How Casual and Contract Academics Are Losing Their Jobs During the Coronavirus Pandemic By mid-2018, an estimated 94,500 people were employed at Australian universities on a casual basis, primarily in teaching-only roles. by Jess Harris, Kathleen Smithers and Nerida Spina

The National Tertiary Education Union this week struck an agreement with universities that no ongoing university staff member would be stood down involuntarily without pay. This deal is contingent on staff above a certain pay grade taking a cut of up to 15% of their salary.

It’s still uncertain how many universities will sign up to the deal – the Australian Catholic University has already rejected it.

Casual and contract academics are most vulnerable to imminent job losses. By mid-2018, an estimated 94,500 people were employed at Australian universities on a casual basis, primarily in teaching-only roles.

The number of precariously employed academics has been estimated at 70% of teaching staff in some universities. At the University of Wollongong, for instance, around 75% of staff are in insecure work – a figure that includes both teaching and administrative workers.

And yet in March, the university had failed to ensure wage support for casual staff needing to self-isolate for any reason.

In April, one-third of casuals at the University of NSW had reported they’d lost work. This reportedly cost them an average A$626 a week, and 42% were working unpaid hours.

Casual academics are not eligible for the government’s JobKeeper payments due to rules that require more than 12 months continuous employment with an organisation that has lost between 30-50% of its revenue – effectively ruling universities out. Casual academics are often on short-term contracts, such as a semester-by-semester basis.

Under the NTEU agreement, displaced casual and fixed-term contract staff will be prioritised for new work. This approach leaves many staff in a position of increased precarity. The likelihood of new work emerging over the next few months is low, given the downturn in international student enrolments and uncertainties around conducting fieldwork research given social distancing policies.

This highly skilled yet vulnerable group need greater support from our government.

A vulnerable workforce

Some estimates place revenue losses at Australian universities at around A$19 billion over the next three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The university sector estimates this puts more than 21,000 jobs at risk over coming months, and countless more in the future.

The loss of international students is potentially catastrophic for the sector. An estimated A$2 billion in fees could be lost mid-year as international students are unable to arrive in Australia to start semester two studies.

Some universities, such as the University of Tasmania, have had to reduce the number of courses offered in 2021 to recoup funding. And universities have had to scale back spending, for example, on major construction works.

This week, Vice Chancellor of La Trobe University, John Dewar, said revenues could be A$150 milloon under budget this year and up to A$200 million next year.

If this year’s required savings were to be made solely from staff cuts, this would require 200-400 job losses, he said. The 2021 budget gap could equate to 600-800 jobs.

In April, La Trobe and RMIT university had let go of hundreds of casual “non-essential” staff. Western Sydney University warned staff in April it would cut casual workloads as it faced mounting financial shortfalls over the next three years.

Despite these realities, both tenured and untenured academic staff are being asked to do more in teaching and research to support the country in the face of this pandemic. They are doing this with fewer resources.

What can be done?

Even before the NTEU agreement, many universities responded with clear policies and support in response to COVID-19. For example, executive staff at some universities – such as La Trobe and the The University of Wollongong – took a 20% pay cut, and froze any non-essential travel.

Many universities, such as Deakin, are providing paid leave for staff with caring responsibilities and paid isolation leave for those exposed to coronavirus. And others, like ANU and ACU, have extended benefits to their casual and contract staff. These include honouring existing contracts, paying sessional tutors despite reductions in teaching hours and paying casual staff to attend online professional development.

All workers need transparency around expectations and pay. But this is particularly important for casual staff, whose immediate and long-term work prospects are under threat despite having often spent years in universities building expertise. Although casual academics are on temporary contracts, some have been working for universities longer than their colleagues on continuing contracts.

In the United States a statement of solidarity started by 70 prominent academics academics has so far received more than 2,000 signatures. The signatories have refused to work with any university that does not support its staff.

Some might argue such declarations are performative. But our research interviews with precariously employed academics highlight how support from ongoing academic staff is critical to their experiences in academia. This includes their mental health, job prospects and future career paths.

