The Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust battles to protect nature. So why has a push to protect staff proven so divisive?

Good morning, readers — and welcome to today’s edition of The Tribune.

Trouble has been brewing at the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust (SRWT). Staff at the charity — who dedicate themselves to the cause of moths, moss and moorhens — got a shock last week when the CEO, Liz Ballard, resigned. This came only a day after staff finally succeeded in their push to form a union, making SRWT the first of the UK’s wildlife trusts to unionise.

But insiders tell us that relationships between management and staff have soured during the battle for union recognition — something the charity ultimately refused to do. In the end government recognition forced their hand, but not before a battle featuring external consultants, accusations of dirty tricks and rival sets of FAQs being sent around. That’s today’s story.

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By Victoria Munro

At 8am last Friday, all the staff at the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust — a conservation charity currently gearing up to celebrate its 40th birthday — received an email from CEO Liz Ballard, bidding them farewell. After nearly 13 years at the helm, she had handed in her notice. “It seems timely for the Trust to have new leadership with fresh ideas to take the organisation forward,” she wrote, “and I also wish to do other things outside of being a WT CEO!” While her email acknowledged that the charity had weathered significant challenges, “not least a global pandemic,” many staff suspect she had a far more recent challenge in mind.

Since February last year, the senior leadership and trustees of this organisation — one that sprung to life in 1985 to protect what is now the Sunnybank nature reserve — have been locked in a vicious tug of war with their own staff. It’s a battle they decisively lost last week. In December, the government’s Central Arbitration Committee recognised the union their employees had formed — something the charity itself had proved unwilling to do — making Sheffield and Rotherham’s the first wildlife trust in the UK to successfully unionise. Last week, the day before Ballard’s company-wide announcement, the union’s bargaining agreement was finalised, determining what issues it could bring to the negotiating table.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that recognising the union would have been a fairly amicable process — this is a charity, after all, and a nature charity to boot. Are the kind of people who devote their days to lobbying for the great crested newt likely to oppose their employees advocating on their own behalf? And, for that matter, does the personality best suited to inventorying ancient woodlands lend itself to waging war with the boss?

In some ways, this does seem to have been an unusually civil conflict. One former employee, immediately after detailing all the ways they felt the executive board tried to squash the union out of existence, rushes to assure me that they’re all lovely people. “They all have the best intentions in what they do, they’re all passionate about wildlife and nature and improving it for the region.” A current employee I approach for their thoughts is eager to stress that joining the union “wasn’t a statement of unhappiness” but a sign of their commitment to the job. “I love Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust, I love my job and the people I work with, and I am so proud of everything we do for people and wildlife locally."

But, like an adorable badger infected with tuberculosis, the cuddly nature of the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust belies how embittered this struggle became. “I got the impression the union was taken as an attack on the leadership of the trust,” says 28-year-old David Botcherby, whose employment at the trust ended last month, “but I don’t think that’s how most people in the union saw it.” Another former employee, who resigned before the union was recognised and asked to remain anonymous, claims tension from the months of unsuccessful negotiations eventually bled out into the wider workplace. “Definitely both sides had a little bit of a needle against each other,” they say, “which did affect how people were engaging with the work.”

In response to a request for comment, Chair of Trustees Ben Stone insisted that Ballard’s resignation had nothing to do with the successful unionisation drive at the charity. “Liz leaves behind an incredible legacy including delivery of the £5 million landscape-scale Sheffield Lakeland Partnership, the purchase of Ughill Farm and helping save Smithy Wood ancient woodland from a service station development,” he writes. “We all wish her well for the future.” Regarding the union itself, he says that the charity is “pleased to have reached an agreement” and that it “reflects our commitment to open communication and a respectful, fair process for all parties involved”. He looks forward to “a productive partnership going forward,” he adds. 

But, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words — and the actions of the charity’s trustees and senior management have reportedly been speaking very loudly indeed. From a company-wide email that insisted the union could prevent staff from getting pay rises to bringing in an external HR consultant, they sent a clear message that they did not want the union to exist. Botcherby adds: “There were definitely certain members of the executive team who would say things like ‘I believe in unions, but just not one here’.”