Today Stirling’s Student Union passed the Positive Campus Employment Motion, which encourages all “permanent employers granted license or permission to trade or operate on campus” to pay a Real Living Wage as a minimum. As of April of this year, the Real Living Wage was £12 per hour for over 18s, whilst the minimum wage for over 18s was £8.60, £11.44 for over 21s.
The meeting was all online after two in-person meetings fell through due to low attendance, after attempts on the 10th and 30th of October.
Additionally, the motion resolves include encouraging the University to ensure that employers on campus should support trade union memberships and recognise employees’ trade unions, and that all staff should be treated fairly and equally.
On how this would work, vice President of Communities Justine Pedussel explained that this would mean that companies working on campus would have a commitment to the amendments requirements in their contracts, and a breach of this contract would result in the company being asked to leave the University of Stirling’s campus.
The motion comes after the Stirling Solidarity Space (@stirlingsolidarityspace) called for students to boycott one of the outlets on campus, and expressed that its members were “deeply concerned” by the outlet’s work culture, pointing out that the outlet is the only one on campus to only pay minimum wage, and accusing the outlet of fire and rehire practices.
The Positive Campus Employment Motion does not refer to the boycott, or to any outlet explicitly, but it uses the Scottish Government’s Fair Work criteria to justify why employers should be “free from exploitative practices such as zero-hours contracts and fire-and-rehire tactics.”
Fire and rehire practices involve an employer firing an employee, but then offering them a new contract, usually on less favourable terms, such as lower pay or less contracted hours.
Proposed by Vice President of Communities, Justine Pedussel, she commented during the meeting: “Students are very often taken advantage of when it comes to their employment rights”, and that “as a union and as a university we should uphold ourselves to the highest standard, I am aware that right now that’s not really the case”.
The motion’s seconder, Adelayo Adebayo, Vice President of Education, commented that “this would promote the university to do better and create a fair working environment, so I support this motion”.
The next Union General Meeting is on Thursday, February 6, 2025.
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