Are UK universities exploitative employers?

I responded to a thread about the successes of top UK universities in the latest ranking saying they were all exploitative employers. Someone asked me to provide some examples of how. Below is what I replied. Am I alone in feeling exploited? Do we accept it because we know it's very difficult these days to get any job as an academic? Why do UCU focus so much on pay % rather on how much work we're being expected to do? Do colleagues cut corners to survive, is that the only way?

In relation to academic staff, here are my observations: Over the years, more and more administrative roles have been transferred to academic staff. This has been done without any adequate account of the time these jobs take. Routinely, academic staff have to answer students questions and problems with everything from enrolment to submitting work. Systems for assessing students work have become more rigorous, as UK universities seek to improve quality, but staff are not given the hours required to do this work. For example, they might be given on their work schedule just 3 hours to mark a 12,000 word dissertation when this is rarely enough. Furthermore, those 3 hours don't take into account moderation, more complex feedback/marking expectations.

Linked to this is programme management. In many HEIs, if you are appointed as programme lead/director your responsibilities are considerable, including design of the programme, finding and supporting staff who teach on it, monitoring quality, writing reports, and answering hundreds and hundreds of emails from students on your programme (many of which relating to issues beyond your control, but there's no one else the students know to ask). For all of this work, staff yet insufficient hours. The universities make no effort to rigorously audit the time it takes to perform the work.

Then there is the issue of research funding. This is more complex to explain. But essentially it works like a temp agency. The university will charge funders more money for the academics involvement in research than they will pay you. The argument here is that the university pays your tax, gives you holidays and provides other things like equipment/resources. This is all true. But the the way HEIs operate is to maximise income revenue, while reducing costs to themselves. Consequently, staff often find they are on projects which were costed for a research assistant, but then one is not provided and the academic needs to do their work uncosted. Or, the project changes in demands, but no effort is made to renegotiate staff hours to take into account increases in work.

These are just some examples. In my experience of 5 very different HEIs, different patterns of exploitation occur. Some focus on career suppression - I.e. limited options for promotion. Almost all undervalue the time it takes to do the work.

To give some perspective, I keep a record of all my hours worked and what I did in that time. It's an underestimate because it just deals with time sat at the laptop or in specific meetings/teaching etc. But consistently I work unpaid the equivalent of 6 weeks. Yes, 6 weeks. More than I get in holidays. That is being exploited. And no one seems to care.