Staff have slammed the \u2018toxic\u2019 work environment at the University of Sheffield, claiming to have \u201clost confidence in the management,\u201d as they continue balloting for industrial action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This follows the University\u2019s decision in the Autumn of 2024 to reduce staff costs by \u00a323 million over the course of two academic years by offering members voluntary severance pay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, many feel as though this is a continued demonstration of the poor management by the University\u2019s executive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Umberto Albarella of Zooarchaeology, said: \u201cI love my university, love my students but the Management is destroying us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is not just a fight for now but this is a fight for the future generations. We don\u2019t want to go on strike but this executive is systematically dismantling our university.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UCU Sheffield branch claims that the management\u2019s timeline of returning to a surplus position within two years is unnecessary. The branch maintains that the strike can be avoided if the University is willing to listen and negotiate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Negotiations include asking the university to reconsider all staff budgeting options instead of needlessly letting go of staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is little certainty whether strikes will take place at this stage, however opinion among many staff members is that a walkout is likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lecturer at the University, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: \u201cThere are a whole set of contracts in which we operate and management can\u2019t just ignore the union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis has been massively mismanaged. The way this has been handled without any real consultation and people being told they\u2019re being made redundant or being told they\u2019re going to be working somewhere completely different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just moving people around like pawns on a chess board. Striking is the only real way that staff can show that they mean business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always the issue that it\u2019s really the students that suffer when what we really need to do is make the management suffer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don\u2019t take this lightly. We do our jobs because it\u2019s fun teaching, we don\u2019t like hanging around in the cold.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A member of professional services at the University, who wished to remain anonymous, said: \u201cI would always support workers to do what they can to improve their conditions in this case though I think it\u2019s wider than that and I think that it’s about our working conditions but also about student\u2019s working conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe conditions for students are getting worse and worse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel like I am just watching lots of slow motion car crashes where I\u2019m holding up a little paper sign saying \u2018Please could you try not to crash,\u2019 and trying to ask the University to maybe slow down with a lot of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cStaff are one of the most valuable assets at University and prioritising staff means that you can then ensure that students get as good and as consistent experience as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spokesperson for the University of Sheffield said: “In response to the financial challenges facing UK universities, including Sheffield, we have been making savings across the institution, with a focus on maintaining an excellent education and experience for our students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a means to help avoid making compulsory redundancies, we ran a scheme to allow staff to choose to leave voluntarily. To minimise disruption, departures are being managed over the coming months and all core University activities will continue as usual. We value our staff, will continue to support them through this period of change and work constructively with our trade unions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The University also made a range of non-staff reductions that were prioritised first and claimed this has already all made considerable strides towards the necessary savings required. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Staff have slammed the \u2018toxic\u2019 work environment at the University of Sheffield, claiming to have \u201clost confidence in the management,\u201d as they continue balloting for industrial action. This follows the University\u2019s decision in the Autumn of 2024 to reduce staff costs by \u00a323 million over the course of two academic years by offering members voluntary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":53926,"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":[159,5,132,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-2","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53920","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\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53920"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54360,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53920\/revisions\/54360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}