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Branch updates

News in brief from SUCU Committee.

Consultative Ballot on Redundancies

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Following a vote by our well attended January General meeting, on Tuesday 21st members received a message from UCU asking them to vote in an online local Consultative Ballot over avoiding compulsory redundancies at the University of Sheffield. The branch committee, and our local dispute committee, are asking members to vote YES on all questions in this ballot. In the Autumn, University management announced an intention to cut staff costs by £23 million over the course of two academic years. As part of this, an additional set of restructures – on top of the at least 21 that they are already planning as part of the highly unpopular New Schools plan – has been announced. This amounts to more disruption and risk to jobs in a single year than this University has seen in a decade. In December 2024, this branch launched a local grievance with our employer over these issues, alongside UoS Unite. In January, two local negotiating meetings took place in an attempt to resolve the dispute, and as of our second meeting, management were not willing to commit to no compulsory redundancies, nor to substantially reducing their target for staff cuts.  It is the branch’s view that:
  • management have not adequately demonstrated the financial need to pursue such aggressive levels of cuts;
  • management’s stated timeline of returning to a surplus position within the short timeframe of two years is unnecessary;
  • management have still not fully explored non-staff alternatives, including comprehensively reviewing the amount of money paid to third party vendors (including management consultancies, private security firms, and IT consultancies), or how this could be reduced to save jobs and/or bring work in-house;
  • management have not full explored all options within the staffing budget, such as reduced hours, voluntary unpaid leave, or re-opening the VS scheme;
  • management have not adequately explained why UEB salaries should remain at their current level, rather than being reduced to save jobs, nor have they committed to forgoing their bonuses until the university returns to a surplus position; 
  • management’s transparency and openness regarding the university’s financial position needs to improve, in order to build staff trust.
We believe that the current proposals can still be significantly improved through meaningful negotiation, and welcome continued talks with management to resolve this dispute. The ballot received by members is consultative and designed to gauge the views of the branch. A YES vote does not mean we would immediately call industrial action; if support is strong, we will declare a trade dispute, and move to a formal ballot locally. At this point, the branch will seek to build consensus on precisely what forms and patterns of ASOS and strike action a) are likely to be most impactful and b) members are willing to engage in. As this would be a local dispute, members of this branch would have ultimate say on these points.

University of Sheffield Genocide and Apartheid Complicity Report

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Sheffield Campus Coalition for Palestine has published the University of Sheffield Genocide and Apartheid Complicity Report (PDF, 5.5MB). This report finds that the AMRC and its associates are leading fundamental research on manufacturing processes, materials and technologies explicitly for the arms industry. Between 2012 and 2022, the University received £72 million in direct funding from arms manufacturers, more than any other UK institution. Currently, the University is conducting research costing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of pounds that is connected with arms manufacturers and/or perpetrators of apartheid in Gaza.

SUCU Annual Report 2024

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The Sheffield UCU annual report 2023/2024 is now available to read. It includes reports from the Committee, as well as financial reports and details of subscriptions and donations for the branch. SUCU Annual Report 2024

