secretary of the university and colleges unionjo grady at a picket line in leeds earlier. yes, as you can see, there s quite a big turnout here and there are protests going on at universities across the uk, in bristol, in sheffield, in london, in glasgow, in edinburgh. well, joining me now is drjo grady, who s the general secretary of the university and college union. how concerned are you about staff in this sector? we, as a union, are incredibly concerned. we have half of staff showing signs of probable depression, people utterly burnt out by workloads, often working six days a week, if not more. burnt out staff are not best for students. even the student union themselves called working conditions in higher education untenable . and, on top of that, we have the rampant misuse of precarious contracts. 30% of the teaching in universities are done by people not on a secure contract. this cannot continue.
there s all sorts of things that we can do. this is the start of three days of action but this dispute has lasted over a decade. and with no resolution in sight, staff and students are preparing for more disruption. elaine dunkley, bbc news. earlier, elaine spoke to the general secretary of the university and colleges unionjo grady at a picket line in leeds. yes, as you can see, there s quite a big turnout here and there are protests going on at universities across the uk, in bristol, in sheffield, in london, in glasgow, in edinburgh. well, joining me now is drjo grady, who s the general secretary of the university and college union. how concerned are you about staff in this sector? we, as a union, are incredibly concerned. we have half of staff showing signs of probable depression, people utterly burnt out by workloads, often working six days a week, if not more. burnt out staff are not best for students. even the student union themselves called working conditions in higher