Casual staff members already experience isolation and anxiety. Missing out on benefits such as special leave provisions extended to tenured staff while working from home may exacerbate this.

Breaks in an academic career or a lack of visibility – which could result from working from home, not holding a current contract or a lack of recent publications – can irrevocably damage future job prospects for any academic.

Tenured academics and leaders can make an enormous difference to non-tenured staff by being proactive in maintaining networks, ensuring transparent communication, providing mentoring and offering paid opportunities to co-author research publications.

The government has pledged to support employees from many other industries impacted by COVID, through policies like JobKeeper. As our third largest national export, higher education is crucial for building new knowledge and preparing our future workforce.

While the NTEU framework offers a starting point, further government funding is required to provide appropriate security to those who work on casual or fixed-term contracts in higher education.

Recognition of their work and clarity about prospects and pay can make a massive difference to the lives and careers of our non-tenured colleagues.

The World is Round: Shifting Supply Chains and a Fragmented World Order Since the 1990s, nationalism in the West was deemed passé as supply chains spanned the globe and international travel along with financial flows became more frequent. We thought that the digital-information age had led us to transcend nature and history respectively. These delusions were abruptly ended by the Coronavirus pandemic that has proven that the world is indeed round. Yet we are destined to repeat the mistakes of history. by Barack Seener

In light of global lockdown brought about by coronavirus, Thomas Friedman’s famous aphorism that “the world is flat” due to ever-increasing interconnectivity sounds anachronistic. The ever-increasing interconnectedness associated with the latest phase of globalization was believed inevitable. Since the 1990s, nationalism in the West was deemed passé as supply chains spanned the globe and international travel along with financial flows became more frequent. We thought that the digital-information age had led us to transcend nature and history respectively. These delusions were abruptly ended by the Coronavirus pandemic that has proven that the world is indeed round. Yet we are destined to repeat the mistakes of history.   

The West’s economic prosperity was artificial and predicated upon an artificial standard of living by outsourcing labor to frontier and emerging markets where it was cheaper to manufacture. The rationale for our throwaway society was that it was cheaper to outsource production to areas where health or environmental regulations were poor or non-existent. As a result, we would be raising their standard of living by the service economies’ supply chains extending to impoverished production economies. As these countries’ GDP grew, we would cause them to evolve from production to service economies. We had reached a phase in history where self-interest and altruism were synonymous. Yet within the strength of this proposition lay its vulnerability. It is precisely in areas with weak regulations that makes them attractive and cost-effective to manufacture and ultimately cheaper to purchase, where there is a heightened risk for localized epidemics to become global pandemics.  

Currently companies are seeking to resource their manufacturing away from China and relocate supply chains to smaller southeast Asian states such as Vietnam. Apple announced plans last year to diversify its manufacturing from being reliant upon China. Kearney, an international manufacturing consulting firm, released its seventh annual Reshoring Index that identified that in 2013, China maintained 67 percent of U.S.-bound Asian sourced goods. By the second quarter of 2019, China’s share collapsed by 56 percent, a decrease of more than a thousand basis points. Kearney predicts companies “will be compelled to go much further in rethinking their sourcing strategies, (and) their entire supply chains.”  

As fostering a sense of security will be associated with controlling supply chains, there will be an increasing trend away from diversifying supply chains that have been disrupted in neighboring countries such as South Korea and Japan due to coronavirus, towards localized supply chains within national borders. The momentum is increasing as the Trump administration fearful of China weaponizing critical supply chains attempts to reduce U.S. dependence on China for drugs and medical products such as antibiotics and pain medicines used across the globe, as well as surgical masks and medical devices. In turn, the Trump administration is encouraging greater American manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, which will lead to them being more costly. This is likely to extend to industries such as semiconductors and technology. Yet the United States. will be unable to build a manufacturing base overnight. Echoing U.S. concerns, German economic affairs and energy minister Peter Altmaier has even raised the option of nationalizing strategically important companies that have suffered because of coronavirus. 

