Elsewhere, the radical grassroots
union, the Industrial Workers of
the World (IWW), has been at the
forefront of the fight to keep the
Crichton (Dumfries) Campus of
the University of Glasgow open.
Since the closure was
announced in February, a series of
public meetings, lobbies and
protests by a coalition of students, the university IWW branch
and the lecturers', union have
kept the pressure on the principal,
Sir Muir Russell.
The campaign has had broad
support, not least because of the
threatened reduced access to
higher education for local students in semi-rural Dumfriesshire.
Signs of the times
These struggles, which suggest
that people are not accepting rub-
bish pay offers, negative changes
in term and conditions and closures of valued facilities and services without a struggle, are not in
themselves any sign that big
changes are just around the corner in Scotland.
They do, however, bear testimony to the possibilities of building a social movement.
Declan McCormick is a union activist.
