Staff vote to strike at Sheffield Hallam University over ‘vicious job cuts’

87% of voting members supported industrial action, on a turnout of 53%. Strike dates will be announced in due course.

UCU accused the university of pushing ahead with costly building projects and satellite campuses while launching a wholesale assault on staff and students through an unprecedented program of cuts, grossly breaching the post-92 contract and national framework and destroying conditions for the work.

The university has announced that a further 400 professional services jobs will be cut, with staff facing compulsory redundancies. Around 140 academics have already left following the opening of a voluntary redundancy scheme in December (2023) and the university has continued with further job losses.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Our members do not take the decision to strike lightly, but Sheffield Hallam staff have voted for action because they cannot stand by and allow management to force these outrageous cuts which would leads to broken teaching, research and academic standards. pieces.

“It is shameful to see that instead of revising their spending on new buildings and a satellite campus halfway across the country, management would rather cut jobs, jeopardize academic standards and destroy our hard-earned terms and conditions hard. If the university management does not stop these attacks on staff, they will face unprecedented disruption.”