Teachers and lecturers ‘do most unpaid overtime’

According to data from the Labour Force Survey 2013 obtained by the Trade Unions Congress, 54 per cent of teaching and education professionals in schools, colleges and universities do extra unpaid work each week, more than any other group of employees.

Those who do unpaid overtime put in 12 hours a week on average compared with managers and directors of financial institutions (11.5 hours), legal professionals (9.2 hours) and health professionals (6.3 hours).

The information has been released by the TUC as part of its Work Your Proper Hours Day on 28 February, the point in the year when the TUC claims the average worker would start to get paid if all their unpaid overtime came at the start of the year.

Sally Hunt, University and College Union general secretary, said the data show more teachers and lecturers are “going that extra unpaid mile”.

“Not only are teachers and lecturers putting in an extra hour a week of unpaid overtime compared with last year, they are also now more likely than any other group of professionals to be doing unpaid work,” Ms Hunt said.

“This commitment is all the more admirable considering the insulting real-terms pay cuts their employers continue to offer them”, she added, calling for employers to “recognise the hard work their staff do, reward them fairly and sort out their workloads”.

The overtime figures in the TUC report reflect answers given by the entire teaching profession, which totals about 1.4 million people, of whom about 170,000 (12 per cent) are higher education teaching professionals, according to the Office for National Statistics.

jack.grove@tsleducation.com