We’re now less than a week away from the largest co-ordinated  industrial action the UK has seen for decades – perhaps since the General Strike of 1926. Around three million workers will be out on strike next Wednesday – in effect, most of the public sector, from over twenty different trade unions.

That’s over twenty different groups of workers who’ve collectively said they’ve had enough of the government’s constant attacks on wages and conditions, and have now balloted for action – with the strikes  in most cases winning big majorities. A strike of this scale is virtually unprecedented: nearly every school in Scotland will be shut, as will large sections of the NHS, council services, universities and colleges, job centres and tax and benefit offices, courts and other public services.

30 November has huge potential to be a big show of strength. It will not, by itself, bring down the government, but an effective day of action can place enormous pressure on them, and hopefully lead to more. This is absolutely crucial – so far the government have offered only token concessions in the dispute over pensions, with new proposals on line to make employees work longer, pay 3 percent more in contributions AND receive a lower pension at the end of it. But the strike is about much more than just pensions – sparked by years of relentless attacks on public sector pay and conditions, compounded by a three year pay freeze.

So what can you do on the day?

Next Wednesday can be a mass day of resistance for everyone in the public sector and beyond. Walkouts, occupations, pickets, demonstrations and marches – all are useful tactics in turning the struggle into Every school, uni and college is likely to be shut on the day, giving students the opportunity to pour onto the streets in support of the strikes. Student feeder marches have been organised in both Glasgow and Edinburgh on the day, ahead of the main trade union organised rallies.

Picket! If you work somewhere going on strike that day, effective picketing can be hugely important in shutting down a workplace and ensuring the day is a success. If you’re not striking, you can still go and show your support – UK Uncut have made a national call out for people to go and show some solidaritea at their local picket lines.

Demonstrate! March, rallies and events are happening across the country. Find a local action here: http://www.n30strike.org/

Walk out! Most schools, colleges and unis will be shut due to staff striking – but in the even of your classes running, organise a walkout and head to the nearest rally or picket line.

Retweet! Share! Propagandise! The Tories and their chums in the media have already gone on the offensive, trying to create a fake division between public sector workers and those in the private sector. Speak to everyone you know and tell them the facts about the strikes.

GLASGOW

Wednesday of this week marked exactly a year since the glorious day in November 2010 when thousands of students charged into and smashed up the Conservative Party headquarters at Millbank. A year on -- and 11 months since Parliament voted through the £9k tuition fee rise -- the student movement was out to prove that it’s still a force to be reckoned with. Despite only token backing from the National Union of Students, upwards of 10,000 students came from across the country to march on London’s financial district in a demo organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC).

A lot has changed since last November -- from the Arab revolutions to the huge anti-cuts demonstration on March 26th to the riots that hit English cities in August. And you could tell as much from the police presence: while the 50,000 strong ‘Millbank demo’ last year was initially policed by around 250 officers, this week’s demo had the much-vaunted figure of 4,000. Not to mention the horses, armoured vehicles, two helicopters, dogs, FIT teams, rubber bullets, intimidation letters sent the previous day and the thousands of twelve page glossy booklets that the police handed out at the starting point warning everyone not to fuck with them -- as if that much wasn’t obvious from the aforementioned 4000 cops, rubber bullets, cavalry… you get the picture. All justified by a bit of the usual pre-demo hysterics about anarcho-extremist infliltrators intent on causing a riot, nevermind that it was a totally legit demo organised in co-operation with the police, well stewarded and with a planned route ETC ETC.

Normally a demo of this size would barely get a mention from the media -- but Wednesday had it all: rolling news coverage, TV helicopters, hundreds of photographers -- all clamouring for things to kick off. And the police were trying their hardest to make sure things did as well: charging around in full Robocop get-up, shields out, and with plain-clothes occasionally jumping folk and dragging them off just cause they got a bit bored.

