Glasgow Students Rise Up Against Privatisation
Alistair Davidson | 06.03.2002 17:26
Today Anarchists, Socialists, and other students at Glasgow University rose up in protest against the planned privatisation of the student halls of residence.
The action was planned from the start by Glasgow Anarchists and Independant Anticapitalists (GAIA), with a lot of participation from the local Scottish Socialist Party in the demonstration proper.
We oppose the privatisation (in technical terms, a 30-year leasing) of the student halls on various grounds, the greatest of which is that rents are guaranteed to rise at a 0.5% above the retail price index for the first five years and 1% above the RPI for the second five years; there are no figures for the other twenty years. These are not maximum figures, but *minimums* defined in the proposed contract.
While the housing association would be nominally not-for-profit, the banks providing the funding (which amounts to a £40m lump sum to the university) are very much *for* profit. We do not find it appropriate that what is supposed to be low-cost student accomodation should be run for profit.
So the result was today's demonstration; about 20-30 people marched from Murano Student Village to the university, where we met another similarly-sized group and began a street party. People came and went, but at any one time there were 60 or so present. The protest was peaceful, and there was no conflict with the policemen present.
In fact, they didn't even stop us from blocking the road when the protest became more militant. We created a large queue of traffic, but buses were allowed through on ideological grounds. The police would have been well within their legal rights to threaten us with arrest, but didn't; allegedly the policeman in charge was a socialist, and I think we owe him a debt of gratitude.
Following the street protest, we sent two of our number to try and find the university principal or finance officer to come and talk to us, but they'd scarpered ten minutes before. We marched into the university but couldn't really do mucgh with no-one in authority for us to campaign against. The protest ended with a public meeting in the Queen Margaret student Union.
There's going to be another protest next Wednesday, which is when they're planning to sign the privatisation contract. We'll be there to stop them. Any Glaswegians reading this, please come along, every person counts and we *can* stop this.
We oppose the privatisation (in technical terms, a 30-year leasing) of the student halls on various grounds, the greatest of which is that rents are guaranteed to rise at a 0.5% above the retail price index for the first five years and 1% above the RPI for the second five years; there are no figures for the other twenty years. These are not maximum figures, but *minimums* defined in the proposed contract.
While the housing association would be nominally not-for-profit, the banks providing the funding (which amounts to a £40m lump sum to the university) are very much *for* profit. We do not find it appropriate that what is supposed to be low-cost student accomodation should be run for profit.
So the result was today's demonstration; about 20-30 people marched from Murano Student Village to the university, where we met another similarly-sized group and began a street party. People came and went, but at any one time there were 60 or so present. The protest was peaceful, and there was no conflict with the policemen present.
In fact, they didn't even stop us from blocking the road when the protest became more militant. We created a large queue of traffic, but buses were allowed through on ideological grounds. The police would have been well within their legal rights to threaten us with arrest, but didn't; allegedly the policeman in charge was a socialist, and I think we owe him a debt of gratitude.
Following the street protest, we sent two of our number to try and find the university principal or finance officer to come and talk to us, but they'd scarpered ten minutes before. We marched into the university but couldn't really do mucgh with no-one in authority for us to campaign against. The protest ended with a public meeting in the Queen Margaret student Union.
There's going to be another protest next Wednesday, which is when they're planning to sign the privatisation contract. We'll be there to stop them. Any Glaswegians reading this, please come along, every person counts and we *can* stop this.
Alistair Davidson
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