The undermining of global supply chains endemic to international trade will be followed by great power contestation between the United States and China, schisms between nations, and the breakdown of multilateral projects, which in turn sets the stage for future inter-state conflict. These trends coupled with coronavirus’ disruption of global markets are likely to lead to a fragmented global order, which will detrimentally affect the export economies of Europe. 

Coronavirus has already begun to undermine the legitimacy of the European project in a greater manner that nationalist movements had hoped to achieve. European finance ministers have clashed over all EU nations sharing "corona bonds" debt, while France and Germany responded to Italy’s request for ventilators with a refusal accompanied by closing their borders with Italy. At around the same time, the United States imposed a unilateral ban on commercial flights with the EU.   

China’s economic growth strategy and foreign policy aspirations are being frustrated in the wake of Coronavirus, as developing countries are likely to scrutinize China’s Belt Road Initiative. Among Western policymakers anti-China sentiment is increasing. In the UK, there is mounting opposition to Huawei building its fifth-generation mobile networks. In late March, the United States abandoned its long-standing policy of maintaining a status quo vis a vis Taiwan. President Donald Trump signed into law The Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act, which increases U.S. support for Taiwan and “alters” engagement with nations that undermine Taiwan’s security or prosperity. Beijing responded that it would respond forcefully if the law was implemented, all the while China increases its military drills around Taiwan. This is increasingly likely to occur while the United States increasingly supports Hong Kong’s independence movement and demonstrates willingness to confront China in the South China Seas. Similarly, Washington is likely to be drawn into a confrontation with North Korea as the collapse of North Korea’s health system may threaten Kim Jong-un’s regime leading him to militarily lash out.   The latest phase of globalization spearheaded by the West entailed that service economies were not responsible for the manufacture of the products they consumed. Instead, they depended upon outsourcing production of cheap goods in distant shores creating unprecedented levels of economic prosperity, which at its root was artificial. Liberal democracies did not reach “the end of history,” where conflict was to be consigned to the dustbin of history, but could easily be unraveled by a virus emanating from a society it was reliant upon that did not share its norms. In a similar vein, the Roman Empire’s apex contained the seeds of its decay as it had become overstretched and difficult to manage. The historian Edward Gibbon, in his 1776 book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, notes that Romans had become weak and responded to the challenges of hyperinflation, civil wars and revolts by outsourcing their duties to defend their empire in far flung regions to “barbarian” mercenaries such as the Visigoths. Blowback occurred as these barbarians’ increased economic production and their ability to conduct warfare, which led them, ultimately, to turn against their benefactors and sack the Roman Empire. Similarly, the West increased the prosperity of faraway nations and ironically, as a result their military assertiveness by being beholden to extended global supply chains. This along with the risk of globalization unravelling increases the prospects of inter-state and great power conflict. All it took was a virus to detonate the fuse that was shorter than anyone expected. 

Why Can't the World Trade Organization Work Remotely during the Coronavirus Pandemic? A solution is needed to save the organization. by Inu Manak

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has recently been under fire. The Trump administration has called for its reform, but to date, its confrontational approach has aggravated allies and gotten in the way of any progress.

Now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, work at the WTO has ground to a halt, which puts the institution at risk of irrelevance. The only multilateral talks the WTO is conducting, that is, negotiations that include the entire 164 country membership, are on eliminating harmful fisheries subsidies. These talks are now in jeopardy. A key obstacle is an inability to find a way to conduct negotiations remotely. As many of us are now working from home, it is fair to ask why the WTO can’t do so as well?

Last month, the chair of the fisheries talks, Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, was hopeful that negotiations would continue in order to meet the deadline for a deal by this summer’s now cancelled Ministerial Conference. But recent reports suggest that technical difficulties are the heart of the problem. Hannah Monicken from Inside U.S. Trade reported the following:

The chair of the World Trade Organization negotiations to rein in harmful fisheries subsidies has concluded that members are not prepared to commit to virtual negotiations, telling members on Thursday that further work must be put on hold as they wait for pandemic‐​related restrictions to lift.

Colombian WTO Ambassador Santiago Wills, in a communication to members, said he had been receiving questions about next steps, according to a Geneva‐​based trade official. Based on his consultations with members and views presented at the heads‐​of‐​delegations meeting last month, Wills concluded that members were not prepared to engage in virtual and written discussions, he wrote.

