Ken Gill
Encyclopedia
Ken Gill was a British trade union
ist leader. He was the General Secretary of the Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section
(TASS), from 1974 to 1988, when it merged with ASTMS
to form the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union (MSF). He was General Secretary of the MSF, 1988 - 1992, initially jointly with Clive Jenkins
. A committed Communist, he was elected to the TUC General Council in 1974, and was a prominent figure in the militant industrial relations of the 1970s. From 1981 to 1987 he was a member of the Commission for Racial Equality
.
, Wiltshire
, in 1927. Gill was politicised when young, having experienced poverty in his childhood during the Great Depression
. He attended a grammar school
and was offered officer training during the Second World War, but refused this owing to a political opposition to the officer class. In 1943, aged 15, he became an apprentice draughtsman. During the war his family took in a lodger, a cobbler and communist who convinced the young Gill of the cause of socialism
. In 1945 he was a prominent campaigner for the local Labour candidate, who was elected as the first local Labour MP.
In 1949, at the end of his apprenticeship, he moved to London. As a young communist at the height of the Cold War
, he travelled to East Germany for the 1951 World Youth Festival, and was briefly arrested while journeying there by the US military police. By his early thirties Gill had become a director of a successful small engineering firm.
In 1962 Gill stood for office in the Draughtsmen’s and Allied Technicians Association (DATA), being elected a regional official. The militancy of his Merseyside
and Northern Ireland
region saw Gill leading workers in a series of industrial battles over pay and conditions. As a result of his success in this, he was elected as deputy general secretary of the union in 1968, bringing him back to London. "As former colleagues attest, Ken was widely respected as a leader, winning people by persuasion rather than using his authority." DATA's successor, the Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section
(TASS), became part of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) in 1971, although it remained quasi-autonomous. During the merger talks MI5
broke into Gill's South London home in order to bug discussions going on there.
Gill became the General Secretary of TASS in 1974, and that same year was the third communist to be elected on to the TUC General Council, with over 7 million votes. With the support of other left-wingers on the Council he helped lead a militant broad left
grouping, which played a key role in the ideological and economic battles of the time. He was a leading member of the 'awkward squad
' of trade union leaders which made the industrial relations of the nineteen seventies so difficult for successive governments, not least by consistently opposing an enforced incomes policy
. He was a leading figure in union opposition to Barbara Castle
's contentious 1969 bill on industrial relations, In Place of Strife
.
From the mid-1970s Gill used his position on the TUC Council to push for more radical policies in support of equal opportunities. In 1976 he "famously told the TUC Woman’s Conference ... that Britain was still a 'socially backward' country," since despite the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act women would still need a 50 per cent pay increase to achieve parity with men. In 1982 he warned against racial prejudice within trade unions, saying that black workers would form their own trade unions if prejudice prevented them from being elected to union posts. Gill was also an internationalist, pushing within the TUC for more progressive positions internationally. Gill and his union were among the earliest active supporters of the fight against South Africa
's apartheid. On Gill's initiative, the union guaranteed the deposit for the 1988 stadium concert that celebrated Nelson Mandela
's 70th birthday. When Mandela later visited the UK after his release from Robben Island
, he chose the union's conference hall to meet and thank African National Congress
exiles and activists.
In 1984 Gill became chairman of the People's Press Printing Society
, the cooperative which publishes The Morning Star
. Gill, along with a group of so-called "Tankie
" members, was later expelled from the Communist Party of Great Britain
when the paper's editor refused to follow the new Eurocommunist
party line. In 1985/86 Gill became the only communist ever to become President of the Trades Union Congress
, although by then, following the defeat of the 1984 miners' strike
, militancy was in retreat.
TASS demerged from the AUEW in 1985, and in 1988 merged with ASTMS
to form the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union (MSF), then Britain's fifth-largest union, with 600,000 members. Gill was General Secretary of the MSF, 1988 - 1992, initially jointly with Clive Jenkins
. Gill retired as a full-time trade union official in 1992. "Despite being among the most prominent communists in the country, Gill always saw himself first of all as a trade unionist." In 1993 he was voted the "Trade Unionists’ Trade Unionist" in a survey carried out by The Observer
newspaper. "Ken never fitted the cliché image of a communist. While he could be forceful and committed, he was never dogmatic or unnecessarily aggressive." He believed that the Labour Party
was central to radical social change.
Gill was also known for his caricature
s of fellow trade unionists, and often made on scraps of paper during meetings and conferences. An exhibition of his work was held at Congress House in 2007, and a book of his caricatures was published in April 2009.
