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On January 25th 1984 I went to work as usual about a quarter to eight. Around midday Terry Benstead who was union secretary came into my office and said that he was trying to get in touch with the union head office with a query, I don’t remember what the query was. We eventually got through to the head office but before we could ask our question the receptionist said, “Are you phoning about the announcement that is to be made in the House of Commons at four o’clock this afternoon?” My reply was, “What announcement?” She said that the Foreign Secretary was going to make an announcement on trade unions in GCHQ. No one at head office had any idea as to what the announcement would be as the trade unions had not been consulted on anything which would warrant an announcement in Parliament.
At four o'clock in the afternoon Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary rose to his feet in the House of Commons and stunned the members of the house with the news that, as from the first of March 1984 independent trade unions were to be banned from GCHQ At the same time there appeared on my desk an envelope with G N 100/84 inside it. Basically this G N gave to all members of GCHQ two options as follows :-
Option A ..... Give up your union membership and you will receive a gratuity of £1000 (less tax). Of course if you are not a union member you will still receive the £1000.
or
Option B ..... Tell the department that you no longer wish to be employed by GCHQ and you wish to be transferred elsewhere in the civil service. If you accept Option A you can join a federation, the head of which will be the Director of GCHQ. In other words, a puppet organisation.
Of course there is always a third option which does not appear on GN 100/84 and that is, DON'T SIGN EITHER OF THE TWO OPTIONS in which case the department will be able to sack you.
As you can well imagine the decision on which option to take varied considerably with each member. The ones who were not members of a trade union had the easiest choice of all, sign Option A and collect £1000 (less tax), and who could blame them. Certainly not me.
It was more difficult however for those trade unionists who could remember the days when there was no extra pay for working shifts or public holidays. When I joined the Civil Service Union in 1950 the pay was £5-