'Scientists have serious physical and psychological complaints'
Working conditions at Dutch universities are tough, WOinA Actie concludes. In the past two weeks, the action group received almost XNUMX reports of structural overtime and subsequent physical and physical complaints.
Image: Pixabay
Staff at universities suffer from sleep deprivation, back and neck complaints, feelings of anxiety, depression, high susceptibility to disease, burnout, panic attacks and social isolation, WoinAactie sums up in the press release that she brings out today. The main findings have been reported to the Labor Inspectorate, says Marijtje Jongsma, associate professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen. In the second half of January WOinA Actie will talk to the Labor Inspectorate about a follow-up investigation.
More tasks
Jongsma is shocked by the seriousness of the reports. On average, university (senior) lecturers (353 respondents) and professors (91 respondents) work 45 percent of their hours overtime every week. “This is caused by a structural shortage of teachers and an increasing number of tasks,” says Jongsma.
Lecturers without a research appointment (95 respondents) have the hardest time, according to WOinAction on the basis of the reports. This group works an average of more than 50 percent overtime, often on temporary part-time contracts at various universities and for relatively low salaries. They say this not having access to the housing market *This is reminiscent of colleagues with temporary contracts in primary education. There too, long-term uncertainty about work and income causes a lot of stress. Read from the Education Magazine of December 2019: 'School boards wring out invaders'..
Postdocs
In addition to lecturers and professors, PhD students, postdocs and support staff responded to the call to report overtime. A total of 700 people working in scientific education responded. About 47.500 people work in university education. “If you look at that number, it may not seem like much, but WOinActions only has a limited number mailinglist. We had to deal with word of mouth in recent weeks and think the response in such a short time is very high. ”
It's cool if you keep working during illness
Jongsma, together with the initiators of this action Remco Breuker (professor at Leiden University) and Rens Bod (professor at the University of Amsterdam), concludes that working overtime at the university is seen as tough: “There is a culture at universities where if you continue to work during illness and where overtime is glorified. " At the same time, respondents indicated that they would not report their complaints to managers out of shame.
A billion
At the beginning of December, Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven stated that universities a billion short. Jongsma: "She will try to get this shortage high on the agenda. But we cannot employ extra scientific teachers for this kind of declarations of intent. We therefore call on the government to actually release this billion in the short term and will continue in the meantime. with our actions.”
