Industrial Workers of the World One Big Union

The IWW and friends won their epic 8-month battle to prevent the closure of Crichton Campus, Dumfriesshire, part of the University of Glasgow. In February, the university refused to take new admissions for courses based at Crichton, as it planned to close its Arts and Humanities faculties there at the end of this academic year.

The Scottish National Party [SNP] was recently elected to power in the Scottish Parliament, and had been claiming that they would save the campus if they were elected. The IWW, along with staff and students at Crichton ensured that when they were elected, they kept their word! The government has injected £1.5 million in funding into the campus to ensure it remains in operation and the dozens of staff, the struggling local community and hundreds of students do not lose this valuable educational institution.

There is no doubt that were it not for the vocal and ceaseless campaigning of the Save Crichton Campaign, spearheaded by IWW members (and soon-to-be IWW members!), the campus would have been closed. IWW dual-carders in UCU also ensured that the UCU also took on board the plight of the campus by agitating within the union on a local and national scale.

IWW Central Scotland Organiser, Nick Durie said "This victory amounts to winning £1.5 million. Many people have said that the IWW is not an organisation capable of achieving victories, but we were heavily involved and clearly a major factor in this victory at Crichton".

Now having a solid base at Glasgow Unviersity, IWW members are vowing to take their victory as a means of further agitation amongst the many unorganised workers at the university.