Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 06/26/2007 - 12:50pm
The IWW is continuing in our support for the Crichton workers' and students' fight to save their jobs and courses. We're stepping up our fight by picketing or leafleting every major event Glasgow University is hosting on its main campus, in an effort to raise the visibility of our campaign, and we are pursuing other initiatives to force a climbdown on the decision to close the campus. However to make our presence really felt we urge you and your friends to take a few minutes out of your day to demonstrate the strength of feeling we have on this issue. Please help us by contacting the following people. It's vital at this stage that public pressure, from civil society groups and so on, is actually visibily increasing on this issue.
Contact the Principal, Sir Muir Russell and complain at the decision.
Email: principal@gla.ac.uk; Tel: 0141 330 5995
Contact the Scottish Funding Council and urge them to help Glasgow University find a resolution to this problem
Email: rmcclure@sfc.ac.uk
Contact Fiona Hyslop, Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning, and urge her to act quickly to help resolve the situation.
Email: Fiona.Hyslop.msp@scottish.parliament.uk
POINTS TO NOTE IN YOUR COMMUNICATIONS:-
Glasgow University made a profit last year of £2 million.
The claims of the University that the Crichton Campus loses £800,000 a year have been dismissed as laughable by MSPs from across all the political parties.
The University hopes to spend the money it will gain from closing its part of the Crichton campus (liberal arts) on recruiting just 3 researchers to boost the University's image. Money which should have been directed to the Crichton campus has went to fund a new business school at the main Glasgow campus.
In a previous job, as Scotland's most powerful civil servant, Sir Muir Russell presided over the building of the Scottish parliament, which was supposed to cost £50 million, but in fact cost £400 million more
than this. This man is clearly not very shrewd with money, and this casts doubt on his claims that the Crichton is not viable, and indeed on what his plans are to do with this cash instead.
Dumfries and Galloway has no other Higher Education facility, and suffers economically from a gap in graduates, and graduate jobs, as well as a skewn age demographic as young people leave Dumfries and Galloway for the central belt to find education and work.
Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 06/26/2007 - 12:45pm
The vital blood processing and distribution service is to be centralised in management cost cutting insanity which will result in blood being transported hundreds of miles by road and skilled workers losing their jobs. This will directly threaten patients’ lives as the blood is driven on congested motorways from the donation centres to the “super centres” and then back out to hospitals.
The NBS in England currently has 13 regional centres which process and test donated blood before redistribution to the hospitals. However this vital service is under threat with management wanting to condense these regional centres into just 3 to cover the whole of England.
Unlike many NHS trusts, the NBS is not in debt, and operates efficiently with committed workers, many of whom have worked there for decades learning their highly specialised skills on the job.
Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 06/19/2007 - 3:27am
Bristol train driver, Patrick Spackman, sacked for swearing by First Great Western, has referred the Morning Star to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).
On 6 June the Morning Star, self-styled "daily paper of the left", reported Mr Spackman's sacking for swearing, which the company claimed had been "threatening."
However, two days later, the paper claimed that he had, in fact, been sacked for "violent harassment in the workplace against a respected senior lay union representative."
Mr Spackman responded: "This is completely untrue. I complained to the Morning Star but haven't even had the courtesy of an acknowledgment from them. So I've referred the matter to the PCC who now have a copy of my dismissal letter which clearly shows why I was sacked. I look forward to a public apology and retraction from the Morning Star."
Mr Spackman, who intends to take his dismissal to employment tribunal, is being represented by the Industrial Workers of the World, the union generally referred to as "the Wobblies."
A union spokesperson commented: "Someone seems to have set the Morning Star up here. But a bit of basic checking would have avoided the problem. Needless to say, the 'union representative' referred to by the Morning Star is not a member of the IWW".
Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 06/11/2007 - 3:10am
More than 150 people have signed a petition pledging to boycott WHSmith over plans to relocate Leicester's flagship post office.
Their signatures were collected in a few hours on Saturday during a protest outside the post office in Bishop Street.
The protest was organised by the Industrial Workers of the World union (IWW), which is campaigning against the branch's relocation to the basement of WHSmith, in Gallowtree Gate.
Stuart Price, from IWW, said the union felt a boycott would be the most effective way of letting bosses at Royal Mail and WHSmith know how strongly people opposed the move.
He said response to the petition had been "very positive".
Leicester's main post office is one of 76 branches nationwide that are to be relocated to WHSmith stores.
The Gallowtree Gate branch has started recruiting staff for the post office, and building work is under way.
Sandra Cutland, 40, from Braunstone, said: "They should keep it where it is."
John McKiernan, 44, of Knighton, Leicester, signed the pledge along with his mother, Iris.
He said: "Hopefully, with people signing this pledge and sticking by it, WHSmith will have to listen to what people are saying."
A spokeswoman for WHSmith said people had the chance to raise concerns about access during the consultation period on the relocation.
She said: "We would be extremely disappointed if they felt boycotting WHSmith would be the best way of saving the post office and keeping it where it is."
Customers wanting to comment on the proposed changes should write to: Philippa Wright, National Consultation Manager, Post Office Limited, c/o National Consultation Team, PO Box 2060, Watford WD18 8ZW.
The closing date for comments is June 20.
Submitted by x344543 on Fri, 06/08/2007 - 12:43pm
Troubled train operator, First Great Western, already short of drivers, has taken the bizarre step of sacking a driver for swearing at a colleague during an argument, claiming that the swearing was "threatening."
Sacked Bristol driver Patrick Spackman said: "I regret swearing at him. And I regret referring to his weight. But for management to call this 'gross misconduct' is just ludicrous. I'm afraid that this kind of language is used all day and every day on the railways and if the company is going to start sacking people for it they won't have many drivers left."
First Great Western boss Alison Forster is already under pressure over the company's poor services. Last year Early Day Motions were tabled in Parliament condemning reductions in services and now David Drew, MP for Stroud, has tabled an EDM calling for First Great Western services to be run in the public sector.
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