Justice4CollegeSupervisors is a campaign of Cambridge UCU demanding fair working conditions for supervisors of undergraduate students. Supervisions take place in small-groups and are the backbone of the Cambridge undergraduate education. 90% of undergraduate supervisors are not on payroll – which means that only 10% of a total of around 5000 supervisors are properly contracted for the work they do. Half of supervisions are delivered by graduate students, post-docs, and other freelancers – who work for extremely low pay as self-employed or with a zero-hours contract (if they are on a Tier4 visa). Some Colleges pay their fellows (who normally are University Teaching Officers) a higher pay for supervisions. Some Colleges employ College Teaching Officers as full-time employees who focus on delivering supervision teaching. Our demands are for mandatory training to be paid, for the base pay rate to be raised, and for all workers to have fair contracts.
As the National Fighting Fund and local Hardship Fund is not available to the J4CS campaign, we have set up a bespoke fund for J4CS. In order to provide financial assistance to those that boycott supervisions, we are committed to raising funds to support this campaign. Union members must ensure they are on the correct membership tier and their subscriptions are up to date to be eligible.
Applications will be dealt with on a case by case basis and the amounts awarded may vary according to members’ circumstances. When submitted to the J4CS Hardship Fund’s panel, applications are anonymous, and decisions are made without any knowledge of the claimant.
For further information about the J4CS hardship fund, please refer to the guidance for members:
J4CS Hardship Guidance for Members
If you believe you are entitled and qualify for hardship assistance, please complete the application form [download here]
Please return your signed and scanned claim form and supporting documents by email to hardshipfund@ucu.cam.ac.uk.
For questions about the J4CS Hardship Fund, please see guidance linked above and if you still have a query, please email hardshipfund@ucu.cam.ac.uk specifically stating J4CS.