The NSA have always wanted their moneys-worth out of GCHQ from Bude and have, in the past, stated their intention to take-over the base and man it should its flow of information to them be disrupted. In 1980 one of the first malevolent acts of that bitch Margaret Thatcher was to abolish the Pay Research Unit who were responsible for recommending pay rates for civil servants. Put simply the Unit had been put in place to provide a fair system of renumeration for staff by comparing their salaries with the equivalent outside analogues in the private sector. So the work of Civil Servants, from high ranking heads of ministerial departments through to scientists, and clerks and messengers at the other end of the scale were compared with their outside analogues in the private sector and a settlement between the government of the day was usually agreed between the Civil Service Trades unions and the government of the day. This not only maintained a fair pay system in the Civil Service but also prevented industrial disputes from arising.
As a result, dismayed at this action Civil Servants, voted to fight back and begin a rolling course of one day strikes in 1981 across key areas of government including at GGHQ Bude (then known as CSOS Morwenstowe), the Courts Services, DHSS offices and other key areas of government.
Sometime after we held the two one day stoppages I was contacted by one of our Trade Union officials from Cheltenham who said that he and a colleague wanted to come down to Bude to discuss the strikes with me and the other Executive Officer working there. I cannot recall exactly when this was but a considerable time had elapsed since any industrial action at the site .The Officer In Charge at the station, because they were union officers, refused to allow them on site but after I discussed the matter with him and suggested that it may not be a good idea to hold discussions of this type in a local pub, we compromised and agreed that we could meet in the car park but he was adamant that he would not allow them to enter the station buildings. Ironically the local Union officials for the radio officers and engineers who worked there on a regular basis, and had taken part in the strikes, were not affected by any such ban.
Now it is important to remember, at this stage, that the industrial action that we had taken was fully supported by the Civil Service trades Unions at national and local level and that we had voted in favour of the strike action. No decision of this sort is ever taken lightly, as I have stated previously on this blog.
They arrived on a normal windy and rainswept North Cornwall day and the four of us huddled in the porchway to the site to hold our discussions. They said that they had come to ask us not to take any further industrial action at the site, should it arise, as they had been told that the Americans would go over the head of the Director of GCHQ to the Joint Intelligence Committee to request that they should take over and man the station should the station's operations be seriously affected at anytime in the future. Because of the seriousness of the issues involved I asked for time to consider their request, as did my colleague.
At the next meeting of staff from the station and a some senior full time officials from some of the Civil Service Trades Unions down in a pub in Bude, to discuss future strategy, I sought out my own full time officer from the Society of Civil and Public Servants and related the information to him. He immediately said that if I had deep concerns over taking any further action then, as far as he was concerned, I should act accordingly.
There, or so I thought, the matter ended and having completed my tour of duty I returned to Cheltenham, although it was clear that my career in the organisation had been detrimentally affected. Move forwards a few years to 1984 and Margaret Thatcher introduced her infamous ban on Trade Union membership at GCHQ. I was one of a handful from the organisation who became an appellant against the ban.
The rest, as they say is history but we mounted a long but successful campaign against the ban, and in 1997 almost the first act of the new Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was to restore the right to the staff at GCHQ to join a free Trade Union of their choice.
I have attempted to record the events of that time as accurately as possible and hope that there is new information here for students of history to add to the plethora of information already on the public record including the Catalogue of GCHQ Trade Union Campaign papers held at Wawick University.
I have withheld names, because some of the people involved are still alive.
As for conjecture and comment I have the following observations to make. Brian Tovey, the Director of GCHQ at the time was the architect of the ban I presume because of the American response to events at Bude which I have outlined above. Bobby Inman visited the site shortly after the strikes and was said to be delighted when Tovey put the plan to him according to a report In The Sunday Times, published shortly after the ban was imposed.
After the ban was announced Peter Jones for The Council Of Civil Servants and the Head of the Civil Service, Robert Armstrong were said to have negotiated a deal for unions to remain at GCHQ provided they signed a no-strike agreement but this was rejected by Margaret Thatcher whose inability to compromise led to her eventual downfall. This was subsequently the basis of the agreement between the Unions and Robin Cook in 1997. I have my own views on why, following the actions at Bude in 1981, it took until 1984 for the ban to be announced but I do know that one earlier attempt was aborted, at the last minute.
Dwight Eisenhower warned of the corrosive effects of Military Industrial Complex in 1961 and although the Anglo-British relationship has been of vital importance to the peace of the world at certain times, recent events in Palestine, Iraq, Libya Aghanistanand elsewhere have posed a threat to the peace of the world and the two countries between them, since the 1960's have been responsible for more injuries and deaths to innocent people through their bombs and their policies than any other nations on earth. For those of us who having been fighting peacefully for a better and fairer world since the 1960's there is just a faint hope that government has at last been rumbled by the people following the banking crisis, and recent revelations by Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. It is time for governments to serve the people once more rather than manipulate the people into becoming serfs of government who undermine their own peoples civil liberties and who pay lip service to democracy
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