(July 2021)

Branch Officers presented the preliminary findings from the UCU Occupational Stress Survey to the Senior Management Team on July 19th, 2021. Key findings discussed included that:

• The majority of faculty questioned (92.5%) experience unacceptable levels of stress, with 40% of respondents experiencing unacceptable levels of stress “often or always”.
• Over half of faculty (52.5%) stated they worked over 40 hours per week, 11 working 50+ hours.
• 48% stated they were in work when sick, and 63% did not take all of their annual leave entitlement.
• Adjunct faculty disproportionately experience unacceptable levels of stress due to precarious contracts and job insecurity.

We agreed at the meeting that stress amongst faculty was a priority that needed to be addressed. We also agreed that stress is an issue that will need a long term focus to remedy.

Branch Officers were successfully in having stress be one of the measure to evaluate the FPPW, a model to be introduced in Fall 2021, which is meant to address issues of workload. We have also called on the SMT to look into faculty’s tendency not to use all their annual leave, and the tendency of faculty to work while sick. Both of these practices we hold to be a response to workload pressures, and as such, need to be addressed. Lastly, we argued that Adjunct Faculty who want to should be moved to permanent contracts as a means to address workload at Richmond.

We see these actions as first steps to address stress and workload at Richmond. The UCU will continue to look at the issue over the upcoming year(s). We are discussing following up the survey with focus groups in the fall and another surveying of adjunct faculty.

If you have any ideas or actions that you believe could address stress, please share these with the Branch or join the Stress Action Group. The UCU will have another meeting on stress with SMT in early September.

A presentation of our draft findings can be found here.