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Students settle in for third night in University of Aberdeen sit-in

Students occupying the University of Aberdeen’s management offices vow to stay for third night as the occupation enters 50th hour. The occupation has also been bolstered by school pupils and students from Aberdeen College.

After a day in which millions of public sector workers took strike action in protest against the government’s proposed pension reforms, student occupiers are vowing to remain in occupation and to continue to call for the University to speak out against changes to pension schemes that, trade unionists and the student occupiers say, represent “a tax on working in the public sector.”

The occupiers are also demanding that that the principal protect the jobs of lecturers and staff and that the senior management team turn down any bonuses at a time when staff are losing their jobs and fees are being increased. A freedom of information submitted by the students revealed that the University paid out almost £200,000 in bonuses over the last year.

Students spent the morning taking tea and coffee to striking workerss on picket lines before holding a march to join thousands of workers at a rally in central Aberdeen.

“The support we’ve seen from trade unionists has been amazing,” Ann-Kathrin Busch, a second year conservation biology student, said. “People have been popping in all day and dropping off food and thanking us for our support, but although the strikes are over the fight is not. We’re staying in because this wasn’t just a symbolic gesture, and nor were today’s strikes. The coalition government’s pension reforms are wrong and we are determined to stop them.”

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