Helen Connor EIS Rally Glasgow 24 Apr 10

EIS president Helen Connor addressed a Glasgow rally on April 24th 2010. In her speech she said that not only was Glasgow the biggest city in Scotland but probably the most vulnerable. Children are among the most vulnerable in society and should not have to pay for the banking crisis. She said that public sector workers are proud to educate and provide the service that they do. She urged parents to look at election manifestos and ask the following questions: Is Trident more important than care for the elderly? Is a war in Afghanistan more important than nurses and doctors here? Are the provision of ID cards more important than reducing class sizes? Earlier this year the EIS held a mass demonstration which marched from Kelvingrove Park to the Armadillo at the SECC. It was a huge demo of 10,000 people. Cuts have been on the agenda for some time now which local people have been fighting, helped mainly by socialist activists and a few other organisations or parties, but the main parties in power have largely ignored people because they are complacent in the areas where they are normally guaranteed a large vote without having to do anything to earn it. In Glasgow a campaign to prevent school closures was fought hard over many months and three were saved as a result. In Glasgow it is particularly difficult because the Labour party has always received a large vote, stemming from tradition from the days when Glasgow was a much more industrial town and the Labour party back then was more supportive towards workers and even after Labour morphed into New Labour people still vote for them to keep the much-feared Tories out, even though there is very little difference between Thatcherism and New Labour. For this reason, Labour has pretty much been able to get away with what it likes in Glasgow. Usually they either do not listen to people's opinions at all or else they just make small concessions towards campaigners so that their existing elected representatives can take the credit for saving some local service and have something to put in their election CV. It is not just schools that have been under attack but colleges and universities. Recently, students demonstrated against proposed cuts in university staff and handed in a petition to the principal. They waited and sat in the cloisters while a representative was allowed in to speak to the principal and a meeting was arranged for early June. The struggle against cuts continues!
On Nov 30th '11 teachers will join other strikers in industrial action and mass marches will take place throughout the UK. N30 is expected to be a historic day of action in terms of the scale of the protests and number of trade unions striking.

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