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Over 70,000 staff from The University and College Union are striking for 18 days between February and March. Today was the second day of striking and Union Members from The University of Sheffield are picketing today in front of the Octagon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The strike action is over pensions, pay and working conditions. Today is the second official day of the striking period. The UCU members had formed a picket line in front of the Octagon building in protest, to draw the public’s attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Umberto Albarella, 60, is a professor of Archaeology at the University and one of the union members who were outside the Octagon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0Albarella said: \u201cWe are trying to defend our pensions, salaries and a number of other battles we are fighting about the general environment of our university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople are totally over worked, the workload is just completely unmanageable. There is still a long way to go to reach full equality and we don\u2019t think the Uni is doing enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maise Mannion, a student at the University of Sheffield, has had multiple lectures affected by the strikes. She said: \u201cIt\u2019s been so frustrating. I\u2019m in my final year, and this term is shorter anyway. I am missing out on three weeks of teaching content with one of my lecturers for my dissertation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Albarella believes the main issue is that \u201cthe overall university environment has deteriorated and has become really toxic, competitive in an unhealthy way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Every minute that we spend here is a great victory for us. We are raising the issue that the universities in the country are being managed in an absolutely appalling way.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Union Members have strike days planned until the 22nd Of March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Over 70,000 staff from The University and College Union are striking for 18 days between February and March. Today was the second day of striking and Union Members from The University of Sheffield are picketing today in front of the Octagon. The strike action is over pensions, pay and working conditions. Today is the second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":46714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[415,41,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-environment","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n