Today members of the UCU Branch at Sheffield Hallam University have given an overwhelming mandate for industrial action in a statutory ballot for strike action. 87.7% of members voted for strike action and 93.2% for action short of strike, with a turnout of 72.6%, the highest in the Branch’s recent history. This vote demonstrates the strength of feeling of academic staff at Sheffield Hallam and represents our members’ unequivocal rejection of the current strategy of managed decline being pursued by the University Executive Board that is destroying working conditions and undermining student learning. The recent updated report compiled by Sheffield Hallam UCU highlights the history of bad financial decisions that have worsened the University’s finances and the “death spiral” of continuing decline threatened by the current proposals of at least 130 further job losses, work intensification and replacing experienced lecturing staff with less experienced tutors. In the last few days, a report in the press reveals that the current level of employer’s contribution to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) is likely set to fall. This casts further serious doubt on the University’s plan to save money by evading its legal obligation to offer TPS membership to its teaching staff by removing most of them to a wholly owned subsidiary company. Sheffield Hallam UCU now renews its call to the University Executive Board to engage in meaningful negotiation in the knowledge that UCU members are prepared to take substantial strike action to obtain a better deal for academic and research staff, and secure a better future for the University and its students.
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