 Wills decided that the best course of action was to wait and see what comes next, the official said. 

The challenge is finding a way to replicate the face‐​to‐​face experience digitally as closely as possible so that these discussions may continue. This is no easy feat, since negotiations consist of countless meetings that happen not just with the entire membership, but also with a subset of countries. Lots of bilateral meetings also take place and are often critical in the last moments of securing a final deal. How to make this work in an age of telework is crucial, because even as restrictions put in place from the pandemic are lifted, it is not likely to be a smooth transition. In addition, if we are hit with a second wave of infections, stopping negotiations again is impractical if fisheries talks are to conclude this year, and worse still for our rapidly depleting fish stocks.

Last month, heads of WTO member delegations met virtually to discuss this problem and noted that while members are generally willing to talk informally through digital platforms, they are reluctant about making binding decisions, as the WTO has no current procedure for this. There are several valid concerns here.

Smaller delegations may rightly fear that they will be cut out of important discussions, there are also technological capacity gaps and security concerns. But finding a solution to these and other problems is not impossible. The United Nations quickly developed an interim decision‐​making procedure last month to allow countries to continue to vote on resolutions. And negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union on Brexit have moved online as well.

The WTO should be able to find a way to do this. It should prioritize getting negotiations back on track as soon as possible. As my colleague James Bacchus and I have explained, the fisheries talks are a crucial test case of the WTO’s ability to adapt to the changing realities of the global trading system. Getting these negotiations right is critical, and they won’t conclude unless delegations are willing to buckle down and put in the effort to make a deal.

Last week, Sen. Hawley (R-MO) suggested “abolishing” the WTO, which he followed up with a joint resolution in Congress for the United States to withdraw. Much of what Senator Hawley said about the WTO was factually incorrect and distracts from important conversations about how to make the WTO work better. There remain real challenges that the WTO faces, and the organization is far from perfect. The inability to conduct negotiations online is a key example of this and an area that is ripe for reform. If the WTO wants to survive the pandemic, its negotiating function needs to be brought into the 21st century.

How Long Will Coronavirus Unemployment Last? Recent projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office suggest the job crisis will not end quickly for millions. by Matt Weidinger

Last Friday’s jobs report from the Department of Labor (DOL) shows US unemployment reached 14.7 percent in April, as payroll employment fell by 20.5 million. Those figures are the worst since official records began in 1948, far outstripping the effects of the 1970s and 1980s recessions, 9/11, and the Great Recession of 2007-09.

Those figures likely understate current unemployment, as the jobs report is based on surveys conducted during the week ending April 18. Other DOL data show that in the following two weeks ending on April 25 and May 2, an additional seven million people filed new claims for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, indicating significant additional layoffs.

Hopefully, for millions of laid off workers, the extraordinary spike in unemployment is temporary, as they are called back to their former jobs or find new jobs quickly as the economy reopens. However, recent projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office suggest the job crisis will not end quickly for millions of others, with unemployment peaking at 16 percent in the third quarter of 2020 and still averaging above 10 percent in 2021 before falling to 9.5 percent in December 2021. If CBO is correct (and Friday’s report already puts them on the optimistic side) and the recovery from this recession follows the “jobless recovery” from the Great Recession, the US could be facing high unemployment for years.

The massive ongoing unemployment likely to result from this crisis means one of the next policy discussions Congress will engage in involves extending UI benefits. Those are already payable for up to 59 weeks through current state UI programs and temporary federal programs created in prior coronavirus relief laws. Those temporary federal programs expire in December 2020, but this deadline will certainly be extended.

Last week, key congressional Democrats offered a sweeping proposal to provide up to an unprecedented 117 total weeks — that is, two years and three months — of unemployment benefits per recipient. That would far eclipse the record up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits payable per recipient in the wake of the Great Recession. Their proposal would also continue the availability of $600 per week unemployment check supplements, including after the health emergency has passed in amounts that would more than double typical UI benefits. Their proposal would continue such extraordinary federal unemployment benefits until the three-month average national unemployment rate falls below 5.5 percent for two straight months. As the above chart shows, if this recovery is like the last one, that could be over six years from now — in July 2026.