Elsewhere in London, thousands of electricians -- currently engaged in a huge struggle against the tearing up of their national pay and conditions agreement -- were at a Unite the Union organised demo, having blockaded building sites earlier in the day. While most then marched to Parliament to lobby MPs, a rank and file break-off of a couple of hundred sparks tried to march to join the student demo. Hundreds of militant private sector workers engaged in a frontline struggle uniting with the big student demo would’ve been a powerful image. With the media all over the student demo this would’ve then been hard to ignore, and something that wouldn’t have fit comfortably with the media narrative of middle class students just out to defend their own interests. And this is precisely why the state were determined to stop it from happening, with the sparks’ batoned and beaten up by the cops until being contained in a kettle away from the student demo. News quickly reached the student demo, and there was a bit of a stand-off  at one street when it was found out that the electricians were being blockaded in that direction. Such were the police numbers though that the demo was more akin to a walking kettle, and any attempt to break-off would’ve been verging towards kamikaze.

Electricians blockading sites before rallying later in the day and getting attacked by cops

The march picked up though, with a massive soundsystem emerging and some innovative chants, ‘You can shove your rubber bullets up your arse’ among them. It was a long route, and eventually wound its way to the end point sometime after 3pm, where the police decided to form an impromptu kettle before letting everyone go in a pretty chaotic fashion. A dispersal order was issued for 5.31pm, but most people were well away by that point.

Moving forward, NCAFC have -- much like last year -- called a follow-up day of action for Wednesday 23 November. While it’s unlikely to get as much momentum behind it as last year, given the totally different circumstances -- the HE White Paper is unlikely to garner as much opposition as the brazen, headline-grabbing £9k fees rise - it can be a way of buildng student and anti-austerity activity ahead of what is looking set to be a mass day of action on November 30, when three million public sector workers will be on strike. On that day, let’s meet “total policing” with total resistance.

An anti-cuts activist from Glasgow was sentenced to eighteen months in HMP Wandsworth at a London court on Friday, following his arrest at the March 26th TUC anti-cuts demonstration in London. His crime? Throwing a spent joke shop smoke bomb, picked up from the street, in the direction of a branch of Topshop – apparently enough to constitute ‘violent disorder’ and a lengthy prison sentence despite no damage being done to property or person. This was just one of a number of heavy sentences handed out to anti-cuts demonstrators at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, nearly all of them for similar (non-) offences – throwing sticks or pushing at barriers. Among the only positives on the day was for fellow Glasgow protester Bryan Simpson, who following a high profile defence campaign escaped with 120 hours community service and a four months suspended sentence for ‘affray’ at a student demo in London last November.

Omar Ibrahim was less lucky, and now looks to be in prison until at least next summer. In this statement that he wrote before being remanded in custody last month, Omar describes what happened on the day and draws the links between austerity, crisis and the growing use of draconian sentencing and political policing. Over the past year this has become increasingly visible, from the teenagers locked up for making comments on social media about the August riots to the gradual normalising of exclusion zones and pre-emptive arrests.

Yesterday’s sentences followed both the failure of Charlie Gilmour’s appeal and the recent upholding of the massively overboard sentencing doled out after the August riots. Then, all normal guidelines were thrown out in favour of disproportionate sentences for minor offences, due to their ‘mob’ nature which ‘aggravated’ violence and ‘appalled decent citizens’. What it comes down to is those unfortunate enough to be caught, regardless of what they may or may not have done, being punished massively out of context to their alleged ‘crime’. An assumption of innocence is disgarded – after all, if you made a choice to go on a protest, you’re practically asking to be locked up. Omar went on a protest, picked up a children’s toy off the street – and is now spending at least the next nine months in jail for it. It’s a crazy system, but one designed to scare and demoralise the rest of us – to keep us from protesting and keep us off the streets. As we once again prepare to take action en masse – with the latest round of student demos being kicked off this Wednesday and millions of workers lining up to take strike action on 30 November, we need to be as vigilant as ever. Read up on your rights, stay aware and keep fighting back. An injury to one is an injury to all! Support our political prisoners!

A full list the sentencing for violent disorder (and a selection of others) at London anti-cuts protests since Millbank is available here.

