Skip to main content
Trade unions at GCHQ – the principle was the thing
NICK WRIGHT revisits the events of 40 years ago and the battle to overcome the ban on trade unions at the government’s communications and eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham
The Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ)

OCTOBER 1988 saw a rash of walkouts in hundreds of places where civil servants worked.

Four union members at a little-known government facility, the Government Communications Head Quarters, had been sacked on orders emanating from prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

The four were among a key group of 14 members drawn from the very many specialists working at the state agency responsible for intercepting and analysing electronic and radio communications. 

Take out shares in the People's Press
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Immigration / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all 

ANGER GROWS: Protesters demonstrate in Dover against migrant
Features / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
The left must confront both far-right bigotry and the undeniable problems the exploitation of migrant workers by the ruling class creates — but there are few lessons from the global left on how to strike this balance, laments NICK WRIGHT
FACING THE RIGHT:
Anti-racist protesters
in Walthamstow, 202
Features / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
PREMONITION OF DISASTER: Anonymous photographer, Fallen Stat
Book Review / 18 March 2025
18 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
Similar stories
Features / 19 October 2024
19 October 2024
BEN CHACKO sees an exhibition that charts the memorable struggle to have union rights restored to workers at the intelligence hub GCHQ in Cheltenham
World / 27 September 2024
27 September 2024
STANDING UP: Labour Party Black Sections members (L-R) Paul
Features / 13 June 2024
13 June 2024
As African and Asian activists pushed back against racism in workplaces and politics in the ’70s and ’80s, eventually trade unions and political parties reluctantly opened their doors to self-organised groups, writes ROGER McKENZIE
Britain / 22 May 2024
22 May 2024