DIRECT ACTION AT UNI. GETS RESULTS.

     

       The following is part of an account, taken from The Commune of the Free Hetherington occupation which ended this week after a long and successful campaign. Once again proving that direct action gets results. 

       Liam Turbett reports on a victorious conclusion to Glasgow’s seven-month university occupation

After over 200 days in occupation, the Free Hetherington occupation at Glasgow University finally ended on Wednesday 31^st August. The decision to leave followed direct negotiations with senior management, who allowed the occupiers to declare victory by handing over several major concessions.

Police tried in vain to evict the occupation.

 As previously reported in The Commune, the Free Hetherington was established in early February, when students and anti-cuts activists from across Glasgow took over a disused post-graduate social space at the heart of the Glasgow University campus, transforminglanguage teaching, anthropology and the entire department of adult education entirely.

SOLIDARITY.

        Senior management’s initial approach of ignoring the occupation and hoping it would falter away failed, and now famously, on 22^nd March an attempt was made to end it by force. With dozens of police, alongside the dog unit, the force helicopter and university security charging in to drag out the 15 or so occupants, around 500 students and supporters rapidly gathered outside. Hundreds then marched on the historic administrative centre of the university, and forced their way into the University Senate, which was held for the rest of the day. By midnight, management had handed the Hetherington building back, in exchange for the occupiers leaving the Senate rooms. In doing so, they handed legitimacy to the occupation, strong-arming them into negotiations, and the day’s events reaffirmed the level of support that the anti-cuts movement at the university could draw on.

Continue reading the article in The Commune

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