Mass protest outside the Greek Parliament in Athens on Wednesday

On Thursday evening, the Greek Parliament voted through its latest austerity package – approved by all but one of the deputies from the ruling ’social democratic’ party, PASOK. Tens of thousands of workers will now suffer dramatic wage cuts of 40%, the slashing of pensions and the tearing up of collective bargaining agreements, on top of tax hikes and 20% unemployment (youth unemployment being nearer 50%).

In reality, the real authority in Greece is now the ‘Troika’, meaning the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank. These three institutions are holding the Greek government hostage, demanding the complete destruction of the country’s public sector in return for the continuation of the €110bn bailout package which is keeping the country afloat, if far from stable. Greece can now keep paying its bills for a few months more, but a default on their national debt in the not too distant future is still almost certain.

Wednesday and Thursday saw the biggest days of action against austerity in Greece so far. Huge numbers were on the streets across the country, as hundreds of thousands of private sector workers joined the strikes for the first time. There were chaotic scenes in Athens, as stewards from the Stalinist trade union federation PAME clashed with other demonstrators. Amid the chaos, a PAME supporter died – although reportedly from breathing difficulties caused by police teargas.

The world economy is in crisis: Greece is the testing ground – and austerity isn’t working. By forcing ever deeper and harder cuts – this is the third drastic, emergency austerity package pushed through the parliament this year – the government is facing the growing contradictions of the system. Minus 7 percent “growth”  is not going to cure the deficit. A default is probably on its way, and has actually already happened to a limited, controlled extent: Greece’s creditors have already accepted that they’ll only ever get back 79 cents for every euro lent. However controlled or uncontrolled the default turns out to be, the impact on northern European banks, and the Euro, will be profound, and there’s a risk the ‘contagion’ could spread to Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Greece has entered a situation where the vast majority of the population have lost all faith in the political system and the government, who cling on through necessity to implement the orders of the Troika. Class war is being raged by the elites, meaning the absolute destruction of welfare and living standards, plunging millions into poverty. The economist Paul Mason has described what’s happening in the country as “anomie”, meaning the gradual breakdown of social order through the effective withdrawal of the state from public life: schools without textbooks, mass unemployment, general lawlessness and, among swathes of the population, little hope that anything can get better – as summed up in this report from a few weeks ago.

Europe is watching: Greece was first, but will not be the last. Organise, counter-attack!

Turning out to the annual STUC march – held yesterday in Glasgow – I witnessed thousands of people marching in the pouring rain (and it really was monsoon level) for over three hours, and rallying at the end of it. Watching everyone come into the park at the end, and then watching them keep coming and keep coming and keep coming, til even I got bored and went to find somewhere handy to stand, was immense. I got a bit sentimental.

Something is happening in this country at the moment. Ever since the Sheridan debacle everyone who is casually in favour of the Scottish left has dissed us for not being united, and I think this is pish. I’d rather have honest difference than tactical, artificial unity. But at this point in time there is an honest unity, because people are uniting in the face of a common enemy. This enemy isn’t as simple as David Cameron, it’s the threat that he and his ilk represent – the immense threat to the welfare state and the end of a certain way of life, a certain kind of society: a kind of society which many had started to take for granted, and are now turning out to fight for its continued existence. People in Scotland are no longer deciding what kind of country they want to live in; now they know what kind of country they want to live in.

Independence is broadly being discussed as part of the process of achieving this country, but not the way the SNP talk about independence. For us independence is one possible means to a much more important end – not just the right to choose who runs the country without having to vote tactically against the Tories, but the right to choose what kind of a country we live in, what its priorities are, who it values.

The Scottish left have despaired of finding one party behind which to rally, and instead have banded together without one, building coalitions of resistance, new working groups, community groups, and policy-making units as they went. People have organised sporadically and multifariously, have started taking things into their own hands, have started taking responsibility for what is being imposed on their neighbourhoods (Save the Accord Centre campaign, the Save Otago Lane campaign, the Free Hetherington, earlier the Tripping Up Trump campaign). In the face of an overwhelming, despairing feeling that we cannot do anything in the face of the political power that rains down on us, we have decided we’re damn well going to do something anyway.

