GCHO: no deal!

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The civil service unions have called a day of action on February 28 and a lobby of Parliament on February 28. CPSA says that February 28 is not a strike, but has authorised branches to take industrial action. The CPSA Broad Left is pressing for So far only one in four union members at Government Communication Headquarters have agreed to exchange their union card for the Tories' £1000.

In some vital specialist sections, even fewer have agreed.

As we go to press, it looks like the Tories may go for a compromise - but a 'compromise' that will give them all they really want!

A Parliamentary Select Committee is recommending that a 'no disruption' agreement be imposed instead of a ban on union membership. In other words, the GCHQ workers should be told: you can have unions - as long as they don't do anything!

And the union leaders seem set to accept this.

CPSA general secretary Alistair Graham, in a union cucular, writes: "We are not about agreement a crude 'no strike' clause for all GCHQ staff which can be used as a precedent for the rest of the public sector. We have offered a 'no disruption' clause...

The civil service unions have already negotiated a 'no disruption' deal at the submarine dockyards in Faslane and Rosyth. And despite all the fine distinctions, it means no industrial action!

The CPSA action committee at GCHQ is planning 'passive resistance' through leafletting, mass meetings, short stoppages and picketing', and asking for motions to the CPSA executive calling OUR CIVIL RIGHTS ARE NOT FORSALE a one-day strike. WHEN DOES BRITAL LOSE I RIGHISP THE Tories' financial wheeling and dealing as they manoeuvre to privatise the Scott Lithgow shipyards on the Lower Clyde is slotting more and more into line with the various other dubious business deals currently creating an atmosphere of financial scandal around the government.

On 3 February a delegation from the Trafalgar House conglomerate visited the shipyards. They declared a readiness to take over the yards if the Britoil contract was restored and if the workforce was cut to 1,500. They claimed that no other company was interested in taking over Scott Lithgow.

Four days later, Trafalgar House and British Shipbuilders representatives met for discussions in London. The following day an outline agreement for the acquisition of the shipyards by Trafalgar House was announThis point is underlined by the fact that, faced with uproar at the announcement of the initial agreement, Britoil (effectively controlled by the government, since it owns 48% of it) suddenly announced an extension of its deadline for pulling out of the yards, thereby allowing other firms apart from Trafalgar House to make a bid for the yards.

In other words, the fate of thousands of jobs and the livelihood of thousands of families dependent upon them was being stitched up in backdoor deals which were not only closed to the workforce but kept secret from them as well.

Such financial chicanery underlines the need for workers at Scott Lithgow, and all other industries threatened with job losses, to demand the opening of the books and an end to secret negotiations and deals.