The following open letter has been printed in Glasgow’s Sunday Herald
Open Letter: We need to bring the resistance together
The Con-Dem government’s agenda of cuts and privatisation is the key issue facing the people of Scotland. The consequent loss of jobs and services in the public sector will be devastating.
Indeed, the post-election cut announcements have already begun. Strathclyde University Principal Jim McDonald was the first off the mark to announce the closure of several courses. In the last year 13,000 jobs have been lost in the Scottish public sector, and another 1.3billion in cuts have been outlined for the 2011-12 budget. At least another 40,000 jobs, or 7% of the public-sector, is expected to be slashed over the next four years.
We believe that we cannot wait a moment longer to organise and mobilise the millions of people across Britain who want to fight the cuts. The half a million strong TUC demonstration on March 26th proves that we can build a mass movement against the austerity agenda.
We extend our support to the various national initiatives against unemployment, cuts to disability services, and others. But we believe more has to be done to unify the movement into a powerful mass campaign against austerity, with local anti-cuts groups affiliated in every town and city.
As a means to this end, as activists and campaigners in Glasgow, we intend to establish a Coalition of Resistance group. The Coalition of Resistance has the backing of major national figures of the anti-cuts movement like Tony Benn and Len McCluskey and has sought the affiliation of local anti-cuts group to its organisation, as well as bringing under its umbrella all elements of those who are being affected by the cuts.
In Glasgow we already have resistance: PCS workers in the Equality and Human Rights Commission are fighting against 68% cuts, Strathclyde University students and staff face the closure of whole courses, the Accord community centre campaign in the East End are fighting against closure, and the inspirational occupation of the Hetherington Club at Glasgow University continues.
In such circumstances, a Coalition of Resistance group that meets up regularly to provide support and solidarity for those fighting back is a necessity. The planned co-ordinated strike action on the 30th of June by at least three public-sector Unions requires that we immediately build support and mobilise all those suffering from the cuts in support of the strike action.
To begin this process in Glasgow we call on all those who want to organise the fightback to attend an open planning meeting on Thursday June 9th at 7pm in the STUC offices at 333 Woodlands Rd, to establish the Coalition of Resistance in Glasgow.
We support this statement in the spirit of unity and urgency as not just our future, but the future of generations to come, could face ruin if we don’t do everything in our power to stop the Con-Dems massacre of the welfare state.
Signed (all signed in a personal capacity):
Katy Clarke MP
Patrick Harvie, MSP
Iain Banks (author)
Martin Doran (Scottish organiser, GMB Scotland)
Phil McGarry (RMT Scotland)
John McFadden (Brigade Secretary, Strathclyde FBU)
Jim Malone (regional organiser, FBU)
Steve Deans (Chair, Unite Broad Left Scotland)
Claire Cruikshank (Glasgow Organiser, Unite Finance Sector)
Willie Thomson (Glasgow Organiser, Unite Finance Sector)
Vicki Thompson (Glasgow Organiser, Unite Finance and Voluntary sector)
Marion Hersch (NEC, UCU)
Malcolm Balfour (liason officer, SNP Trade Union Group)
John Docherty (organiser, SNP Trade Union Group)
Ross Greenshields (secretary, South Lanarkshire TUC)
Duncan McCallum (secretary, Falkirk TUC and Forth Valley NUJ)
John Dennis (secretary, Dumfries & District TUC)
Danny Alderslowe (Green councillor)
Martha Walldrope (Green councillor)
Jim Taggart (NEC, CND)
Professor David Miller (spinwatch.org)
Ewan McDonald (Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group)
Dr Linda Croxford (senior researcher, Centre for Educational Sociology)
Alessandra Asteriti (Adam Smith Research Association)
Jamie O’Neill (refugee rights activist)
Nathan Sparling (LGBT officer elect, NUS Scotland)
Tommy Gore (president, Glasgow University SRC)
Emma Iwanow (president, Glasgow City College students association)
Sinead Dunn (President, Glasgow School of Art students association)
Gordon Maloney (Scottish executive committee elect, NUS)
Phil Whyte (President, Strathclyde University Union)
Charandeep Singh (President elect, Strathclyde University Union)
Rena Smith (editor, Glasgow University Magazine)
Save the Accord Centre Campaign
Black Triangle Anti-Defamation Campaign
GMB Scotland
Glasgow School Students Against the Cuts
Free Hetherington Occupation at Glasgow University
Save Stow college
Strathclyde University Anti-Cuts Action Network
Glasgow University Anti-Cuts Action Network
Glasgow School of Art Anti-Cuts Action Network
Glasgow Caledonian University Anti-Cuts Action Network
RSAMD Anti-Cuts Action Network
Bryan Simpson (Defend Bryan Simpson Campaign)
Graeme McIver (National secretary, Solidarity)
Glasgow Scottish Socialist Party
Scottish Socialist Youth
International Socialist Group (Scotland)
The More Action The Better
We Need this Worthless Government Out of Office
People Need to Switch the TV Off and Wake Up
A Better Reality than the Virtual Reality of Television
If the War in Libya carries on until the Autumn the Estimated Cost of
Money Wasted will be £1 Billion Pounds a Collosal Amount of Money when
One Considers the Destitution and Poverty in the Land whilst the Politicians Live in their Westminster Ivory Tower of Luxury
This Government which came to Power because of an Tawdry Alliance for
Political Power has No Truly Democratic Mandate and is like the Old
Regimes of Egypt and Tunisia a Dictatorship
The Coalition Clique should Never of been in Office for 1 Day let alone
1 Year
There should be Nation Wide Demonstrations to Demand that this Regime
is Out of Office
I wish to god we heard more of that democratic mandate challenge in the media Freeman. Even the Left. You are so spot on. What the hell is going on? Can any old gangster adorn themselves with the trappings of Downing St and a Ministerial limo and call themselves Prime Minister now? It seems so. It sickens me to my gut to hear Cameron called Prime Minister every time. He is not. Unless that is all it takes now is an annointment in holy oil by the effing Queen. Just to protect her investments on the Bond Markets.
Nobody voted for a bastardised coalition of the unsavoury. Nobody. Far less this savage attack on most of us. To think our vote is still supposed to make a difference. If we believe that after this takeover we believe anything.
So we protest. We strike. Then bloody Vince Cable warns us yesterday at the GMB. If we will not play nicely with ‘their’ ball they will take it away. Childish git. By ushering in even more punitive anti union strike laws. The arrogant self serving bxxxxxx should have been hounded out of the place.
Please somebody in the mainstream media. Just ask one of the bastards in the coalition who the hell they think they are. Just the once will do.
I appreciate that I am now asking to be London-centric when I opposed that once – I did attend the 26th March March – but I think we now have to be just that; Cardiff and Scotland are in fact only devolved, we have to shout at them in their own backyard! This government sickens me to the core, I’m happy to come to London to shout it at them again and again.
So please, arrange a bloody big march and I’ll be there again.
I don’t get Lybia and not Syria, I don’t get an unwon war in Afghanistan but not Iraq but so long as it bring our kids home, I’m not asking those questions.
The questions I am asking are:
Going to fook up communities again just like your Aunt Maggie, Cam-Moron?
Going to pay for the anti-depressant drugs and treatment that will cause?
Going to pay removal costs?
In the places the Colonel’s wife doesn’t run the library, who will?
What are you going to do with the unemployed when there is no public sector growth?
Ever heard of “not broke, no need to fix it?”
Please, please, give us a massive so march we can tell them!