And I guess that this is the reason that for the first time in my life really I genuinely feel proud to be part of this entity we call Scotland. Here the nation’s history is being rewritten – people are invoking Red Clydeside, the poll tax riots, the shipbuilder work-in and are relating these things to the current uprising in Scotland, in order to construct an alternative historical narrative. This narrative which is the true story of a people who did not need a political party in order to do something. It is a minor narrative – none of these things changed the world, none of these things stopped the onset of neo-liberal capitalism, and we cannot expect the incredible efforts being expended at the moment to stop neo-liberal capitalism. But these efforts are aimed at slowing the imposition on a people of something it did not vote for, of a way of life to which it does not subscribe – a way of life where the only value is monetary, and where only those who have money are entitled to the support and protection of the state.

Something is happening in this country that hasn’t come from nowhere, and that – if this radical history is any indication – isn’t going away. Scotland, no longer proud of its part in the British Empire, of its stake in British wealth and oil, no longer necessarily proud of its industries (although still of its workers) is creating something else to be proud of: a refusal to sit back and watch while the subaltern suffer.

All conflict dies in the brotherhood of flags

After last weeks multiple days of consecutive rioting, there’s a chance now for some calm, measured discussion on the upheaval that saw the capital and several English cities burn, high streets looted and alleged gangster Mark Duggan shot dead -- with three others killed defending their property. The key word being “chance”, the same way there’s a chance you’ll win the lottery or Michael Bay will decide to stop making movies -- what’s predictably actually happened is talking heads, politicians and newspaper editors have demanded martial law/the death penalty/the return of Maggie Thatcher/Saddam Hussein to crush the thousands of young people who live in the shadows among us waiting to strike again like a Tottenham based Vietcong.

One Newspaper has demanded the return of national service, safe in the knowledge that teaching thousands of young rioters basic firearms skills would have no possible down sides. Other newspaper polls have asked if Blackberry messager should be banned -- following in the footsteps of other strongmen leaders who thought cracking down on people communicating would solve all their problems. If the responses on how to stop the riots again have been a bit daft it’s nothing compared to what some folk have blamed the riots on. David Cameron predictably said the riots were down to “sheer criminality” -- but why didn’t all these criminals strike earlier if their only motive was theft? Looters obviously took advantage of clashes with the police to go out and get a new telly, but what was it they took advantage of? More on that later. Historian David Starkey has blamed the riots on rap music and black culture in general, saying white folk have become black, like Michael Jackson in reverse with less moonwalking and more firebombing. The BBC have obviously went straight for the insider voices into why urban black youth in London might riot, by asking the 66 year old Royal Family historian from Kendal his views. Continuing this new line of reporting, BBC Four have asked Tinchy Strider to front a 4 part series on the Tudors.

But the BBC didn’t just ask old bigots like Starkey why the riots started -- they did ask a black man as well, fulfilling their broadcasting guidelines. Except when they interviewed Darcus Howe about why the riots started, and he gave a response that didn’t blame BBM/Jeremy Kyle/Welfare State/Ali G In Da House, but said people might be angry cos a man was shot dead and the police lied about the circumstances the interviewer didn’t like it too much and accused him of being a rioter. It’s all part of a concerted effort by the press and politicians to make people stop thinking, and instead accept that people rioted because they’re animals -- literally “feral youth” as the BBC described them.

So how did the riots start? On the 5th of August Mark Duggan was followed in a taxi cab by armed members of the Metropolitan Police. After what was claimed to be a shoot out, Duggan was shot dead by the Met. After his death his family and friends started a protest demanding answers about his killing. When a 16 year old girl approached police lines, in accordance with the Met’s community engagement agenda, she was beaten with batons. The combination of Duggan’s killing and police thuggery at the demo sparked an uprising from young people in different parts of London against the police. Outnumbered and caught by surprise, the police were forced to retreat and leave parts of the city in the hands of rioters. Like any spontaneous riot, unlike a planned insurrection once you force the police out people take advantage of having no authority at all. That can range from drinking in the street, to stealing new pairs of trainers, to mugging folk. And if you’ve grown up on the broo with no hope of employment -- 54 people chase every job going in Hackney -- getting all the consumer kicks you’re supposed to have is much easier to do when there’s no polis around.