, former general secretary of Unison
, the UK's largest public services union. More information about the Fund and Ken's life is available at www.kengillmemorial.org
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ist leader. He was the General Secretary of the Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section
Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section
The Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section was a British trade union.In 1970, the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association , Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundry Workers and Constructional Engineering Union amalgamated to form the Amalgamated Union of Engineering...
(TASS), from 1974 to 1988, when it merged with ASTMS
Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs
ASTMS - The Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs was a British trade union, created in 1969 when ASSET merged with the AScW under the leadership of joint general secretaries: Clive Jenkins of ASSET and John Dutton of the AScW.ASSET, the larger of the two...
to form the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union (MSF). He was General Secretary of the MSF, 1988 - 1992, initially jointly with Clive Jenkins
Clive Jenkins
David Clive Jenkins was a British trade union leader. "Organising the middle classes", his stated recreation in Who's Who, sums up both his sense of humour and his achievements in the British trade union movement....
. A committed Communist, he was elected to the TUC General Council in 1974, and was a prominent figure in the militant industrial relations of the 1970s. From 1981 to 1987 he was a member of the Commission for Racial Equality
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to tackle racial discrimination and promote racial equality. Its work has been merged into the new Equality and Human Rights Commission.-History:...
.
Background
Ken Gill was born in MelkshamMelksham
Melksham is a medium-sized English town, lying on the River Avon. It lies in the county of Wiltshire.It is situated southeast of the city of Bath, south of Chippenham, west of Devizes and north of Warminster on the A350 national route. The 2001 UK census cited Melksham as having 20,000...
, Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, in 1927. Gill was politicised when young, having experienced poverty in his childhood during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. He attended a grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
and was offered officer training during the Second World War, but refused this owing to a political opposition to the officer class. In 1943, aged 15, he became an apprentice draughtsman. During the war his family took in a lodger, a cobbler and communist who convinced the young Gill of the cause of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. In 1945 he was a prominent campaigner for the local Labour candidate, who was elected as the first local Labour MP.
In 1949, at the end of his apprenticeship, he moved to London. As a young communist at the height of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, he travelled to East Germany for the 1951 World Youth Festival, and was briefly arrested while journeying there by the US military police. By his early thirties Gill had become a director of a successful small engineering firm.
Trade union career
Merseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...
and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
region saw Gill leading workers in a series of industrial battles over pay and conditions. As a result of his success in this, he was elected as deputy general secretary of the union in 1968, bringing him back to London. "As former colleagues attest, Ken was widely respected as a leader, winning people by persuasion rather than using his authority." DATA's successor, the Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section
Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section
The Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section was a British trade union.In 1970, the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association , Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundry Workers and Constructional Engineering Union amalgamated to form the Amalgamated Union of Engineering...
(TASS), became part of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) in 1971, although it remained quasi-autonomous. During the merger talks MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
broke into Gill's South London home in order to bug discussions going on there.
Gill became the General Secretary of TASS in 1974, and that same year was the third communist to be elected on to the TUC General Council, with over 7 million votes. With the support of other left-wingers on the Council he helped lead a militant broad left
Broad left
Broad Left is a coalition of left members, usually involving independents, members of the Labour Party, and members of organised revolutionary leftist movements within a trade union. Several groups are described by the term....
grouping, which played a key role in the ideological and economic battles of the time. He was a leading member of the 'awkward squad
Awkward Squad
The phrase Awkward Squad is used usually to refer to any grouping of individuals, normally within an existing organisation or structure, who are incompetent or wittingly or otherwise associate together to resist or obstruct change and are possibly stubborn in doing so.-Origin:It is commonly...
' of trade union leaders which made the industrial relations of the nineteen seventies so difficult for successive governments, not least by consistently opposing an enforced incomes policy
Incomes policy
Incomes policies in economics are economy-wide wage and price controls, most commonly instituted as a response to inflation, and usually below market level.Incomes policies have often been resorted to during wartime...
. He was a leading figure in union opposition to Barbara Castle
Barbara Castle
Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn , PC, GCOT was a British Labour Party politician....
's contentious 1969 bill on industrial relations, In Place of Strife
In Place of Strife
In Place of Strife was a UK Government white paper written in 1969. It was a proposed act to alter the functionality of trade unions in the United Kingdom, but was never passed into law....
.
