 |
|
||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|||
| SENIORS CHAMPION | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Seniors
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Jack Jones is the president of the T&G Retired Members' Association, Life President of the National Pensioners Convention and President of the International Brigade Memorial Trust. James Larkin Jones CH (born March 29, 1913), known as Jack Jones, is a former British trade union leader and former General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union. |
|
Jack was born in Garston, Liverpool. He left school at 14 and worked as
an engineering apprentice. Jack joined the Labour Party and the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers (AEU) and soon became involved in union
activities. After the Wall Street Crash Jack lost his job but was
eventually able to find employment with a firm of signmakers and
painters.
Later he joined his father as a Liverpool docker. He became a member of
the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) and was elected as a shop
steward and was a delegate on the National Docks Group Committee.
He served with the
British Battalion of the XV International Brigade in the Spanish Civil
War and he was seriously wounded at the Battle of Ebro in 1938.
On his
return to England he became a full-time official of the TGWU in
Coventry. During World War II he helped to keep the city's munitions
industry working through the Blitz.
Jack played a key role in
organising the workforce of the West Midlands motor industry in the post war period as Regional Secretary of the TGWU.
After the war, as Regional Secretary of the TGWU, Jack
played a key role in organising the workforce of the car industry in the
Midlands. He was elected general secretary of the T&G in
1968 and led the union for nine years.
During that time
he held many prominent positions in the TUC and was a
principal spokesman on international and economic
matters. He was chief economic spokesman for the
Trades Union Congress and one of the authors of the
Social Contract.
Jack was the 'architect' of the Advisory, Conciliation,
and Arbitration Service (ACAS) in 1975 ACAS and was a member of
the National Economic Development Council from 1969 to 1978. In 1977 he gave the BBC
Dimbleby Lecture, 'The Human Face of Labour'.
In January 1977 a Gallup opinion poll found that 54% of people
believed that Jack was the most powerful person in Britain, - ahead of
the Prime Minister.
In retirement from the T&G in 1979, Jack started the
National Pensioners Convention with TUC support - encouraged by Age
Concern and Help the Aged.
It was to act as an umbrella movement of national
pensioners' associations to make representations
to
Government. The bodies were loosely linked initially
and included the TGWU Retired Members
Association. British
Pensioners and
Trade Union Action Association.
Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, National Federation
of Old Age Pensioners Associations
and the National
Federation of Post Office and Telecom
Pensioners.
The objective was to create nationwide awareness of the problems faced by older people and, with support from the trade unions, to press government to take action to resolve them.
Jack was elected President and maintained a fierce work regime up to
his 90th birthday and even now still goes to his office at the TGWU
headquarters as often as he can.
In 1997 Jack Jones led a team of 12 pensioners from many parts of Britain in putting a well argued case to the
Government's Pensions Review. The key demand in the NPC submission to the review was to
restore the link between pensions and wages.
Jack, at 93, is still "keeping right on", and is now Life President of the NPC and is also President of the International Brigade Memorial Trust.
His biography, Union Man, was published in 1986.
|
|