More information then came out about Duggan’s death -- that the bullet in a police radio was in fact “police issue”, and that the IPCC “may have misled” the public about how he was killed, stating there was no evidence he fired a weapon the police claimed they found at the scene. By the time this information came out the riots were in full swing and it probably would not have made much more of a difference -- but it did confirm the unaired suspicions of thousands of black and asian youth in London, that the police had lied about the circumstances of Duggan’s death. The bullet in the police radio is especially fishy -- while Met police have an itchy trigger finger, they’re just about clever enough to avoid shooting each other. Could the Met have killed Duggan illegally, and then put a bullet into a radio to make it look like he had responded? It’s a very cynical thought, almost like believing they’d be in cahoots with a major newspaper to cover up massive phone hacking scandals.

After three days of consecutive rioting -- which had spread from London to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford -- the combined weight of thousands of extra polis/nothing good left to loot brought the riots to an end. After a rather unpleasant shock, the legal system has responded with draconian sentences against rioters -- one guy was sent to jail for 6 months, for stealing bottled water. Another woman was sentenced to 5 months for accepting goods that were stolen, not actually stealing them herself (better avoid that guy round the Barras with the new Planet of the Apes DVD eh?). Under any other circumstances these people would be let off with a caution for shoplifting, or at worst a fine. Now they stand to face jail time and a criminal record for petty crimes which did far less damage to society than what the legal system is doing to them and their families. Alongside these sentences for theft others have even got jail time for just for swearing at the police -- and one guy’s even been sent down for four years just for a facebook event.

The reason there’s been such a massive crackdown is that the establishment is desperate to ensure a riot on the scale of last week never happens again. But they’re at a permanent disadvantage in that they don’t know why the riots started, and they don’t want to know why -- that’s why the media has asked everyone from aging home counties historians to Tory cabinet ministers about why they think people are rioting -- people they have about as much knowledge of or link to as they do with martians. Nowhere has the media tried the most simple and obvious way of determining why people rioted -- actually asking the young folk in these cities. Where the BBC have done it, it’s been at best a soundbite -- but it’s a soundbite that’s worth more than the endless hours of droning from talking heads. Two young girls from London spelled things out pretty clearly -- folk rioted because they wanted to show the police and the rich they could do what they want. No one in the media or the political establishment is prepared to engage with that argument because they live in a bubble where they can’t fathom why people would be angry at the rich or the police -- so they create lots of alternative explanations like blaming rap or BBM for rioting.

actual reason folk rioted above

There’s plenty of poor areas in the UK that didn’t riot though -- Alex Salmond has been at pains to remind the BBC these riots aren’t UK wide, there was no looting anywhere in Scotland despite the Scottish Polis’ efforts to invent some. And some of the poorest constituencies in the whole UK are in Scotland. So are riots just down to poverty? The answer is no, riots don’t just happen when communities are poor -- they happen when they’re poor and are under attack, or have suffered an injustice. In Britain and the USA this injustice is generally police brutality motivated by racism -- like the Rodney King case, the murder of a grandmother that sparked the 1981 riots and now the police killing of Mark Duggan. This -- and not black or “gangster” culture -- is why riots have taken off.

These riots are also happening at the biggest pillars of authority in British society are collapsing -- the banks have stolen from everyone and are now getting paid off, with the wages of nurses, teachers, carers and the benefit claims of the disabled. Instead of being prosecuted bankers still receive bonuses larger than most young people will earn in their entire lifetime. The MP’s who are calling for strict prosecution of the rioters are thieves that make last weeks looters look like angels in comparison -- Tory Minister Michael Gove, who lost his temper when Harriet Harman argued cuts were behind the riots, has stolen £7k from the public purse to do up his house. When he was caught out, he simply repaid the money. Will folk who say they want to riot on facebook get let off if they delete the page? No, they’ll get four years. The forces trying to crush the riots -- the Met -- have also been exposed as massively corrupt, with backhanders taken from News International in exchange for covering up phone hacking. This is as well as being able to kill with impunity -- there’s been over 300 police deaths in custody, but not one single conviction.

