Socialist Organiser

The weekly of the fused Workers Socialist League, July 1981 to April 1984

VICTORIAN VALUES-LATEST! GCHQ: What went wrong

Socialist Organiser no. 169, 8 March 1984 · scan p. 16 · about 831 words

Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 16 →

Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.

Scan page 16

Socialist Labour Socialist Fight the Scargill gets it right Inside WITH Cuts THANKS to some large donations and other fund-raising sloan WAGE-CUT PLAN Heffer efforts, we start the March fund drive with a very good first And if all the events planned this month are successful, we stand a chance of having one of the best monthly fund drives Subscribe! Events planned are: jumble sales in Islington, Stoke, Oxford; socials in Manchester and Northampton; and other To back that effort up, we need other groups of supporters Get SOCIALIŚT ORGANISER each week delivered to yo to make an effort to raise money for Socialist Organiser.

In February we raised £418.03. We've already raised nearly half that much in the first week of March. Help build on a RATES: £5 and for 3 months; £8.50 for 6 months; and £ good start, send donations to: 214 Sickert Court, London N1 2SY. Thanks this week to: Pete Firmin, £100 from a "windfall"; Andrew Hornung, £50.50; Carla Jamison, Basingstoke, £15 from fund-raising efforts; A. Chan, £8 birthday present for the Science Column; Siu-Ming Cheung, £7 from sponsored Please send me.... months' sub, I enclose £ sit-ups; Sheffield supporters, £9.50 from extra paper sales; To: Socialist Organiser, 28, Middle Lane, London N8 8PL. Neil Rigby (no relation), £4.20 added to a subscription to SO, Pablished by the Socialist Organiser Alliance 28 Middle Lane London N8. Printed by Laneridge (1). Registered as a newspaper at the GPO. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect. the rate support grant to help them wait for London.

Such financial assistance would be a cop-out from Liverpool's fight, which has to be this year.

An offer by the GLC or other Labour councils to lend money to Liverpool directly in the event of the banks cutting off Liverpool's credit would be action of entirely different order (and would certainly put them in the firing line together with Liverpool).

So too would a coordinated refusal by other Labour councils to refuse to pay debt charges to the banks in solidarity with Liverpool.

Both are possible forms of solidarity action by other Labour councils, but neither have yet been put on offer by any of them.

By Marry door by post!

for a year.

Name .

Address Women JOBLESS KEY TO Tebbit By Marry Steam Kent's appeal enclose £ Lane, London AT A meeting in Liverpool's Central Hall on Monday March 5, 1,000 GMBATU workers from the Council's cleaning department voted unanimously to strike on March 29.

A one-day Merseyside general strike is being organised on that day to support Liverpool City Council's stand against cuts and rent or rate rises.

The Council's 5,800 NALGO members were due to vote on Tuesday.

2,000 members packed into the Stadium, and 1,000 were left outside. After those inside had voted overwhelmingly in favour of striking on the 29th, an official stepped in to say the vote would have to be taken again at a further meeting because some had been unable to get in.

*Then by Wednesday evening there were reports on the television that our union leaders were admitting defeat, and it was all over' Whether the Tories' figures for numbers who had accepted their ultimatum at GCHQ were right or not, we can't know. But in any case as soon as the Tories were able to claim that 90% had signed, and the unions did nothing in direct response, the Tories were well-placed to make their claims true.

Each loyal trade unionist at GCHQ was left as an isolated individual, facing their full strength of management, without any recourse to collective union action.

Civil service union branches are still passing resolutions for all-out strike action if anyone is sacked at GCHQ. But the only sort of resolution that was adequate after February 28 was one calling on the union leaders to set a definite date for all-out strike action, sackings or no sackings.

At best the policy of striking when someone is sacked leaves the initiative completely in the hands of the Tories. It now seems that the Tories feel strong enough to get away without sacking anyone at all at GCHQ. Those who do not submit they - sue nu ur vy transiers or can get rid of by transfers or in the Ministry of Defence.

The civil service union leaders must still be called to account. Resolutions for this year's union conferences must make sure they never offer no-strike deals again.

And in every union socialists should demand that the TUC really breaks collaboration with the Tories, rather than just week's total of £195.20.

for a long time.

events in Basingstoke. Tim Summers, £1. representatives are still attending even the detailed subgroups of the NEDC, as well as the Manpower Services Commission and the conciliation service ACAS!)

Most importantly, the TUC must stop talks with the Tories on new anti-union laws, and turn to wiping the existing anti-union laws off the statute book. SOA.

----- pull-quotes -----

BREAK LINKS TORIES!

← Contents of Socialist Organiser no. 169

Something wrong on this page? Tell us →