An academic who won a landmark court battle last year against Oxford University for employing her and her colleague on “sham” gig economy contracts has criticised the university for trying to brush their case under the carpet.
Alice Jolly and her colleague Rebecca Abrams, both award-winning authors, taught on Oxford’s prestigious creative writing course for 15 years but were employed on zero-hours “personal services” contracts, often earning only £23 an hour. After they publicly challenged the university on their lack of employment rights, Oxford wrote to the Society of Authors in April 2022, agreeing to offer the two academics more appropriate contracts.
But the promised contracts never materialised – and the pair were eventually told their old contracts would not be renewed. “They didn’t even have to sack us, because we had no employment rights,” Jolly said.
Last January, after a protracted legal fight in which Jolly says the university’s top legal team tried to “rip [them] to shreds”, a judge ruled in their favour, arguing that they should be classed as employees. It was seen as a pivotal moment for the thousands of staff who teach at Oxford and other universities on precarious contracts.
But this week Jolly told the Observer she now had no hope that Oxford had learned anything at all from the case.
“I have lost my work, been ostracised by colleagues and had no settlement from the university, no apology, no admission that the judgment has any effect on anyone else – although of course it does,” she said.
She added: “Universities tend to always ask for NDAs in these employment cases, but I will be resisting that because I do not see why a settlement should be dependent on my silence.” The Observer revealed last year that two-thirds of core tutorial teaching at Oxford is done by academics on what the University and College Union calls “Deliveroo-style” hourly-paid roles or precarious fixed-term contracts.
Jolly said she initially thought that the “sham contracts” she and Abrams had were unusual. “But we talked to young academics and realised no one could get a mortgage and people were stuck in this totally insecure situation for years.” It was an “open secret” the two women decided they had an obligation to expose.
After their court victory, Law for Change, the charitable litigation fund which supported the pair, said the case would secure better contract rights for lecturers at Oxford, but also help others working on “exploitative contracts” right across academia.
Yet although Jolly is fiercely proud of what they achieved against such a powerful and renowned university, she is now doubtful about whether other Oxford academics will have the money, or the courage, to follow their lead.
The hearing was “a very hard three days”, in which both women spent more than three hours being interrogated “by a very expensive legal team” on the witness stand. “They compared our work to bedroom fitters, security guards and cleaners, and I kept thinking: ‘Yes, and all those people have no chance of fighting the gig economy, but we do.’”
She and Abrams attended one hearing without lawyers. “We are tough people, but we were ripped to shreds,” she said. “I held it together in there, but when I got out of the courtroom. I wept.
“Even if you’re very good amateurs you wouldn’t have a hope without serious legal representation,” she added. “And how much has Oxford spent trying to deny us our legal rights?”
Jolly is due to appear in court again in July, in a six-day remedy hearing in which the university will be compelled to pay compensation.
Prof Wyn Evans, professor of astrophysics at Cambridge University and leader of the 21 Group, which campaigns against bullying in academia and supports academics taking their universities to tribunal, said: “It takes a particular courage and stamina to do what these two academics did. Unfortunately, I think Oxford will ensure it hasn’t set a precedent.”
Since last September, universities have been banned from using NDAs to cover up sexual harassment cases. However, the 21 Group is campaigning for universities to be banned from using them to hush up employment disputes too.
Evans said: “Millions of pounds of public money is being spent on hushing up cases, when instead universities should be learning from their mistakes and improving how they treat staff.”
Zelda Perkins, the first woman to break an NDA and founder of the group Can’t Buy My Silence, said: “What Alice and Rebecca did could be massively groundbreaking and change universities’ ability to exploit their staff. I can see why Oxford would want to keep them quiet.”
An Oxford University spokesperson said: “The university has no comment on the ongoing litigation at this stage.
“The academic quality of an Oxford education is extremely high, with the university rated first for teaching in the most recent UK national student survey results. We recognise that this is based on our committed academics and staff at all levels. We are determined that they are all rewarded and supported appropriately.
“The Department for Continuing Education has completed, and is in the process of implementing, a review of its ways of working. Following a comprehensive consultation, some tutors have indicated a preference for flexible engagement and others, with whom the department is having detailed discussions, for permanent contracts of employment.”
