Tag: strike

Sheffield Greens back striking lecturers

11th June 2026

Sheffield City Green Party have announced a motion to support striking academic staff at Sheffield Hallam University

UCU Strike June 2026

Sheffield Green Party notes that “Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) has cut 1000 jobs in a little over two years, and the local University and College Union (UCU) branch reports devastating impacts on teaching provision, student support and staff workload.”

Kim Perry, chair of Sheffield Green Party, said, “We encourage people of the city to support the UCU. Academics of the Universities are vital to both our city and the country’s educational and working future. Staff, students and the public shouldn’t suffer because of the terrible decisions of management.” 

Andy Nichols, spokesperson for the UCU branch, said “Sheffield Hallam UCU branch rejects the policy of managed decline that has been adopted by the University Executive Board, resulting in over 1000 job losses, worsening working conditions for remaining staff, deteriorating learning conditions for students, and adverse impacts on the local economy and communities. We thank the Green Party for their solidarity. in passing this motion.”

The strike, which started on 27th May, is set to continue throughout June. 

Here is the motion in full

Picket line at SHU
Cllrs Alexi Dimond, Tessa Lupton, Lynsey Angell, Richard Tinsley and Ruth Abbey supporting UCU at Sheffield Hallam University

SGP: Motion of Support for Sheffield Hallam UCU

We note that:

  1. Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) has cut 1000 jobs in a little over 2 years, and the local University and College Union (UCU) branch reports devastating impacts on teaching provision, student support and staff workload.
  2. SHU is currently seeking to make a further £27m of cuts, including many more job losses, and taking teaching staff out of the Teachers Pension Scheme by employing them through a wholly owned subsidiary and enrolling them in the Local Government Pensions Scheme instead.
  3. SHU has been falling rapidly in the university league tables (from 63rd in 2025 to 84th in 2026, in the Complete University Guide).
  4. SHU reportedly creates 2.4 extra jobs in the City of Sheffield for every one job at the University, and is vital to the economy; culture, education and the wellbeing of our city.

 

We believe that:

  1. UCU has demonstrated that SHU has a history of poor governance; expenditure outstripping income for over a decade, including tens of millions of pounds of loans taken out for unaffordable buildings, and speculative spending on a satellite campus in Brent Cross, London. If SHU wish to ‘balance the books’, they should look first to their own poor investments.
  2. The multiple crises at SHU have been exacerbated by government failures to protect ‘post-92’ (former polytechnic universities) from rising Teachers Pension Scheme costs, in the way that primary and secondary schools have been. This creates a financial penalty for that part of the university sector most likely to educate students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

 

  1. https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/universities/sheffield-hallam-university
  2. https://ucuhallam.org/sheffield-hallam-ucu-state-of-the-university-report-2025/
  3. https://wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/three-years-on-tps-pensions-are-still-very-expensive-for-higher-education/
  4. https://ifs.org.uk/news/english-universities-ranked-their-contributions-social-mobility-and-least-selective-post-1992

Cllr Gilligan Kubo responds to the Veolia petition

9th July 2025

Councillor Christine Gilligan Kubo
Cllr Christine Gilligan Kubo

Councillor Christine Gilligan Kubo, has spoken for Sheffield Greens in response to the petition brought to Sheffield City Council by members of Unite.  The petition includes a request to bring privatised waste collection services back in house.

“When in power, the Lib Dems outsourced the city’s waste collection services in 2001.  The contract was extended under a Labour Administration for 10 years and then for a further 1 year.  The current contract ends in 2038.

Sheffield Green Party has consistently spoken out against privatisation of public services, especially those very long-term commitments to private, profit-making businesses. 

Any surplus made from providing public services should not be syphoned off to further enrich wealthy private shareholders or to pay bonuses to company bosses who already earn eye-watering salaries. They should be ploughed back in to improve the provision or to reduce the prices for residents.

The neoliberal agenda of privatisation of public utilities initiated under Margaret Thatcher has not been a good deal for the public – look at the fiasco that has happened as a result of water privatisation.”

Outsourcing

“Sheffield Green Party did not support the outsourcing of the waste contract to Veolia, but we are where we are, and we all know it would not be feasible or financially possible for the Council to cancel the current contract.  This would involve penalties running well into the millions and, as councils across the country are already struggling financially after years of Tory imposed austerity and the continuation of this under Labour,  SCC cannot afford to purchase waste collection vehicles or pay operators to manage our waste if we cancel the contract.

To minimise the strike’s disruption, Veolia have rightly prioritised kerbside  waste collection but have not been able to continue the bring sites recycling provision at supermarkets.  We would like to see this service restored as soon as possible.”

Reduce – reuse – recycle

“Recycling is a key element of achieving net zero ambitions and is what people want. This important service has not been available since the start of the dispute.  The fact that Sheffield has an outsourced waste collection is also the reason why kerbside collections of food waste are not happening in the city – despite it normally being a legal requirement at last.  Commercial reasons also work against any sort of publicity campaign to reduce waste and consumption. There are many downsides to inflexible private-sector contracts.

This strike is not a dispute with Sheffield City Council but one that affects all the residents of the city.  The strike is a dispute between two unions,  GMB and Unite.  Employees have the right to choose which union represents them so we urge Unite and GMB to get together and work out a positive way forward. Trade Unions play an important role in the workplace and their ability to protect workers rights is essential to a modern economy, but this feud between the unions does not look good and it is likely to make those people who do not support trade unions even more keen to abolish them altogether.  So please, GMB and Unite, sort this out for the future of trade unionism and for the residents of Sheffield who have put up with this for far too long.”