Tony Dubbins was a prominent British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 trade union

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 until his retirement from Unite

Unite the Union

Unite – the Union, known as Unite, is a British and Irish trade union, formed on 1 May 2007, by the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union...

 in 2008.

He first became a full-time union official in the National Graphical Association

National Graphical Association

The National Graphical Association was a British trade union. It was formed in 1964 by the merger of two long-term rival unions, the Typographical Association and the London Typographical Society...

 and became general secretary in 1984, leading the union through the Wapping dispute

Wapping dispute

The Wapping dispute was, along with the miners' strike of 1984-5, a significant turning point in the history of the trade union movement and of UK industrial relations...

.

The NGA merged with the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades

Society of Graphical and Allied Trades

The Society of Graphical and Allied Trades was a British trade union in the printing industry.SOGAT was formed in 1966 by the National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers and the National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants...

 in 1990. Dubbins won the subsequent election against Brenda Dean

Brenda Dean

Brenda Dean, Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde PC is a British trade unionist and politician.She began her career as a trade unionist as a teenager...

, SOGAT's General Secretary, to become the first, and only, general secretary of the Graphical, Paper and Media Union

Graphical, Paper and Media Union

The Graphical, Paper and Media Union was a trade union in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland between 1992 and 2005. Having been formed from the merger of SOGAT and the National Graphical Association, it claimed to be the world's largest media union, and had over 200,000 members working...

.

Following the GPMU's merger with Amicus

Amicus

Amicus was the United Kingdom's second-largest trade union, and the largest private sector union, formed by the merger of Manufacturing Science and Finance, the AEEU agreed in 2001, and two smaller unions, UNIFI and the GPMU...

 in 2004, he became Deputy General Secretary. Amicus then merged with the Transport & General Workers Union in May 2007 to form Unite

Unite the Union

Unite – the Union, known as Unite, is a British and Irish trade union, formed on 1 May 2007, by the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union...

.

He was president of the Trades Union Congress

Trades Union Congress

The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...

 in 1997 and chairman of the Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Organisation until 2008.

Dubbins is a keen West Ham United supporter.