McCormick, Declan

Declan McCormick

United for 2008

1 December 2007News Declan McCormick and Sarah Young

2007 brought some grounds for optimism amongst those involved in resisting attacks on local services and on workplace terms and conditions. PN asked some grassroots Scottish union activists for a personal view of the year and their hopes for the future.

No review could ignore the success of the Save Crichton Cam- paign in September, where united action by the University and College Union (UCU), International Workers of the World (IWW) and others stopped the closure of the Dumfries Campus of Glasgow University.

Success at Crichton

Ben Franks, UCU Dumfries: "The most successful actions embarrassed the Principal and his officials at prestigious events. As a result, the new Scottish government made the Crichton campus a top priority.…

Rare wildcat spotted

1 September 2007News Declan McCormick

Until the May elections, the existence of a presence in the Scottish parliament of both a united left party and the greens (with six and four seats respectively) had been presented by commentators as evidence of a deep-rooted rad icalism amongst significant sections of the Scottish populace.

Whilst a particularly nasty split in the Scottish Socialist Party contributed to the loss of all their seats in May 2007, and, quite separately, the Green Party's representation halved, the…