Are Coronavirus Survivors Immune From Getting It Again? There are two important issues in determining immunity: testing for the presence of virus-neutralizing antibodies in a blood test and the testing of the concentration of those antibodies in the body. by Peter Brookes Kevin Pham

Now that we’ve gotten COVID-19 testing for active infections well under way across the country, many who have already been infected have understandably asked if they are now immune to reinfection.

This question applies both to those who had developed only mild/moderate symptoms, and those who had more serious/severe symptoms that may have required medical attention.

It will also be important for those who never developed symptoms but suspect they were exposed, because antibody testing will reveal if they were.

A new study indicates that SARS-CoV-2 may have been capable of human transmission and circulating in China as early as last October—which is earlier than the widely accepted December time frame.

We’ve identified the first case here in the United States as appearing in late January, but it’s possible the virus could’ve been around earlier, meaning many may have been exposed to the virus already.

Human immunity, not surprisingly, is complicated.

There are two important issues in determining immunity: testing for the presence of virus-neutralizing antibodies in a blood test and the testing of the concentration of those antibodies in the body.

Regarding the testing for the presence of antibodies, a recent New York City study shows that COVID-19 patients are producing antibodies, but it can take from a few to several weeks after infection for them to show up in serological tests.

Since this new virus has been a source of severe consternation for the medical and scientific communities—as it has been for everyone—this is important empirical evidence of a normal immune response and good initial news. 

The other question is, in the absence of a vaccine, what level—or concentration—of antibodies is needed to prevent reinfection from SARS-CoV-2? 

That question will be answered through serum neutralization research, but some promising studies suggest those who have resolved this particular coronavirus infection likely will have enough protection to ward off reinfection.

But for how long? 

Immunity to a virus can wane over time. Protection after an infection could be short-term (months), or, like the common cold (which can be caused by a different coronavirus), it could last a year or at least a cold/flu season.

A defense could go on for longer if SARS-CoV-2 turns out like other coronaviruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome, for which virus-derived antibodies have reportedly given protection for two to three years.

Even if immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus reduces in effectiveness over time, the body’s immune system likely could generate a sufficient response to prevent a viral attempt at reinfection.

Beyond immunology, successful antibody testing also will help researchers develop historical and current information about the spread and penetrance of the virus, which will guide the continuing response to this pandemic.

Even more important will be the level of assurance it will provide to those who have developed immunity in possibly returning safely to normal activity. Testing front-line workers such as first responders will be a priority.

First responders are more often exposed to the virus, so the presence of protecting antibodies will defend them not only from contracting the disease, but also from spreading it to those they help.

At this time, while there are estimates, we still really don’t know how many Americans already have been exposed and may have immunity to reinfection.

There is still much to learn about this virus, but with antibody testing ramping up, the number of those immune will become increasingly in focus, aiding the development of good public health policies going forward and an economic recovery. 

Is Coronavirus Causing a Rare Children's Disease? Just as we begin to think we have a handle on it, this virus continues to befuddle. A concerning link may exist between COVID-19 and a rare childhood autoimmune disorder called Kawasaki disease. by Kevin Pham

One of the biggest unknowns of the COVID-19 pandemic is how it affects children.

Children have managed to avoid most of the severe manifestations of the disease caused by the new coronavirus, making up a small percentage of hospitalizations and almost none of the deaths. Conversely, Americans older than 65 have made up 45% of hospitalizations and 80% of deaths.

Thus, targeted mitigation efforts rightly would focus on nursing homes, which have suffered disproportionately from the COVID-19. Fixing policies that put older Americans at great risk likely will have the greatest effect on driving down national mortality, as opposed to blanket policies that include children.

However, just as we begin to think we have a handle on it, this virus continues to befuddle. A concerning link may exist between COVID-19 and a rare childhood autoimmune disorder called Kawasaki disease.

