Staff are asking universities to create food banks because they are struggling with rising bills and say they cannot afford to eat properly.
As food and energy prices rise, the Universities and Colleges Union says young academics who teach on casual contracts and low-paid support workers, such as porters and cleaners, are in the limit.
Some staff members in Leeds, a member of the Russell group of leading universities, said they could not afford proper meals and asked for a food bank for staff at an anonymous message board last month. The online message board, seen by the Observer, was created by students who occupied university buildings to protest low staff salaries.
A staff member wrote, “Another morning I woke up hungry because last night I couldn’t eat enough.” They added that they had survived on two or three meals of normal rice a day during the pandemic.
A second anonymous university worker said, “This Tuesday I attended my appointment to pick up a food waste basket from a charity. I do it every fortnight so I can get to the end of the month. savings in no month “.
One young academic said: “This winter my apartment was so cold that I bought some gloves to wear while working. Turning on the heating was too expensive. “
Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, said: “It is inexcusable that the low salaries of university and university leaders have forced educational staff to use food banks and it is an accusation to the whole sector that it has maintained salaries for too much time. “
Leeds is one of 20 universities where UCU members boycott marking and assessment in protest of cuts in pensions, salaries and working conditions.
Ruth Holliday, a professor of gender and culture at the university, said: “It makes me feel angry and a little embarrassed to hear that there are people working at my university who can’t afford food. It’s desperately unfair. Universities have to pay enough people to live. “
He added that most undergraduate seminars are now taught by doctoral students, who usually juggle various hourly paid teaching contracts to get to the end of the month while writing their dissertation.
Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, at a student protest in London last August. Photography: Alicia Canter / The Guardian
“These young academics will receive an hourly fee for their teaching, but what they are paid will not cover the many hours they have to devote to preparing each seminar,” he said. “If you work it based on the work they actually do, that hourly rate becomes pretty much nothing.”
A doctoral student currently doing occasional teaching work at the University of Birmingham, who did not want to be appointed in case it harmed her job prospects, said: “Power and electricity bills are a big concern. I have very fast showers and on the weekends I go in and work on campus because I’m afraid of using too much electricity ”.
He added: “My students have no idea I don’t have enough money to teach them. It’s a battle to make my hire. I’d love to be in a position where I don’t just survive all the time. It’s incredibly stressful.”
Dr Marian Mayer, UCU’s national representative for members with disabilities, said the Leeds members’ experience was “emblematic of a much wider problem”.
She said: “I have had conversations with members who are at the end of their wit. Some have denounced to their shame that they have used food banks. Others know they cannot afford the rising cost of living.”
The UCU says members of higher education colleges are also struggling to pay for food and bills.
The head of human resources at Abingdon and Witney College in Oxfordshire sent an email to staff in March explaining that the university could not make any immediate improvements to staff pay to help with the rising cost of living. , but staff could “grab the items you need” from campus food. banks. The email said the university would move donated food to “a more confidential space,” and female staff could ask at reception if they needed free health products.
Jo Milsom, deputy director of social engagement at Abingdon and Witney College, said: “The unprecedented nature of today has caused many of our employees to have financial difficulties and, as a responsible employer, we are doing our best to help .
He added: “No one should have access to food banks to survive, but we believe it is responsible to support our colleagues so that they do so discreetly if they need to.” He said many staff members had thanked them for this.
A spokesman for the University of Leeds said: “We recognize that these are difficult times for many of our staff and students, as they are for much of society, and we are taking action.”
He added that in addition to moving more staff to indefinite contracts, “next month we will make additional payments of £ 650 to all staff with lower salary levels, and we will consider whether to make more one-off payments later during the year”.
He said the university is also raising the level of its staff assistance fund for those in financial difficulties.