Save the Accord Demo 2: The East End Fights Back!
“The Accord Centre is a day care centre for people with learning disabilities in the East End of Glasgow. It is being demolished to make way for a bus park for the 11-day long Commonwealth Games in 2020. The carers and service users who rely on the Centre are demanding a like-for-like replacement to keep this much needed service in theEast End. A replacement centre promised by Glasgow City Council has now been dropped as part of the overall attack on services for disabled people. Disabled people and their families did not cause this economic crisis and should not have to pay”. (Demo publicity)
The Save the Accord centre campaign had another successful demo at Parkhead Forge on Saturday, 27th August with at least 500 in attendance.
The demo was backed strongly by the left in Glasgow: STUC, PCS Scotland, UNISON Glasgow Branch, Coalition of Resistance, Defend Glasgow Services Campaign and the Right to Work Campaign, alongside a host of other groups who have contributed to the Save the Accord campaign such as Glasgow Games Monitor 2020, Citizens United Against the Cuts, Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism, Glasgow Defence Campaign, and the Jaconelli family and supporters across Springfield Road.
The support of all these groups is welcome in a wider fight against cuts across Glasgow, but the lesson to be learnt here is that when people dig their heels in, in their own homes, in their own workplaces, in their own services, in their own areas, we can start to challenge the logic of the cuts we all face. There is no campaign without the likes of Margaret Jaconelli fighting eviction from her home, and the people from the East Carers group who are at the heart of the Save the Accord struggle. They set an example that we should all be following.