Out of 73 recent cases of Kawasaki disease in New York, three children have died and all three also tested positive for COVID-19. We don’t have evidence that this is necessarily a causal relationship, but some of the signs may make sense.

Kawasaki disease is an inflammatory autoimmune disorder of childhood that is thought to result from a previous viral infection. Some part of a virus, or the immune system’s response to it, causes the inflammatory pathway to hyperactivate suddenly and cause damage to the body.

A somewhat similar inflammatory phenomenon is known to occur with adults, and possibly is the main driver of mortality among COVID-19 patients. It stands to reason that Kawasaki disease, as an autoimmune disease of childhood often triggered by a previous viral infection, may be one of the effects of the coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2.

But this is conjecture at this point. We simply don’t have sufficient data to draw any connection. The incidence of Kawasaki disease is estimated to be between nine to 19 cases per 100,000 children under age 5 per year.

And not all cases of Kawasaki disease occur in the context of a coronavirus infection.

For instance, in this report of 15 cases in New York, 10 tested positive either for an active or previous infection by SARS-CoV-2. This raises suspicion of the link, but with so few cases of Kawasaki disease, the correlation may be wholly spurious. After all, finding a case of COVID-19 in New York City would be entirely unremarkable.

The good news is that doctors have treated Kawasaki disease successfully for years with intravenous immunoglobulin. It is possible that Kawasaki disease may appear more severe lately because families have been reluctant to go to the emergency department for fear of COVID-19.

Families must seek treatment for Kawasaki disease, which is characterized by several days of a high fever, red and swollen eyes, rash, redness of the hands and feet, and inflammation of the lips and mouth.

Fear of the hospital has become a much larger problem for both the hospitals and their patients. But based on the data regarding children and SARS-CoV-2 transmission, it is likely safe for them and those around them to seek treatment.

Although children are not invulnerable to the coronavirus, they are less susceptible to severe disease.

A recent literature review of numerous pediatric studies found that children not only are much less likely to develop severe disease from the new coronavirus, but also unlikely to transmit the virus to others.

The review was conducted when there were 150,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States. Of those, only 1.7% were children, more than half of whom were infants (62%) and nearly a quarter had underlying conditions (23%).

Among all confirmed pediatric cases of COVID-19, 5.7% required hospitalization. Of them, only 2% were admitted to an intensive care unit. This dataset included three confirmed deaths out of 2,572 cases.

Clearly, children neither are at great risk nor are they completely invincible to the effects of the virus. But statistically, nearly all confirmed COVID-19 cases among children were relatively benign.

Data showing less severe disease in children is easy to find, but data tracing disease transmission from children to adults is difficult to gather. However, one study of multiple pediatric research articles suggests that children are unlikely to be the primary source for infection in a household.

Of the 31 households identified with intrafamilial transmission of COVID-19, only three began with a child. That is, only 9.7% of these household cases began with children. Using similar data in comparison, 54% of H5N1 influenza cases within households began with children.

A similar dynamic exists in the school setting. An Australian study of 10 high schools and five primary schools from March to April found little transmission of the coronavirus from one person to the next. Twelve high school students and four members of the faculty were identified as confirmed cases of COVID-19 who had attended classes while infectious.

Nearly 600 other students were exposed to these COVID-19 cases but none of them tested positive. One student tested positive by antibody testing, which indicated a previous infection from which the student already had recovered.

The primary schools had a similar result, with one student and five faculty members identified as COVID-19 cases and only one student later found to be positive for antibodies.

Although more data is needed to draw a definitive conclusion about the role, if any, that children play in transmitting COVID-19, these findings all suggest that children are at the least risk themselves and pose the lowest risk to others.

Children seem to be mercifully spared the more severe manifestations of this pandemic. Not only do they seem less susceptible to infection, they seem not to spread the disease to others.

That being the case, it is likely that activities for children, such as school or summer camp, should be relatively safe to resume.

But as it has been throughout this ordeal, the new coronavirus easily can surprise us in the worst ways. It is likely we can safely allow our children to return to some semblance of normal life, but with caution and vigilance.