Staff at Sheffield Hallam University set to strike

Members of UCU at the university will strike from Monday 23 September until Thursday 26 September following a ballot that saw 87% of those voting agreeing to take action. 

UCU has accused the university of pushing ahead with expensive building projects and satellite campuses, while launching a wholesale attack on staff and students through an unprecedented cuts programme, severely breaching the post-92 contract and national Framework Agreement, and destroying working conditions.    

Around 140 academics have left following the opening of a voluntary severance scheme in December 2023 and the university has ploughed ahead with further job losses. 400 professional services jobs are also being axed, amid concerns that the loss of these workers will severely impact student experiences. 

The university has also failed to honour a negotiated and fully agreed contract for Associate Lecturers who were expected to move from zero-hour contracts to fixed-term contracts in September 2023. A decision has now been made retain the use of zero-hour contracts, condemning these staff members to insecure gig-economy style employment. 

Senior leaders want to cut a further £15m from the university budget this year, which is likely to involve the loss of further academic staff. However, management refuse to provide further information on these plans and no meaningful attempts have been made to address staff concerns despite various solutions and compromises being offered by UCU. 

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'Strike action is a last resort for our members but they will not stand by and let management force though these scandalous cuts which would see teaching, research and academic standards torn to shreds.     

'Rather than reviewing its spending on new buildings and a satellite campus halfway across the country, Hallam management is threatening to slash jobs, jeopardise academic standards, and tear up staff's hard-won terms and conditions. If university management do not stop these attacks on staff, they will face unprecedented disruption at the start of the new academic year.'