2018 the Open University and UCU negotiated a permanent contract for about 4800 Associate Lecturers. At this time it was known that some ALs carried high workloads and others would be pushed over a 48-hour week because of additional annual leave and other benefits.  48 hours is the standard limit in the Working Time Regulations and equivalent to about 1.3 Full Time Equivalent or FTE. The joint written agreement included a commitment to reduce high workloads through natural staff turnover. It also included the principle that staff would not suffer detriment as a result of the new contract, confirming salary and FTE level. After delays the contract came into force in August 2022.  After that time the university continued to allow and even encourage more staff to take on workloads above 1.3 FTE. 

In accepting the permanent contract guaranteed by the 2018 agreement, staff made extensive financial decisions. Indeed, when the OU delayed introduction of the contract from 2021 to 2022, it repeatedly reassured staff that they could make such plans. It even provided mortgage guarantor references to any member of staff who needed confirmation of permanent salary level (link to an anonymised example). 

The threat of fire-and-rehire is in place of reaching a reasonable financial settlement with staff who ended up with high FTE as a result of the university’s failures. A repeated promise of ‘no detriment’ has turned into a nightmare. 

If you haven’t done so already, please sign the petition and join UCU today 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

1. Is the Open University acting, as it may claim, to preserve the health and well-being of Associate Lecturers?

No one argues for high workloads. However, since the contract agreement was signed in 2018 the university has allowed the number of ALs with high workloads to get much worse. UCU has documentation showing that some staff took on more and more because managers begged them to do so to ‘help out’. 

Being threatened with an unexpected loss of income, and with fire-and-rehire, has had a massive negative impact on staff stress and wellbeing.  The situation has been so poorly handled by the university that UCU had to call an emergency meeting of the H&S Committee and to conduct a H&S inspection of the bungled process.

To support the wellbeing of staff threatened with fire-and-rehire, please sign the petition.

2. Why would anyone work more than 1.3 FTE? 

As a trade union, UCU does not argue that employees should work over 1.3 FTE (roughly 48 hours). The standard working week at the Open University (1.0 FTE) is meant to be 37 hours on average – however UCU has years of survey data to show that many OU staff are, like those across the higher education sector, doing masses of unpaid overtime. And of course we have gone on strike repeatedly because pay has failed to keep up with inflation.

Bottom line: we want everyone to be working reasonable hours for decent pay.

The work of OU Associate Lecturers has peaks and troughs during the year depending on the module’s start points, pattern of assignments, and number of student groups. If you’re a very organised person, it may be possible to have a workload on paper that is at or over 1.3 and still accomplish the work. 

Many of those affected by the threat of fire-and-rehire are tutors who have won awards for their support of students. 

The Open University has a long history of encouraging other staff, especially central, regional and national academics (who write the module materials), to take on additional AL work. 

In higher education generally it is not uncommon for academics who work in professional fields to teach as an addition to their professional practice. 

All of these are part of the historical reasons why when the new AL Contract was agreed in 2018, it was known that there were some colleagues who were at 1.3 FTE already and others who would, with the benefits inherent in the contract (such as more annual leave), be pushed into a higher level of FTE. Natural turnover was the agreed method for addressing this and it worked, except that the university not only failed to monitor FTE but also begged some individuals to take on more.

If the university were really concerned about overwork and well-being, it would have done something about the systemic overwork of all its staff and used its voice to call for better pay for staff in the higher education sector.

A caring employer could have negotiated with UCU to lower workload for this group of ALs without threatening a financial cliff. 

If you would like the university to start behaving responsibly, please sign the petition.
 

3. Is it true that ‘no detriment arising from the new AL Contract’ was never meant to be a permanent promise? 

‘Permanent’ does mean that something lasts forever. At the time the agreement was signed with UCU in 2018, the university’s management did a series of ‘roadshows’ with UCU to explain the provisions of the contract to staff. The university repeatedly said that ALs would not suffer financial or other detriment through the change from a casualised contractual status to permanent fractional contracts. There was a provision for the number of people on excessive workloads (very small at the time) to come down over time through natural turnover. That number went up dramatically because the university allowed and encouraged people to take on extra work.

The contract was only fully implemented in 2022 after a delay. So the pledge of ‘no detriment’ was not only not permanent, despite the permanency of the contract – it didn’t even last 2 years.  

Permanent means permanent for all staff – say no to fire-and-rehire at the OU.