Trinity’s casual staff will be paid for their rostered hours for the duration of the College’s closure, even if their classes do not go ahead online.
Trinity’s members of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) sought confirmation from College’s HR department that casual workers – including TAs and many postgraduate students – would receive payment for any hours they were scheduled to work during the crisis.
Speaking to The University Times, IFUT’s Trinity representative John Walsh said: “We had some clarification from HR that casual staff would be protected because precarious staff are in a particularly vulnerable position, always, in a crisis.”
“What we got back was an assurance that any scheduled or rostered hours that were missed as a result of moving to online teaching and the College closure would be honoured”, Walsh said.
“Since the college closure, it wasn’t practical to reschedule some classes offered by casual staff. So staff submit claims for those hours, [and] can note them as missed hours, and can claim them from the university.”
“That was a welcome clarification”, he said.
IFUT has also expressed concerns that PhD students and postdoctoral researchers may be forced to drop out of their contracts if their grants are not extended due to the pandemic.
A number of grant funders have committed to providing no-cost extensions to research projects that have fallen behind schedule due to the closure of universities, but they have not committed to extending funding for these projects.
Furthermore, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers are not eligible for the emergency unemployment benefit paid by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, nor are they entitled to avail of the workplace subsidy scheme.
“Research projects could fall because there’s no way research projects can be completed without the researchers who do essential work on them”, Walsh said. “So what IFUT is calling for is for the workplace subsidy scheme to be applied to postdoctoral researchers and externally funded researchers across the third level sector.”
He continued: “Or alternatively for the Department of Education simply to provide funding to extend the grants. Either would work, but if they don’t do that there’s a serious threat to jobs for those staff, and also to the stipends of research students, to the grants that are currently held by research students.”
In February, The University Times revealed that Trinity’s casual workers – including many TAs and postgraduate students – could face pay cuts of almost 20 per cent for their teaching duties.
An internal memorandum circulated at Trinity’s Finance Committee, obtained by The University Times, showed that some areas of casual pay may be cut by between 10 and 20 per cent.
College backtracked on the decision after postgraduate students lambasted the cuts, protesting outside House One where the committee meets.
The pay cuts spurred heated divisions within the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU), with its president and vice president engaging in a public standoff at a meeting of postgraduates.
At the meeting, GSU vice-president Gisèle Scanlon cut across president Shaz Oye as she discussed with postgraduates the hourly rate earned by PhD students on their stipends. When Oye struggled to name a figure, Scanlon asked: “Why don’t you know this?”, and added: “It’s extremely important for you to know that stuff.”
In an interview with The University Times following the meeting, Oye expressed frustration at what she called a “spurious accusation” made by Scanlon.