That’s the problem with saying all that’s necessary to stop the riots is law and order -- there’s virtually no law or order when it comes to regulating the abuses and crimes of those at the top of society. The corrupt political establishment don’t care about the communities that rioted, either because they think they’ll always vote for them no matter what (Labour) or because they’ll never vote for them (Tories). During the boom years of British capitalism, these poor areas of London were left to rot because the rich demanded cheap labour. Now that the same rich have destroyed the economy these areas which have nothing are being asked to pay up with money they don’t have -- weeks before the riots, massive cuts to Haringey’s youth budget was announced. People who say the riots are mindless have got it massively wrong -- people are now at least talking about why these areas have been abandoned. A few weeks ago they’d never make the headlines. Riots are the one desperate way to grab attention from people who have access to no other means of political power. If you want to avoid riots in the future you can’t keep demanding “order” but have no order in the economy, society, or politics which allows 50% of young people in many parts of London to be unemployed -- otherwise people will find their own ways of striking back whether you think it’s healthy or not.

Occupied Strathclyde

Crunch decisions over cuts at both Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities over the past week have yielded mixed results for the anti-cuts movement in the city. With, in particular, Humanities subjects under threat at both universities, a huge amount was at stake.

Since February, when course cuts were revealed at Glasgow University, a mass campaign has been mounted across the city in defence of education, coming off the back of the tuition fees protests late last year. A focus of this has been the Free Hetherington at Glasgow Uni, which enters its 150th day of (near) continuous occupation this Thursday, although a large-scale campaign has also been mounted across the city at Strathclyde which has similarly hit national headlines.

Demo at Glasgow Uni last week

At Glasgow, staff, student and external pressure was able to achieve a massive climbdown from management, who had initially proposed slashing nursing, adult education, anthropology and nearly all modern language teaching. All are now saved – or have at least gained reprieves – although last Wednesday’s vote will see Slavonic studies, the Centre for Drug Misuse Research and humanities courses at the university’s Dumfries campus go. Following a decision yesterday, Strathclyde is set to lose music, geography, sociology and community education, in line with Principal Jim McDonald’s vision of transforming the university into a ‘centre of technical excellence’ on par with MIT. In reality, this is of course a neo-liberal realignment of the university towards profitable, business friendly research, being achieved under a smokescreen of austerity savings. At Glasgow, the equally unaccountable, and equally contemptible, Principal Muscatelli has even stated, having last year fear-mongered about the ‘university going bust within four years’, that the cuts are not – after all – about financial necessity, but purely ’strategic’. Which does help explain the huge surplus the university recently announced.

Ahead of the court meeting at Strathclyde, students and anti-cuts activists entered into occupation on Monday morning. Although an attempt to seize the senate suite, in which the actual vote would be taking place the following day, was foiled by security, the soon to be closure-hit Sociology and Geography floor of the Graham Hills building was occupied overnight, with a packed public meeting taking place in the evening, which heard from local trade union activists and community campaigners. Early the following morning a picket was then held as the University Court met, with the occupation coming to an end.

The battle is far from over, and nor will these be the last cuts that Muscatelli, McDonald and their counterparts across the country attempt to force through. Over the past few months, Glasgow Uni in particular has witnessed the emergence of a mass movement against the cuts, with upwards of 2000 joining a march on the uni court in February, and hundreds rallying to the occupation following the well-documented eviction attempt in March. The new term presents real opportunities for continuing to build and strengthen this movement against cuts and fees, as part of the wider fight across society against capitalist austerity.

Next Thursday will see up to 750,000 public sector workers walking out on strike over pension cuts, in perhaps the largest direct confrontation with the government’s austerity agenda seen yet. Nearly 300,000 civil servants who’re members of the PCS will be joined by education workers in the NUT, UCU and ATL unions. It comes at the same time as some of the larger unions, like Unison, the GMB and Unite, are beginning to talk about a serious campaign of co-ordinated strike action later in the year. However, in Scotland the PCS will be striking alone next week, with teachers here having narrowly rejected action after union leaders outrageously urged their members to accept a serious attack on pay and conditions.

