Mumbai: On June 28, 115 teaching and non-teaching faculty members at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) received termination letters.
Although they had anticipated this for many months, the mass termination led to an uproar, prompting the management to reverse its decision. By June 30, the TISS management withdrew the terminations and reinstated employees at all four campuses.
However, this reversal brought relief only to those teaching and non-teaching staff members appointed with funding from the Tata Education Trust. The Women’s Studies Centre, which has had a presence at TISS for over four decades, lost most of its staff, including the centre’s chairperson.
The Wire has learned that at least three teaching staff members and one administrative staff member – all recruited under the University Grants Commission’s plan positions – have not been reinstated. They had been served termination letters alongside those recruited with the Tata Education Trust’s fundings.
Contractual staff manage most things
The Women’s Studies Centre, known as the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, was established in the early 1980s and has since been an important and integral part of the institute. The department is one of the four in the country to be given the ‘Advanced Centre’ status, a coveted position that allowed it to train and mentor smaller centres across the country.
In the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, as in most other centres at the institute, operations are mostly managed by staff appointed on a contractual basis. The centre has three permanent positions, of which only two are occupied. Additionally, there are four staff members and one non-teaching staff member appointed on a contractual basis under the UGC’s plan positions.
The non-teaching staff member, who also handles the library along with administrative duties, has been working at the institute for over 24 years. In this all-woman department, most have been around for at least a decade. The decision to terminate the contracts without proper explanation or clarity over the future of the centre has left the department in a lurch. Students enrolled in both Masters and PhD courses are uncertain as to how their research would be completed if their guides are no longer associated with the institution.
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There is one more member of the department’s faculty who is working on a contract, is not under a UGC scheme position but was appointed against leave vacancy of a professor currently on lien, who is still employed.
Salaries unpaid since March
The TISS Teachers Association issued a statement raising concerns over the administration and the UGC’s attitude towards the staff. In the statement issued on July 1, the association pointed to the regular annual delay in the receipt of funds from the UGC. The Wire has found that the faculty members appointed on yearly contracts in the women’s studies department have not been paid their salaries since March. The teachers’ association has reiterated that the letters of termination “must be retracted with immediate effect and they need to be reinstated and pending salaries released (March to June 2024).”
In the department, this delay has caused both stress and anxiety about the future.
“There are single mothers handling both jobs and the education of their children, women who have moved cities for this job, women who don’t have the socio-cultural capital and are dependent entirely on the salaries they draw,” shared a senior professor from TISS who is privy to the happenings at the Women’s Studies department.
The termination also exposed many other glaring issues in the management of the 69 courses at the institute. For example, those on contract in the Women’s Studies department were drawing salaries as per the sixth Pay Commission, whereas the permanent staff are paid according to the latest – seventh – Pay Commission. Additionally, benefits like the provident fund and gratuity are denied to those employed on a contractual basis.
No clarity
Over the past two decades, the TISS administration has introduced new courses without adequately considering the funds required to sustain them. This has resulted in a significant number of academics being hired on a contractual basis, with very little job security and a constant fear of job loss.
The decision to reinstate those appointed under the Tata Education Trusts and terminated recently came after the Ratan Tata-headed trust decided to extend the financial grants. However, there is no clarity on the timeline of this extension.
The TISS Teachers Association has also raised a concern over treating the academic members as “project staff.”
“We are concerned about the narration of our colleagues being projected as project staff. We clarify that our colleagues under Tata Trust positions are integral members of our Schools and Centres, appointed through a proper selection process and engaged through contracts, and have been contributing to the core teaching and educational activities of the Institute, in many cases for more than a decade,” the statement reads.
The teachers’ association has blamed the TISS administration for landing such a large number of its staff in such an uncertain situation. “The present situation was precipitated on account of administrative delays in taking timely action and ensuring academic continuity, especially when the Institute is about to begin its new academic session as we are transitioning to NEP frameworks for all our teaching programmes,” the statement claims.
