“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.
