GCHQ: no deal!
Socialist Organiser1984 1984-02-16Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 16 →
Reader report 26 Oct 2026 (boundaries, SO 166 pp. 15-16): transcribed from the scan of page 16, unsigned; the machine reading had run in Stan Crooke's Scott Lithgow article beside it, which now has its own page. 'alterantive' as printed.
Proofed text: read against the scan word by word; spelling, punctuation and wording are as printed.
Scan page 16
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 circular, 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 for a one-day national stoppage.
But in a letter sent to a DHSS branch official replying to the demand that the day of action on February 28 be made a one-day strike, Alistair Graham, general secretary of the CPSA, wrote:
"I do not believe that calling a one-day strike for that day would be very helpful. It would allow Mrs Thatcher to go out on the attack and demonstrate that the Civil Service trade unions were once again taking industrial action rather than looking after their wider responsibilities."
Every letter and circular that arrives from union headquarters on members desks contains outrageous examples of the leadership's unwillingness to lead the type of fight that can actually win this dispute.
The CPSA Broad Left has now put out a leaflet calling for the 28th to be made a one-day strike. All branches must take up the call and make the 28th a day of massive industrial action against the ban on trade unions — or an alterantive ban on trade union action.
Messages of support and donations to the Cheltenham strikers should be sent to: GCHQ Campaign, 4, Royal Crescent, Cheltenham, Glos.
Photo caption: 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 a one-day strike.