Unite statement on Jack Jones

Unite statement on Jack Jones

Wednesday, 22, Apr 2009 12:00

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