Should I lie? The plight of guest lecturers

The email from University A came totally out of the blue. I’d been teaching there as a Lehrbeauftragte, or guest lecturer, since 2005, yet it was from a person whose job description (central coordinator of assistant lecturers) I never knew existed. If he’d been coordinating my colleagues and me for the past 15 years, I was blissfully unaware.

Apparently, they’d been tipped off by University B that I was teaching there six hours a week. Given that I was already operating six hours a week at University A, I was exceeding the maximum nine hours that assistant lecturers are legally permitted to teach at state-run universities in Bavaria in any one semester. Could I therefore please inform him at which university I wished to work three hours less?

It turns out I’d fallen foul of Bavaria’s drive against Scheinselbstständige, or pseudo-employees: those of us who are self-employed on paper but who, in practice, largely depend on the hourly fees that universities pay in twice-yearly lump sums. Before the limit was introduced, there were cases of pseudo self-employed teachers suing the state and, on occasion, forcing it into either paying fines or signing salaried employment contracts. 

Over the years, I’d signed up at a string of universities around Bavaria, all desperate for assistant lecturers of English to plug gaps left by their lack of permanent staff. Asked each time to declare how many hours I worked at other state universities, I’d deliberately understated the true number and assumed that no one would have any reason to actually check.

After all, I wasn’t short-changing anyone. On the contrary, quite a few of the courses were almost identical, so I was giving the same class several times over. Everyone seemed happy and the students generally confirmed this in their feedback. And, meanwhile, I was able to earn a decent living.

Nonetheless I’d been fact-checked. But what universities A and B didn’t know was that I was working at universities C and D as well. Factor in holiday courses and I was overshooting my authorised number of hours almost fourfold.

Before I had a chance to answer University A, HR at University B hit me with the same question. This mail was accompanied by a demand that I submit a list of all other places where I worked, plus a copy of my last tax statement from the Office of Finance.

Clearly, I had to reduce my number of hours at all universities answerable to the Ministry of Culture. Yet, as a freelance teacher, it was none of University B’s business how much I earned elsewhere. I was about to write and politely point this out when another mail from University B pinged into my box. It was a notice of dismissal – with immediate effect.

By now it was mid-March and schools and colleges throughout Bavaria were going into lockdown. A two-week holiday course I was giving at University A was cancelled halfway through day three. But while a pandemic may be a once-in-a-lifetime event, there was nothing unusual about a Bavarian university course being axed at the drop of a hat – with absolutely no compensation offered to the instructor (after some lengthy email discussions, I was eventually paid for 2.5 days’ teaching!).

But a far greater problem now loomed. Should I also come clean about universities C and D? Too late. C, where I delivered 10 hours a week, had also been tipped off. “You’re breaking the law!” screamed the head of English in an angry email that she had copied to HR. She had conveniently forgotten it was she who approved my surplus hours in the first place. 

The above scenario may be unprecedented in Bavarian history; I doubt that many assistant lecturers have managed to notch up quite as many excess hours as I did. But it poignantly illustrates the precarious situation of assistant lecturers in the state. Contracts are issued on a semester-by-semester basis, making it easy for universities to get rid of teachers whenever student numbers drop off. Conversely, whenever numbers rise, classes simply grow larger.

The rate of pay, designed also to cover exam marking regardless of student numbers, stays the same, of course. It varies from €28 to €45 per hour, and in some cases has remained unchanged for the 15 years I have been here.

Since losing work at B and C, I’ve been fortunate to boost my hours at a private Munich university, which offers better rates than most state-run establishments. Another state-run university I work at also recently improved its rate and offers generally good conditions. And since I am currently delivering all my classes online, I am also saving on commuting time and cost.

All told, I’m in a better place now. But if I notch up too many hours at the private university, I still run the risk of becoming a “pseudo-employee” there too, which it will want to guard against. So my future remains precarious.

Ultimately, the situation of rank-and-file guest lecturers won’t improve unless the Scheinselbstständige law is changed. Until then, we’ll be forced to go on lying about the number of hours we teach.

The author wishes to remain anonymous, but hopes this article might increase awareness of the plight of adjunct lecturers in general. If you would like to offer your support, please make contact with them via the editor.