STUDENT activists occupied Glasgow University’s senate room yesterday in solidarity with striking lecturers.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at 10 Scottish universities are taking action in a continuing UK-wide row over pensions.
The Glasgow University Strike Solidarity members said they were occupying the senate room in solidarity with staff and to “remind our university management where their sympathies should lie”. The university said about a dozen students took part.
The group has made a series of demands to university management, including calls for full pay for striking staff and for a commitment from senior management to fully support any future industrial action.
The students said in a statement: “Representatives of our group met with [principal] Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli and [chief operating officer] Dr David Duncan on February 20 with a list of easily met demands – we cannot consider these to have been fulfilled. We have therefore been forced to escalate our actions.”
Earlier this week, the UCU rejected a proposal aimed at settling the dispute.
A university spokesman said: “The chief operating officer and the deputy secretary of court visited the group and explained that the principal has again publicly called for national talks without preconditions as a means of reaching a settlement.”
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