Trade Unions (Hansard, 30 November 1993)

§ 2. Mr. McAllion
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what discussions he has held with trade unions relating to the rights of employees to trade union representation.

§ The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Michael Forsyth)
I have had a number of discussions with the Trades Union Congress at which the rights of employees to trade union representations have been raised.

§ Mr. McAllion
The right of employees to establish and join organisations of their own choosing, including made unions, is one of the basic freedoms that are available to workers around the civilised world. Why do the Government continue to deny that basic freedom to their own workers at GCHQ? As January marks the 10th anniversary of the Government ban on trade unions there which was described at the time by the Tory Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) as the "nasty, thin wedge of fascism", is it not time that the Government got back to democratic basics by lifting the ban that has internationally isolated them in their anti-worker and anti-trade union bigotry?

§ Mr. Forsyth
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the workers at GCHQ can join a staff association. Conservative Members will take no lectures on the rights of trade union members from the party that supported the closed shop and that only a year ago voted against the right for members to join a trade union of their choice.

§ Mr. Riddick
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an absolute tragedy that 400 jobs have been lost at the Timex factory in Dundee? Does he agree that the left-wing extremists there seemed to be more interested in trade union rights than they were in the maintenance of jobs, and that those people who were involved should be thoroughly ashamed of their job-destroying tactics?

§ Mr. Forsyth
I agree that, unfortunately, the extremists in the trade union movement denied Dundee job opportunities at Timex, as before at Ford, and most people in the country and in Dundee would accept that inward investment depends on a good record of industrial relations. We have achieved that record thanks to the reforms that the Government brought forward, which were opposed by hon. Members opposite.