The Second Jack Jones Annual Lecture
given by
Brendan Barber, General Secretary, TUC
Sponsored by
National Pensioners Education and Welfare Centre
at
Liverpool Town Hall
12th April 2012
Brendan Barber gave the Second Jack Jones Annual Lecture at Liverpool Town Hall on 12th April. He reminded
the audience that Jack Jones had served as a councillor in this very room. Born into poverty in the city Jack had
eventually followed his father to work in the Liverpool docks before volunteering to serve in the British
Battalion fighting Nazism in the Spanish Civil War. Seriously wounded he returned home and began the career
for which he became famous; fighting for a better life for workers as General Secretary of the TGWU, now Unite,
and as chief economic spokesman of the TUC. Not satisfied with that, after his retirement he was one of the
founders of the National Pensioners Convention and served as its President until 2001.
Brendan Barber said Jack Jones would have been no stranger to the struggles that are
facing us today. Forty years on from Jack’s heyday we are still facing the same
challenges, striving for better jobs, not just more jobs; for better training and education;
for equality; and for a fairer society for all. The massive scale of the Government’s cuts
gives the lie to us all being in it together. The economy is scraping along the bottom and
government borrowing is £150billion more than forecast. European governments are
marching to the bankers’ tune. Jack Jones knew only too well the detrimental effects that
cuts and austerity have on working people. Now, as then we need fairer policies to
benefit all and good jobs with decent pay. Unemployment, especially among the young is
far too high yet this ConDem government lacks any understanding of its long term
effects; either that or they just don’t care.
Globalisation and IT dehumanises workers just as automation and mechanisation did in Jack Jones’ day. He
fought for wages linked to productivity resulting in the working classes earning most of the GDP, today the
opposite is true with the top earners taking the lion’s share. Jack Jones was forward looking. He campaigned for a
North Sea Oil Fund to be established in order to improve pay and conditions for the masses. Norway did it but
Thatcher squandered our revenues choosing to rather to break the Unions and destroy manufacturing in the
process. We need to do now what Jack Jones did then. Only 25% of workers are unionised, only 15% in the
private sector. We need to strengthen the unions, to organise and to show workers what Trades Unions can
achieve. Jack Jones saw the Labour Party as the vehicle to achieve his objectives. Serving on the Labour Party
NEC he campaigned to establish ACAS and the H&S Executive. He had a sense of shared purpose. Today’s Labour
leadership, Brendan said, needs to stop being apologetic about its Trades Union links and to be more forthright
in opposition.
Jack Jones, whilst being a staunch trade unionist and outstanding leader, didn’t shirk from speaking to the Heath
government. In the face of criticism he maintained it was his responsibility to continue to do the best he could
for his members and the wider working population. We can learn a lot from Jack Jones . His strength and honesty,
his unflinching commitment to democracy, his dedication to trade unionism and his belief that workers will
always be stronger together are tenets we should strive to emulate. Jack Jones was a maker of history, not
merely an observer; he led by example and we should live and breathe his principles.
Graham Wilson
NW Retired Members Secretary