Australia’s sessional staff are wrung out and then discarded

For many years the UK had similarly scandalous employment practices in H/E but slowly the institutions are now coming on board and offering permanent fractional posts to those lecturing staff who have been hourly paid year on year. Another practice to look towards, and this time in Australia, is having a minimum percentage threshold of permanent staff. This allows for volatility without having an unnecessarily large workforce on crappy contracts.

I'm glad to hear that, Seanie. In my experience, permanency of any kind is rare in Australian institutions, and I know the data is difficult to determine since the HES (Higher Education Statistics) doesn't collect data for casual staff. As for a minimum percentage, that is an interesting idea, though I haven't heard much discussion here either (particularly given the increase in casualisation that is consistent across the tertiary sector). I should also add that women are proportionally more likely to be in insecure forms on employment in the university sector.