So while next Thursday is not going to be a General Strike on the same scale as we’ve seen across Europe over the past year or so, it still represents a key date in building the movement against the Coalition’s attacks, and its success may be crucial in it providing a springboard to wider action later in the year.

There’s lots you can do to support the strike next week – even if you’re not in the PCS and not going on strike!

• JOIN THE PICKET LINES: There will be picket lines in every city in Scotland and many towns as well – with job centres, benefits, passport, customs and excise and tax offices all out. Why not find out where your nearest picket line is and go and offer your solidarity? UK Uncut have made a national call-out for people to take along breakfast to their local pickets – and there’s a list of actions on their website. Join one or make your own! See also j30strike.org
• JOIN THE NATIONAL RALLY: A Scotland-wide rally has been called for George Square, Glasgow at 12 noon.
• TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS: the government and the right-wing media have already started a campaign of slander and lies against the strikes and the unions involved. Today’s Daily Mail frontpage led with a huge attack on the National Union of Teachers, while all the main parties, including the SNP and Labour, have come out and attacked the strikes. It’s all our responsibility to counter this with the real reasons for the strike – which is about protecting jobs, public services and the right to a decent pension.

500,000 marched, but what now?

A ‘Coalition of Resistance’ is set to get off the ground in Glasgow over the next few weeks, with a view to bringing together the various strands of the anti-cuts movement in the city. SSY has been involved in initiating the group, as one of the signatories to an open letter, an edited version of which was published in the Sunday Herald this week.

An initial organising meeting is set to be held this Thursday evening, at 7pm in the STUC offices on Woodlands Road. It is hoped that COR will develop into a regular cross-city forum, which can play an important role in organising and mobilising resistance to austerity and cuts over the coming period. If we’re to see anything like the kind of resistance which has swept parts of Europe recently, having such organisations – with a broad base in the workers and students movement – will be vital. With the student movement in the UK, we’ve already seen flashes of this – over November and early December last year, an intense period of struggle saw near weekly mass demonstrations in most cities, and student assemblies springing up across the country.

The time is now ripe for broadening the struggle to unite workers, students, claimants, pensioners and all other suffering the attacks of the ruling class. The government are already running scared: just yesterday, Business Secretary Vince Cable wheeled out threats of making the anti-trade union laws even harsher, in a speech to the GMB union’s conference. Today, the GMB responded by promising “the biggest civil disobedience campaign Cameron and Clegg’s tiny little minds have dreamt of” if any attempt is made to change the strike laws.

Nonetheless, there’s been a lot of frustration recently at the apparent unwillingness of the TUC, and the large public sector unions, to really take on the government. Yes, upwards of 500,000 may have marched on March 26th, but since then, not a great deal has been forthcoming, particularly in the context of the fighting talk at last September’s TUC Congress. Things may begin to change on June 30th, when hundreds of thousands of government workers in the PCS union are set to strike over pensions. In England, teachers from the NUT and ATL unions are expected to join, while the UCU lecturers’ union are currently deliberating on the matter too, meaning up to 700,000 workers could be on strike across the UK on the day. This is an important first step, and there’s talk of further action in the Autumn, when larger unions like Unison, the GMB and Unite may also join in. However, if stopping the austerity programme by toppling the Coalition government is the aim – which it surely must be – then a 24 hour public sector co-ordinated strike sometime in the Autumn will simply not be enough. In Greece, the trade unions confederations have now organised over ten 24 hour general strikes coupled with mass demonstrations, yet the IMF imposed austerity programme continues unabated. In France last year, a series of mass demonstrations and strikes in key sectors of the economy brought the country to a virtual standstill, nearly bringing Sarkozy’s government to its knees. Yet the movement ultimately failed, with the pension reform passing. In Britain, we can’t even get a general strike on the go, so what the hell kind of hope do we have?

