Unions protest Glasgow education cuts
On 26 March, trade unions EIS, NASUWT, Unison, and GMB rallied at Glasgow City Chambers to express their anger at the council’s recent announcement of more budget cuts.
The council’s plan for education cuts of £27 million, whilst schools are already under significant strain, was met with outrage by teachers and parents, who gathered to stage a demonstration and demand no more cuts.
Unions have estimated that, across the city, 450 teaching positions will be slashed over the next three years. 172 are expected to go this autumn, with one protesting headteacher being left with “8.8 teachers for a school of 150 pupils”.
Despite assurances by the Scottish government to increase the number of teachers in Glasgow, numbers have continued to drop for the past two years.
With classrooms becoming crowded, and teachers struggling from increasing workloads and an epidemic of school violence, unions are arguing that more teachers, mentors, and specialised support services are desperately needed – not fewer.
Why must education always be the target of budget cuts, when we know that classroom support, mentoring, expanded curriculums, and a positive teaching environment are paramount for the next generation’s future?
Teachers that we spoke to said that they simply feel as though they are not being allowed to do their jobs properly, and that more school strikes are inevitable.
Nathan Brown, Glasgow Communists
Scottish child poverty: A ‘national scandal’
Figures published last week show that the SNP is failing to meet its flagship promise of reducing child poverty. In fact, child poverty levels in Scotland are actually increasing – rising from 24% to 26% this year. This falls abysmally short of the Scottish government’s target of under 10% by 2030.
There is a very simple way to end child poverty: make sure families have enough money!
SNP policy is to do this through a weekly ‘Scottish Child Payment’, which First Minister Humza Yousaf proudly defends. But at just £26.70 a week, this falls far below what families need to survive.
The Poverty Alliance condemns this situation as a ‘national scandal’, insisting that the payment needs to be raised to at least £40 a week if there is to be any progress amidst the spiralling cost of living.
But where will this money come from?
Social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville is clear that the Scottish government simply does not have the budget to increase the payment, as they barely manage to keep existing public services afloat. She has called on the Tories to increase Universal Credit instead. But everyone knows that helping out the SNP is the last thing on Westminster politicians’ minds!
Wedded to the capitalist system, and with the prospect of independence tossed into the long grass, the SNP is left with no way to provide the ‘fairer Scotland’ that it promises the working class.
Ellen Morton, Glasgow Communists
Culture cut to pieces
Capitalism is constantly taking away from workers: through a regime of low wages and rising prices, while essential public services are run-down and cut-back by austerity budgets.
Art and culture are also victims of these corrosive attacks, starving the working class of leisure and creativity.
The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) burned down more than six years ago. This dealt a heavy blow to the city and to the Scottish art world.
Taken as collateral damage in the blaze was the O2 ABC, a popular club and concert venue, which also sits in ruins along Sauchiehall Street.
Despite the time elapsed and the huge insurance payouts, there is no sign yet of when either institution will be rebuilt or reopened, as covered by a series of special reports in The Herald.
Speaking Herald journalists, former senior GSA figure Sam Ainsley lamented that the “sense of community” at the art school had been lost, due to the destruction of the infamous Mackintosh building and the marketisation of academia.
Lecturers are dealing with huge workloads, while cuts to bursaries make it “nearly impossible” for working class students to study at GSA.
At the same time, Creative Scotland, the nation’s main arts body, has refused funding for Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival.
The cancellation of the festival has been denounced by many authors, including Darren ‘Loki’ McGarvey, who has praised the event for being more accessible for working-class people, and for basing itself in community venues around the city.
While refusing £77,500 for Aye Write, Creative Scotland initially awarded nearly £85,000 to a controversial short-film project involving sexually explicit acts. This led to a backlash, with many questioning how public art funding is decided.
This furore distracts from the real class questions, however. Why are arts festivals and bursaries being cut in the first place? And who controls the wealth and resources needed to allow culture to flourish?
There is enough money in society to fully fund the arts, and to make culture and education accessible to the entire working class. The problem is that this fortune sits in the hands of the billionaires and bankers.
We must organise and struggle to seize this wealth from them. Only then can we release humanity’s full creative potential.
Shaun Morris, Glasgow Communists
