Over 10.000 hours of unpaid work per day at the University of Groningen.

Based on a calculation made by students at the Utrecht University, the student movement Democratische Academie Groningen has made a similar calculation for the University of Groningen. Our numbers show that university-wide, OBP (ondersteunend- en beheerspersoneel; support and administrative staff) work on average 6 extra hours per week without compensation, making it 1920 per day in total. Science and teaching staff (WP) work – in the best case scenario – 8657 hours per day without compensation. This sums up to 10 577 hours of unpaid labor per day in total at the University of Groningen.

The numbers compile out of WOinActie’s recent research that looks at the amount of unpaid hours per staff category. Therein, they note that for scientific and teaching staff (WP), around 12 to 15 hours of unpaid labor per week pile up on the desks of university staff. Using numbers from the RUG, we calculate best and worst case scenarios.

The official numbers of staff at the RUG have yet to be published in the annual “Social Report on Health, Safety and Environment.” (Sociaal, arbo en milieujaarverslag.) However, DAG has requested an overview of the 2019 numbers. The following table shows these numbers and shows the best and worst case scenarios of unpaid hours per day.

Extra hours per weekOBP – 1600 FTEsWP – 3607,1 FTEsTotal
OBP: 6(6*1600)/5 = 1920
WP: 12(12*3607,1)/5=8657,04 10577
WP: 139378,4611299
WP: 1410099,912020
WP: 1510821,312741

Explanation:
According to WOinActie’s research, OBP has on average about 6 hours of unpaid work per week. As this category is summarized in their report under one entity, we use the number of hours per week (6) to multiply it by staff (1600) and divide it per working day (5). We hold this number to be the same throughout the table.

WP, on the other hand, is a more complex category and is subdivided by different entities. Under this category, assistant professors (UD), associate professors (UHD), full professors (HL), teaching assistants (Docent), postdoc researchers and PhD candidates are separate entities.

WOinActie notices differences in the workload per entity. Teaching Assistants, so the report, have the most relative burden of overwork (about 47%). Nominally, full professors carry with 17 extra hours per week the most load.

DAG cannot give a more accurate account of the overtime per day, as the exact numbers of the different WP entities is not known until the above mentioned report is published. We have therefore drawn up a best and worst case scenario.