A SUCU Win! A new Graduate Teaching Contract

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A SUCU Win! A new Graduate Teaching Contract (24th May 2024) We are thrilled to announce that SUCU and the University have agreed a new Graduate Teaching Contract.   The contract will replace the previous Sheffield Graduate Training Contract, and will apply to Graduate Teaching Assistants and Graduate Teaching Associates across the University. We believe the new contract will generate tangible improvements in the conditions of work of GTAs, provide more contract security, provide a framework for the correct allocation of all required duties and hours worked, and for GTAs to be better rewarded. The full new version of the contract is available to read here, and a comparison of the new contract with the old is available here.   Summary of changes
  • The new contract is a fixed-term, hourly-paid contract that lasts for the period of an academic year and includes a minimum of 20 hours of work.
    • The previous contract was an effective zero-hours contract.
  • GTAs will be provided with continuity of service, where they work consecutive contracts, allowing them to access employment rights linked to periods of continuous employment.
    • The previous contract did not provide continuity of service.
  • Departments must allocate work hours based on their departmental teaching workload allocation principles. Time will be allocated for teaching, preparation, meeting attendance, marking and assessment, and student support, including emails, training, and development.
    • The previous contract didn’t contain this detail, and there was a high degree of variation in which activities were paid between departments.
  • GTAs have access to 2 hours of paid induction, and up to 4 hours per academic year to complete paid training and development. 2 hours are available to prepare for and attend a Staff Review and Development Scheme (SRDS) meeting with the relevant line manager.
    • The previous contract did not stipulate that any training should be paid.
  • Graduate Teaching Assistants will continue to be paid at Grade 6.1, and Graduate Teaching Associates will continue to be paid at 7.3. For all GTAs who complete more than 150 hours of work in an academic year they will be eligible to receive an incremental pay increase the following year.
  • GTAs will have access to some aspects of The Deal and Recognition Awards.
  Implementation We have worked in close collaboration with HR to devise a plan for the implementation of the new contract. As part of this, we have had extensive input into detailed HR Guidance for Schools in recruiting, allocating work to, managing and supporting GTAs. This includes seeking more transparent recruitment processes, ensuring that work is allocated in a timely fashion, that clear line management channels exist to support GTA’s professional development, and that schools are provided with adequate support from HR to implement these commitments without major disruption to either academic or PS teams. It also stresses clarity regarding the grading differences between Graduate Teaching Assistant and Graduate Teaching Associate roles. Many discussions have been had with SUCU members and other colleagues who are involved in recruiting, coordinating and managing GTAs to inform this guidance. This guidance is still being finalised. This means that while most changes arising for GTAs from this new contract will be put into operation for the academic year 24/25, some aspects around workload allocation in line with School/Department planning rounds (which tend to take place in April and May), will not be fully implemented until next academic year. The University has agreed to undertake a joint review of the new contract’s implementation in Spring 2025.    Process The new contract has come about as the result of a lengthy local process of bargaining and campaigning. In May 2023, we formally submitted our Anti-Casualisation Claim to HR. This followed an agreement that the branch achieved to enter into negotiations here, as a result of the 2022 Marking and Assessment Boycott. The claim contains many demands relating to the use of casual work at the University of Sheffield. These demands were informed by a bargaining survey where members shared their experience, areas of concern and priorities for fighting casualisation. These experiences were pivotal to the development of the claim, which was workshopped and discussed with SUCU’s Anti-Casualisation Network over a  number of months.  The Network was also crucial to the Postcard Campaign that invited members across the University to express their support for the Claim. Negotiations began in Summer 2023, and we have met on average once every 4-6 weeks. We are grateful to the many members that have contributed to reaching this agreement. A huge thanks also for the tireless work of our negotiators, Remi Edwards, Alex Kirby-Reynolds, Maria Alexandrescu, and Robyn Orfitelli.   Next steps Currently we are in negotiations over the second part of the claim, and hope to soon agree a joint position on other work that PGRs typically perform at the University, particularly research assistance. The latter portions of the claim relate to the university’s use of fixed-term contracts, and we are currently deciding with HR and other campus unions how best to take this forward. Regarding the GTA contract, we will continue to work with HR to finalise the guidance for Schools/Departments, and will continue to engage with members when the contract comes into force in September to monitor its implementation and offer support to departments. If you’re a PGR or member of staff who works with PGRs and are interested in being involved in monitoring implementation in your own Department, please get in touch!

Local strike action 18-22 and 25-29 September 2023

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(14th Sep 2023) The email from the Director of HR to all staff (13th September) indicated that within our negotiation meeting we “were not able to reach an agreement”. We would like to clarify that our delegation approached the meeting with management openly and optimistically. Whilst the position from the branch is clear, we were willing to negotiate seriously to find an offer that the branch may deem sufficient to call off strike action during one of the busiest times of the year. Management offered nothing.

In previous sector wide disputes, management have held the public position that they do not wish to negotiate locally as it would not have the power to directly resolve the entire dispute. That is simply not true in this case. There is still time for management to engage and find a resolution that works for both parties. We have again today written to the VC to reiterate that. We understand that representatives of the Students’ Union have also met with management and asked them to engage with the branch to avoid the upcoming strike action and major disruption it will cause to students by returning MAB deductions.

Requesting the return of MAB deductions is not an unreasonable position, with the University of Sussex recently agreeing to return these in return for marking being completed by a reasonable date. Similar local agreements have been made at several other universities, including King's College London and LSE. Members might also remember the previous year’s MAB in which our own management agreed not to make deductions in response to marks being returned. We notified management on the 13th of July of our intention to escalate, giving them plenty of time to reconsider their position on deductions and avoid disruption.

In addition to writing to the VC and Director of Human Resources to ask them to return to negotiations, Members in the Faculty of Social Sciences have drafted an open letter which University of Sheffield staff and students can sign to show their support. We understand that this letter will be shared with management ahead of the upcoming action to ask them to please rethink their position.

Since management have the power to negotiate an end to this local dispute at any point, it is crucial that members show up in force next week. We note that deductions for August are not currently scheduled to be taken until this month's payroll is run, so there is still time for management to cancel these deductions. We also encourage members to keep an eye out for emails from us with any updates.