After receiving the brief I decided to look into Jack Jones and do some initial research on him to get a feel for what the Jack Jones Trust will support and be about. After researching Jack Jones I will then look into the Jack Jones Trust.
James Larkin Jones, CH, MBE (29 March 1913 – 21 April 2009), known as Jack Jones, was a British trade union leader and General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union.
Jones was born in Garston, Liverpool. He was named after the Liverpool born Irish trade unionist James Larkin. He left school at 14 and worked as an engineering apprentice. After the Wall Street Crash, Jones lost his job, eventually finding employment with a firm of signmakers and painters. He then joined his father as a Liverpool docker.
Jack Jones was converted to socialism by reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, and he later explained how the book "was passed from hand to hand among people in the Labour movement and had a remarkable effect on our thinking".[1] He became a member of the Transport and General Workers Union, and was elected shop steward, then a delegate on the National Docks Group Committee.
General Secretary of the Union
Jones was elected General Secretary of the TGWU in 1968. Together with Hugh Scanlon, President of the Amalgamated Engineering Union he led the left-wing trade union opposition (associated with Broad Left) to the 1966-70 Labour Government's prices and incomes policy, and the efforts of that government to introduce legislation that would have enforced a 28-day cooling off period before strike action could be taken.
While General Secretary, he was chief economic spokesman for the Trades Union Congress and one of the authors of the Social Contract. Jones was also instrumental in the creation of the Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service (Acas) in 1975, and was a member of the National Economic Development Council from 1969 to 1978. Jones campaigned for Britain to leave the EEC in the 1975 referendum.
In January 1977 a Gallup opinion poll found that 54% of people believed that Jones was the most powerful person in Britain, ahead of the Prime Minister, and is held responsible by some in the Labour Party for being "the union leader that created the winter of discontent and 18 years of Conservative Party (UK) rule."
According to KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, Jones provided intelligence to the Soviet Union in return for money. This was denied by Jones, who described the allegations as a "slur and an outrage". In the authorised history of MI5 The Defence Of The Realm, the author Christopher Andrew, using Gordievsky as his source, claimed that Jones passedLabour Party documents to the Soviets for cash, with the last payments to Jones occurring in 1984.
THE JACK JONES TRUST
The aim of the Trust is to encourage and develop film projects that reflect Jack’s values and beliefs, collaborating with individuals and organisations who also strive to promote those same ideals.
The Trust seeks funding to help develop projects that reflect Jack Jones’ life’s work, while promoting the following themes.
- Trade Union rights across the UK and the world, reflecting the need for trade unions, their role in promotinghuman rights and fighting injustice at work and in communities.
- Anti Fascism and Racism. Fighting prejudice and ignorance, opposing the promotion of fascist ideals and the existence of fascist governments and parties.
- Internationalism and Solidarity around the world, between peoples and trade unions, supporting causes that Jack himself would recognise as vital to the progress of humankind. This is particularly reflected in Jack’s decision to go fight in the Spanish Civil War.
Jack Jones Trust Patrons:
- Jack Jones Jnr
- Tom Watson, MP
- Dot Gibson – National Pensioners Convention
- Keith Sonnet – Deputy General Secretary, UNISON
- Rodney Bickerstaff – President, UK National Pensioners Convention
- Len McCluskey – General Secretary, UNITE
- Professor Paul Preston – Spanish History, London School of Economics
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