From the mid-1970s Gill used his position on the TUC Council to push for more radical policies in support of equal opportunities. In 1976 he "famously told the TUC Woman’s Conference ... that Britain was still a 'socially backward' country," since despite the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act women would still need a 50 per cent pay increase to achieve parity with men. In 1982 he warned against racial prejudice within trade unions, saying that black workers would form their own trade unions if prejudice prevented them from being elected to union posts. Gill was also an internationalist, pushing within the TUC for more progressive positions internationally. Gill and his union were among the earliest active supporters of the fight against South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
's apartheid. On Gill's initiative, the union guaranteed the deposit for the 1988 stadium concert that celebrated Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
's 70th birthday. When Mandela later visited the UK after his release from Robben Island
Robben Island
Robben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
, he chose the union's conference hall to meet and thank African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
exiles and activists.
In 1984 Gill became chairman of the People's Press Printing Society
People's Press Printing Society
The People's Press Printing Society is a readers' co-operative to own and publish a left-wing, British, daily newspaper Daily Worker, known as The Morning Star from 1966...
, the cooperative which publishes The Morning Star
The Morning Star
The Morning Star is a left wing British daily tabloid newspaper with a focus on social and trade union issues. Articles and comment columns are contributed by writers from socialist, social democratic, green and religious perspectives....
. Gill, along with a group of so-called "Tankie
Tankie
Tankie was a pejorative term referring to members of the Communist Party of Great Britain who followed the Kremlin line, agreeing with the crushing of revolts in Hungary and later Czechoslovakia by Soviet tanks...
" members, was later expelled from the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
when the paper's editor refused to follow the new Eurocommunist
Eurocommunism
Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant in a Western European democracy and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet...
party line. In 1985/86 Gill became the only communist ever to become President of the Trades Union Congress
President of the Trades Union Congress
The President of the Trades Union Congress is a prominent but largely honorary position in British trade unionism.The President is elected at the annual conference of the Trades Union Congress . They officially fill the office for the remainder of the year and then preside over the following...
, although by then, following the defeat of the 1984 miners' strike
UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
The UK miners' strike was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trades union movement...
, militancy was in retreat.
TASS demerged from the AUEW in 1985, and in 1988 merged with ASTMS
Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs
ASTMS - The Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs was a British trade union, created in 1969 when ASSET merged with the AScW under the leadership of joint general secretaries: Clive Jenkins of ASSET and John Dutton of the AScW.ASSET, the larger of the two...
to form the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union (MSF), then Britain's fifth-largest union, with 600,000 members. Gill was General Secretary of the MSF, 1988 - 1992, initially jointly with Clive Jenkins
Clive Jenkins
David Clive Jenkins was a British trade union leader. "Organising the middle classes", his stated recreation in Who's Who, sums up both his sense of humour and his achievements in the British trade union movement....
. Gill retired as a full-time trade union official in 1992. "Despite being among the most prominent communists in the country, Gill always saw himself first of all as a trade unionist." In 1993 he was voted the "Trade Unionists’ Trade Unionist" in a survey carried out by The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
newspaper. "Ken never fitted the cliché image of a communist. While he could be forceful and committed, he was never dogmatic or unnecessarily aggressive." He believed that the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
was central to radical social change.
Retirement
After his retirement, Gill continued campaigning, including against the 2003 Iraq war. He also played a key role in the 1993 founding of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in the UK, becoming its first chair, only stepping down in 2008.Gill was also known for his caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
s of fellow trade unionists, and often made on scraps of paper during meetings and conferences. An exhibition of his work was held at Congress House in 2007, and a book of his caricatures was published in April 2009.
Books
- Ken Gill (Author), John Green and Michal Boncza (Editors), 2009 - Hung, Drawn and Quartered, Artery Publications, ISBN 978-0-9558228-2-7. The book is a selection of Gill's caricatures.
The Ken Gill Memorial Fund
A non-charitable trust was established in 2010 by Ken's family and close friends to commemorate Ken's life and to continue his life's work. Among its key objectives are supporting the Morning Star newspaper, supporting the trade union movement and workers' rights through co-operation with the Institute of Employment Rights and to support solidarity with Cuba, working alongside the Cuba Solidarity Campaign. Trustees include Rodney BickerstaffeRodney Bickerstaffe
Rodney Bickerstaffe has been president of the UK National Pensioners Convention and was leader of Britain's largest trade union, UNISON until 2001....
, former general secretary of Unison
Unison
In music, the word unison can be applied in more than one way. In general terms, it may refer to two notes sounding the same pitch, often but not always at the same time; or to the same musical voice being sounded by several voices or instruments together, either at the same pitch or at a distance...
, the UK's largest public services union. More information about the Fund and Ken's life is available at www.kengillmemorial.org