Unite statement on Jack Jones
22 April 2009
It is with the greatest sadness that I must advise you
that Jack Jones, former general secretary of the Transport and
General Workers Union, died late yesterday.
We have lost the greatest trade unionist of the entire
post-war era, a man whose name will be forever associated with the
finest achievements and highest values of our movement. Indeed, the
entire history of trade unionism in Britain yields few comparable
figures.
Our first condolences are of course extended to Jack’s
family, above all his sons Jack and Michael. We share their sorrow
and also their pride in the life of their remarkable
father.
Jack Jones led the T&G to become the strongest
working-class organisation our country has ever seen, more than two
million men and women united to secure a better life both at work
and in the wider society.
When he was our general secretary, no great question of
industrial policy or economic management could be addressed without
the T&G’s input. Nor did the smallest detail of union
organisation or industrial negotiation in any of the industries in
which our union represented working people escape his
attention.
In all this work he was guided by a profound concern to
improve the lot of the ordinary people of this country whose only
strength, he understood, lay in collective organisation. From his
earliest days as a T&G organiser in Coventry, he placed the
organisation of the union in the factories at the heart of his
work, developing and promoting the shop stewards
movement.
Jack’s greatness as a leader rested above all on his
belief in the instincts and outlook of the membership. He was
always a partisan of lay democracy, of the union being run by the
men and women who joined it, and with authority being devolved to
the districts and the workplaces. Building on the achievements of
Frank Cousins, he entrenched progressive values and democratic
tolerance at the heart of the T&G.
At the same time he led from the front, animating the
whole of our union with his broad conception of the role of trade
unionism. While a master of industrial detail, he never lost sight
of the wider socialist perspective which had motivated him from his
earliest days working on the Liverpool docks. This informed his
commitment to full equality for working women, his opposition to
all forms of racism and injustice, and his unflinching support for
workers fighting oppression in all lands.
He was loyal to the Labour Party, knowing that only a
Labour government could both protect working people from the worst
ravages of capitalism and also work towards that brighter future.
He always fought his corner within the Party and always urged it,
sometimes most vocally, to remain true to its roots.
Jack will also be forever linked with the struggle for
democracy and against fascism. As a young man he put his life on
the line to go to Spain to fight in support of the elected
government of the Republic against the fascist insurrection, and
was wounded in that struggle. The people of Spain and all
internationalists across the world have lost a comrade.
Older workers in Britain also have cause to give
particular thanks for Jack’s campaigning zeal, since he devoted
most of his post-retirement years to championing the case for
justice for pensioners and in particular to see the state pension
secured at a decent level. Not for Jack a life of cosy retirement.
Every breath he gave to the struggle.
Jack strongly supported the formation of Unite, the merger
of the T&G and Amicus, as being the best way to carry forward
in new circumstances the values of the union he had built.
Disappointed, of course, at the setbacks of the last generation, he
never lost his optimism and was delighted to see our union recover
its organising and fighting back spirit.
For thousands of us still active in the movement, Jack was
a friend and a mentor, always ready to offer wise counsel when it
was sought, right down to the last months of his life. Always sharp
in his understanding of our problems, modest in his lifestyle,
uninterested in any honour beyond serving the movement, he embodied
everything a trade unionist should be.
Dockers and car workers, bus drivers and engineering
workers, white-collar employees and farmworkers, those driving a
lorry or working in an aircraft cabin – we are all today bereft.
For millions of working people, the comforts we enjoy, such
security as we have established and the social gains we have
secured, all of these stand on the shoulders of the organisation
that Jack Jones developed and of the leadership he gave. As he took
forward the work of Bevin and Cousins, so shall we carry forward
the legacy of Jack Jones into the future, the unbroken tradition of
working-class solidarity and struggle.
Today, with profound emotion, Unite dips its banner in
memory of the greatest amongst us. Tomorrow, as Jack Jones would
have wished, we shall put our shoulders to the wheel once more,
working as he did for justice for workers, for internationalism,
peace and socialism.
Tony Woodley
Joint General Secretary, Unite
General Secretary – T&G section
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