Liberalism and trade unionism in my working life

I spent the vast majority of my working life as an active trade unionist for IRSF, PTC & PCS trade unions. I recall being asked to join my trade union (IRSF) the day after I started work for the Inland Revenue in 1975, indeed my employer back in those more enlightened days actually encouraged their staff to join a trade union.

Yes, I know, that’s hard to believe but back then governments were committed to industrial relations and there was a format for such relations between management and unions called the Whitley System which defined how it worked. As far as I could tell the Whitley System worked across the whole Civil Service, although from what I’ve been told and indeed my own experiences it worked best in the Inland Revenue.

Within 3 years I was a member of the trade union side of an office Whitley Committee and then moved on to be an Office Secretary for my union. Maybe readers unaware of such a post would more likely know of the similar but more well-known term Shop Steward. Then it was on to becoming a member of the local Branch Committee (Bootle Taxes) and after a few years learning the ropes I found myself as Branch Secretary, a post I held for 22 years!

My trade union involvement pretty much paralleled my involvement in party politics as I joined the old Liberal Party in 1980. To me there’s no problem being a Liberal and a trade unionist although I recall others, mainly socialists, wondering out loud how I could be both. Those same trade unionists soon realised that I was of the left and more progressive and radical than most Labour Party members.

I did not realise it at the time but I was developing into a Social Liberal of the left. Not authoritarian and controlling like many socialists but holding similar policy views to some socialists. I’ve never wanted to join the Labour Party because it is often too right wing for me and especially so under Starmer!

My first union (The Inland Revenue Staff Federation) was a small trade specific union which celebrated its 100th anniversary whilst I was an Office Secretary for it. These photos of the first day cover issued to celebrate its birthday have always been important to me:-

 

I was far from enthusiastic when my hundred plus year old union merged to create PTC and then again to become PCS. I got it that the aim was to create a more effective and efficient trade union for the whole Civil Service and indeed the wider public sector but, for me, it was at the expense of a larger union being more remote and in some ways less knowledgeable about specific issues in particular work places. I guess this was my Liberalism showing through.

I retired as a union officer 5 or 6 years before I retired from what had then become HMRC as thankfully younger blood had come along to try to take trade unionism forward. But I retired feeling somewhat sad as step by step governments of the day had turned against what I will call proper industrial relations and the once universally accepted and valued Whitley System.

Over a period of 40 years I had experienced the continual erosion of good industrial relations to the point where ‘us and them’ was seen to be the way ‘forward’ by governments with confrontation seemingly being their only objective. Where had the respect gone? Where had valuing staff and unions gone? What good had come and will become from confrontation?

Despite my latter years as a trade unionist at times being a little depressing I valued my time working for union members in my branch and regionally. I learned negotiating skills and how to fight for those with little or nothing; not a dissimilar experience to being a Lib Dem local councillor!

 

Should you meet your heroes?

It’s often said that you should not meet your heroes as it will be disappointing.

I suppose I have 3 significant heroes of which I’ve met two of them. They are politician Shirley Williams, sportsman Derek Randall and musician Isaac Hayes. I met Williams and Randall but not Hayes, although I was yards away from him at two concerts when he toured the UK in November 1978. Hayes is, of course, now dead so I’m not going to meet him but I’m presently reading a biography of his life which comes rather too close to me knowing about his wider life and relationships. But let’s start with Williams.

 

Shirley, pictured above with our daughter Jen and myself, was pretty much everything I’d expected of her from seeing her on TV. I met her on quite a number of occasions over a period of say 15 years or so as a MP for Crosby, as a Baroness and as a hugely influential political speaker and activist for progressive politics. By nature she was bright, welcoming, intelligent, politically radical and progressive, plus she had that gift few politicians have to be able to engage with ordinary folk without being patronising or superior. The late Charles Kennedy had that gift too although I only met him the once. So Shirley was indeed very much the person I looked up to when I got to know her and like with Kennedy the political loss has been significant not least because so very few of our present day politicians come anywhere near close to them.

 

Derek, when I met him, was as eccentric as many of us who saw him on the cricket field for Nottinghamshire and England in the 1970s/1980s might have expected. I met him just the once and it was very much unexpected. I’d turned up at Trent Bridge cricket ground to pick up a copy of his 1992 autobiography ‘RAGS’ from the Notts shop. Being asked whether I’d like a signed copy the answer was, of course, yes, but the copy handed to me wasn’t signed. On querying things the chap in the shop smiled and said ‘go through those doors and onto the ground where Derek is presently teaching youngsters to bat and he’ll sign it’. I could not quite believe what I was hearing but did as advised and was met by Derek who said ‘Eh up lad, how’s ya dooin’ and then he took the book from me and signed it. We had a brief chat and he said how delighted he was that I’d come to see him. He was delighted, I was all but speechless! What a nice chap and what a cricketing entertainer.

 

And now I come to Isaac my musical hero since around 1970ish. I have pretty much everything he recorded and I still listen to his unique soul music regularly. I’d been introduced to Hayes by my life-long friend Andrew Beattie who sadly died in 1999. Indeed, Andrew was a huge influence over me in terms of music, politics and my becoming an atheist. I never met Hayes but did see him in concert twice, in Manchester’s now long-gone Free Trade Hall and at Liverpool’s Empire, both during his 1978 tour of the UK. I’d heard bits about his lifestyle, his womanising and how he surrounded himself with shall we say colourful characters, but it was not until the 2022 biography of him was published that I really got to understand his life, influences etc. I must admit some of it is shocking and frankly disturbing but then again I’m white and English whereas he was black and from Memphis in the deep south of the US. I suppose I’ve found out what I’d always suspected i.e. that this musical genius was a very colourful and eccentric chap whose lifestyle I found uncomfortable to read about. So still a hero? Yes, in musical terms and also in terms of his charitable work but otherwise, well as my old Mum used to say ‘if you can’t say anything good, say nothing at all’.

 

So, 3 heroes and only one disappointed me and that disappointment has little to do with his music. Having said that his experiences must have influenced his soul output for good and bad yet he still hits all the right notes for me musically.

I think we should meet our heroes but we should be prepared to see their real life rather than the rose-tinted one we’ve created from seeing them on TV, social media etc.