{"id":50598,"date":"2024-04-15T16:01:59","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T16:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/?p=50598"},"modified":"2024-04-15T16:02:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T16:02:00","slug":"ballot-opens-for-strike-action-at-sheffield-hallam-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/2024\/04\/15\/ballot-opens-for-strike-action-at-sheffield-hallam-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballot opens for strike action at Sheffield Hallam University"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Staff at Sheffield Hallam University are voting on strike action as part of a dispute over the organisation&#8217;s financial decision making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) Hallam Branch announced that the statutory ballot for industrial action at Sheffield Hallam University had opened today in response to \u201cpoor financial decisions\u201d by the administration.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a statement, the UCU mentioned that the university had a \u201cworrying\u201d budget deficit of \u00a39million for this financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The UCU also accused the university of excessive spending on new buildings, costing over \u00a3200million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sheffield Hallam University also plans to open a new satellite campus in north-west London, as a part of the Brent Cross Town development project.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_9469-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-50651\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_9469-980x735.jpeg 980w, https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_9469-480x360.jpeg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Sheffield Hallam University&#8217;s new building opposite the railway station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The UCU suggested that this is a \u201crisky venture\u201d which is costing the university money before students can be recruited in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A spokesperson said: \u201cManagement have prioritised buildings over people, overcommitted SHU\u2019s budget, and we are all paying the price for their poor decision making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the past few months, the university has also provoked controversy by issuing over 120 \u201crisk of redundancy\u201d letters to staff and introducing a voluntary severance scheme which has resulted in over 140 staff leaving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, the UCU accused the management for breaching the national framework agreement by removing the grade 9 Principal Lecturer role and introducing a grade 6 Academic Tutor role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The UCU claimed that the Grade 6 Academic Tutor role had been identified by management as a way of back-filling any potential gaps in staffing and is a \u201cdegradation of teaching standards\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sheffield Hallam University was contacted for a statement, but has not yet responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The strike ballot will be open until Monday, 22 May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Staff at Sheffield Hallam University are voting on strike action as part of a dispute over the organisation&#8217;s financial decision making. The Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) Hallam Branch announced that the statutory ballot for industrial action at Sheffield Hallam University had opened today in response to \u201cpoor financial decisions\u201d by the administration.&nbsp; In a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":50649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[159,5,132,4],"tags":[422,419,420,421,263],"class_list":["post-50598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-2","category-news","category-top-stories","category-top-story","tag-industrial-action","tag-strike","tag-ucu","tag-union","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50598"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50654,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50598\/revisions\/50654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}