{"id":5148,"date":"2009-01-26T18:57:54","date_gmt":"2009-01-26T17:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=5148"},"modified":"2009-01-26T18:57:54","modified_gmt":"2009-01-26T17:57:54","slug":"25-years-on-from-a-uk-government-ordered-union-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/contributions\/25-years-on-from-a-uk-government-ordered-union-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"25-years on from a UK government-ordered union ban"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/blogs_profile.asp?uid=21959\">Shane<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I am reminded by the <a class=\"external\" title=\"This link will open in a new window\" href=\"http:\/\/www.strongerunions.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Stronger Unions<\/a> website that today marks the 25th anniversary of the <a class=\"external\" title=\"This link will open in a new window\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pcs.org.uk\/en\/news_and_events\/news_centre\/index.cfm\/id\/C8B3560A-50AB-41F8-B06A22521447C106\" target=\"_blank\">banning of trade unions<\/a> at the Governments\u2019 intelligence gathering centre GCHQ in Cheltenham.<\/p>\n<p>The denial of a basic human right to GCHQ workers \u2014 14 of them were sacked because of their refusal to resign their union membership \u2014 and the \u201c<em>enemy within<\/em>\u201d language deployed by the government, led to a fierce campaign from trade unions and civil libertarians. The incoming Labour government eventually repealed the ban in 1997.<\/p>\n<p>Where did Amnesty stand on this back in 1984? I don\u2019t know, but maybe the written history of Amnesty-trade union relations, which we have commissioned to be published this year as part of our celebrations, will shed some light.<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019m pretty sure of is that the decades of co-operation and solidarity in the years since the ban means that if an abuse of that sort happened again, we\u2019d be out there adding our voices in protest. We understand loud-and-clear that the right to form and join trade unions free of harassment and intimidation is a fundamental human right, and if it\u2019s worth fighting for in <a class=\"external\" title=\"This link will open in a new window\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org.uk\/content.asp?CategoryID=10989\" target=\"_blank\">Iran<\/a> , in <a class=\"external\" title=\"This link will open in a new window\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org.uk\/content.asp?CategoryID=11287\" target=\"_blank\">Colombia<\/a> and in <a class=\"external\" title=\"This link will open in a new window\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amnesty.org.uk\/search.asp?q=+ZCTU&amp;submitted=-1\" target=\"_blank\">Zimbabw<\/a>e, it\u2019s certainly worth defending here at home.<\/p>\n<p>In a future dispute of this sort, if someone with the talent of Brian Finch were to make a painting of the demonstration, I would expect to see plenty of Amnesty W<em>orkers Rights = Human Rights<\/em> placards!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Shane\u00a0 I am reminded by the Stronger Unions website that today marks the 25th anniversary of the banning of trade unions at the Governments\u2019 intelligence gathering centre GCHQ in Cheltenham. The denial of a basic human right to GCHQ workers \u2014 14 of them were sacked because of their refusal to resign their union [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1615],"tags":[55],"class_list":{"0":"post-5148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-contributions","7":"category-uk-news","8":"tag-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}