Joe Gormley (trade unionist)

Joseph Gormley, Baron Gormley, OBE (5 July 1917 – 27 May 1993) was President of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1971 to 1982, and a Labour peer.

Early life

Joe Gormley was born in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire in 1917, one of seven children,^[1] and became a miner at the age of fourteen. He was an active trade union official and became a committee member of the St Helens area branch of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1957. He served as general secretary of the North West region (comprising Lancashire and Cumberland) from April 1961 and joined the national executive in 1963. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1970 New Year's Honours.^[2] He was a fan of Wigan rugby league football club.^[3]

1970s

In 1971, he was elected as leader of the NUM and presided over the national strike that began on 9 January 1972. The strike lasted for seven weeks.^[4] Following much negotiation the strike was resolved on 25 February 1972 with a 21% increase in pay and concessions won by the miners.^[5] Miners moved to the top of the UK's industrial wage league, having previously been seventeenth.^[6]

On 12 November 1973 the miners began an overtime ban in response to the Conservative government's incomes policy. Combined with the shortages caused by the Middle East oil crisis, Britain faced widespread power cuts. Emergency measures were used to economise on electricity with the introduction of the Three-Day Week. On 20 December Gormley attended negotiations with Willie Whitelaw, Secretary of State for Employment, and was forced to shelter in an Italian restaurant due to an IRA bomb scare.^[7] On 23 January 1974 the NUM executive met and agreed to hold a pithead ballot for an all-out strike, with Gormley writing, "With fuel stocks holding out and spring around the corner our final card has to be played now or never." On 4 February the NUM announced that the miners had voted for an all-out strike.^[8]

The Prime Minister, Edward Heath, called a snap election on this issue, asking the public, "Who governs Britain?" Gormley tried to persuade the National Executive Conference to postpone the strike until after any election, but the strike went ahead. After the election brought in a new Labour government, the union's demands were met.^{[citation needed]}

1980s

In 1981, the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, threatened to break with the 'Plan for Coal' and close 23 pits. A ballot for strike was held if the government closed pits contrary to the Plan for Coal. A strike mandate resulted with an 87.6% majority. The NUM Executive had a clear mandate for strike action if the government breached the Plan for Coal agreement. When a national strike was threatened, Thatcher backed down; many miners went on unofficial strike in the year, but Gormley rejected calls for a national strike. He left his post in 1982 and was replaced by the more left-wing Arthur Scargill. In 1982, his last-minute appeal got miners to accept a Government offer of a 9.3% raise, rejecting Scargill's call for a strike authorisation.^[9] When asked what he had achieved during his period as President, he replied, "Everyone wants to be related to a miner".^[10]

One of Gormley's long-term legacies which affected the 1984–85 strike was his role in the wage reforms of 1977. The reforms paid miners a wage proportionate to the output of their region. This gave Nottinghamshire miners the highest wages of all and so they were very reluctant to go on strike in 1984, when few of their pits were under threat and they had high wages to lose. Another key matter was that two ballots of the NUM membership had rejected these reforms, and Gormley responded by declaring productivity schemes now to be for the regional committees to decide, with or without a regional ballot. When this was challenged in the High Court as a violation of union rules, the court upheld Gormley. This confusion over when the NUM needed to hold a ballot became of huge importance during the 1984-85 strike, when Scargill tried to mimic Gormley's methods and make a national strike into something on which regional committees could decide.^{[citation needed]}

He was made a life peer as Baron Gormley, of Ashton-in-Makerfield in Greater Manchester^[11] in the 1982 Birthday Honours.

He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1982 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews on his way to a meeting in Victoria, London.^{[citation needed]}

Special Branch

In 2002, the BBC uncovered that Gormley had passed on information to Special Branch about extremism within his union.^[12] A former Special Branch officer made this allegation and said that Gormley "loved his country. He was a patriot and he was very wary and worried about the growth of militancy within his own union". The BBC claimed, "Special Branch was talking to more than 20 senior trades union leaders during the early-1970s".^[12]

Autobiography

Joe Gormley (1982). Battered Cherub. Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-10754-7.

References

^ "Lord Gormley; British Miners' Leader, 75". The New York Times. 31 May 1993. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
^ "No. 44999". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 January 1970. p. 10.
^ Collins, Tony. Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain (2006), p. 223
^ "1972 and 1974 Miners' Strikes". University of Wales Swansea. 2002. Retrieved 29 December 2002.
^ "Miners call off crippling coal strike". BBC News Online. 25 February 1972.
^ Adeney, Martin; Lloyd, John (1988). The Miners' Strike 1984-5: Loss Without Limited. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 16. ISBN 0-7102-1371-9.
^ Sandbrook, Dominic (2011). State of Emergency - The Way We Were: Britain 1970-1974. Penguin Books. pp. 584–587. ISBN 978-0-141-03215-3.
^ Sandbrook, Dominic (2011). State of Emergency - The Way We Were: Britain 1970-1974. Penguin Books. pp. 608–610. ISBN 978-0-141-03215-3.
^ Slavin, Barbara; Freudenheim, Milt; Rhoden, Willian C. (24 January 1982). "British Miners Settle for Less". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
^ Adeney, Martin; Lloyd, John (1988). The Miners' Strike 1984-5: Loss Without Limited. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 11. ISBN 0-7102-1371-9.
^ "No. 49060". The London Gazette. 23 July 1982. p. 9669.
^ ^a ^b "Former NUM chief was police informer". BBC News Online. 24 October 2002.

Trade union offices
Preceded by Edwin Hall	Secretary of the Lancashire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers 1961–1971	Succeeded by Sid Vincent
Preceded by Sidney Ford	President of the National Union of Mineworkers 1971–1982	Succeeded by Arthur Scargill

v t e Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) and National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)
Presidents	1889 Pickard 1904 En. Edwards 1912 Smillie 1922 Smith 1929 Richards 1931 Eb. Edwards 1932 Lee 1934 J. Jones 1939 Lawther 1954 E. Jones 1960 Machen 1960 Ford 1971 Gormley 1982 Scargill 2002 Lavery 2012 Wilson
Vice-Presidents	1889 Woods 1909 Smillie 1912 Harvey 1914 House 1917 Smith 1922 Walsh 1924 Richards 1929 Eb. Edwards 1931 Lee 1932 J. Jones 1933 Davies 1934 Lawther 1939 Bowman 1950 E. Jones 1954 T. Jones 1961 Collindridge 1963 Bullough 1969 Schofield 1973 McGahey 1987 Thompson 1989 Vacant 1992 Cave 2002 Stanley 2010 Wilson 2012 Thomas
General Secretaries	1889 Ashton 1919 Hodges 1924 Cook 1932 Eb. Edwards 1946 Horner 1959 Paynter 1968 Daly 1984 Heathfield 1992 Scargill 1992 Vacant? 2002 Kemp 2007 Kitchen
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