THE Irish Federation of University Teachers has strongly criticised Trinity College Dublin for refusing to renew short term staff contracts. It says this is being done to evade unfair dismissals legislation.
At its annual conference in Dublin on Saturday, IFUT passed a motion demanding that TCD end its practice of preventing teaching staff on three year contracts even from applying for further fixed term contract jobs.
The motion's proposer, Dr Ivana Bacik, Reid Professor of Criminal Law at the university, described this as "a particularly extreme form of casualisation which "tries to get around workers protection rights" in this case the 1993 Unfair Dismissals Amendment Act.
She said it had "an extremely bad effect on staff morale", and if TCD was seen to succeed in this practice it might spread to other third level institutions.
Another motion condemned the reliance of many universities and other third level institutions on "fixed term, short term and temporary contract teaching staff" and committed the union to campaign against this "shortsighted and unnecessary employment practice".
The Minister for Education. Ms Breathnach, paid tribute to IFUT's "calm, reasoned and persistent advocacy" in formulating amendments to the Universities Act, which was signed into law last week. She had been happy to accommodate many of IFUT's concerns "even if my willingness to see others' viewpoint was characterised in some quarters as weakness".
She said the legislation, as a result of wide consultation, had "secured the support of a very broad range of directly concerned interests in the university sector, including the universities themselves, staff and students.
"Accordingly, in the macho phraseology which is sometimes employed in situations like this, we are all `winners' from the process, but the biggest winners are the universities themselves."
The outgoing IFUT president, Mr Eugene Wall, said the legislation's earliest drafts had envisaged a relationship between the State and the universities, and between the universities and their staff, which was "interventionist, bureaucratic and managerialist".
IFUT was "extremely gratified" that virtually all its concerns had been addressed through amendments, and he paid tribute to the Minister's willingness to engage in dialogue and to accept "the numerous amendments which have immeasurably strengthened the Bill".