The movement needs to broaden out and radicalise. It needs to be embedded in every community and workplace for a mass campaign of defiance and resistance to the cuts. The organisations of the traditional left do have a key role to play in this – the weight of the trade union movement in the UK is still considerable, representing 6.5 million members and the old adage rings true: while 1000 striking students can bring a train to a standstill, a 1000 striking railway workers can bring a whole country to a standstill.  But it would be foolish to rest everything on the ability of the public sector trade unions to bring down the government. The majority of people, and particularly young people, are no longer organised in a union, and ways must be found around this. One notable aspect about the recent mass anti-austerity demonstrations that have swept Spain has been a conscious rejection of the traditional organs of the left. Spontaneous in nature and largely organised online, the mass protests and assemblies have not relied on left political parties nor trade unions, although undoubtedly both have played some role. The labour movement does appear to be increasingly coming to recognise the need for a fight that extends beyond the workplace – indeed, figures like Unite’s Len McLuskey have spoken openly on the need to extend the fight across society.

In Scotland, we’re obviously also in a unique situation when it comes to fighting the cuts, with a pro-independence majority now in Holyrood. The SNP have no real solutions though, and although blaming Westminster for reducations in their block grant, will nonetheless be forced to implement huge cuts. Post-independence, the SNP strategy of slashing corporation tax and reliance on oil revenue is not a sustainable basis on which to build a country in which “the poor won’t be made to pick up the bill for the rich” and where “the profit from the land shall go to all”, as Alex Salmond promised to the Scottish Parliament recently. These contradictions will become more and more exposed over the next couple of years.

In the meantime, we need to build the kind of organisations that people will look to as the cuts begin to bite. SSY is hopeful that a Coalition of Resistance group in Glasgow can be a useful tool in aiding this struggle, in uniting organised workers with students, the unemployed and the unorganised, and we urge people to get along to the open planning meeting this Thursday, with the aims of immediately building solidarity with those striking on June 30th, and building the resistance from there.

Yesterday something unusual occured in the historic City of Stirling -- a large march and rally though its town centre. The purpose was to protest job cuts at the University -- specifically, 17 compulsory redundancies being made in the Institute of Aquaculture at the University of Stirling: Scotland’s only Instutute of Aquaculture, which enjoys an international reputation for world-reading research. The opportunity was also taken to celebrate free education in Scotland, and to continue the fight to protect our education system from cuts. On the same day staff across departments at the University were striking in protest at the redundancies.

Stirling Students Rally Against Job Cuts

The march was made up of 450 of Stirling’s staff and students, organised by UCU in collaboration with Stirling University’s Student Union. Starting at the university, the march wound it’s way through Causewayhead, over Stirling Bridge and through the historic town centre, ending with speeches at the public dais at the junction of King Street and Port Street -- bang in the city centre where the rally was supported and joined by locals, shoppers, and various other onlookers. Chants heard during the march included the classics ‘No Ifs! No Buts! No Education Cuts!’, and ‘When they say Cut Back we say Fight Back’. Some of these were chanted back at us enthusiastically by the school students we passed on the way (the march went past Wallace High School). The candidates for the Stirling constituency in the Scottish Election were present (except, obviously, for the Conservative), as well as local and national media.

Students and staff at the University of Stirling are -- like their counterparts across the country -- worried for the future of their jobs, their courses and their institutions. It is widely believed that these compulsory redundancies in the Instutite of Aquaculture will not be the last compulsory redundancies made at the University. The Institute of Aquaculture itself is well worth defending: as this article outlines, it does important humanitarian and conservation work in Bangladesh, teaching the local people how to conserve one of their most vital food sources, and running a night school for local children (which receives no funding and survives entirely on donations). Surely a department with such credentials deserves investment, rather than cuts? People in Bangladesh certainly think so, as can be seen both here and in the video below, where they stage their own protest against the redundancies at Stirling:

The Institute of Aquaculture have put people before profit, and in doing so have created jobs, run a school, and helped people in Bangladesh obtain the resources they need to preserve their environment and optimise a major food source. The institute literally educates the illiterate and feeds the hungry -- what further credentials can it possibly require in order to avoid attack by University management?

We must continue to fight for the future of education -- not only for our students and staff, but for the wider and international community, and all the people who benefit from what universities do. The Institute of Aquaculture at Stirling is a prime example of what education and research can achieve, and provides all the evidence needed in the case for the defense of our universities in the face of cuts.

The Herald’s coverage of the Stirling march and rally yesterday is available here.