A number of campaigning academics are reporting their universities and colleges to government inspectors for failing to crack down on structural unpaid overtime.

Some 720 university workers took part in a research project at the end of last year to log their overtime and found they are working an average of 12 to 15 hours a week without getting paid for it, the Financieele Dagblad reported.

Campaign group WO in Actie, together with the FNV and AOB trade unions will hand the results of a survey to social affairs ministry inspectors later on Monday.

‘The unions are making a claim of structural, unpaid overtime on our behalf,’ campaigner and Utrecht University professor Ingrid Robeyns told the paper. ‘We are demanding that the inspectorate begins an investigation.’

Universities have to meet their budgets, Robeyns said. ‘The only solution is to structurally give more money to university education, so that extra members of staff can be taken on.’