David Basnett, Baron Basnett

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David Basnett, Baron Basnett (born February 9, 1924 in Liverpool , † January 25, 1989 in Leatherhead ) was a British trade unionist and life peer .

life and career

Early years

Basnett grew up in Liverpool as the son of the regional trade unionist Andrew Basnett and his wife Charlotte. However, the mother died when Basnett was six years old. After attending elementary school , he received a scholarship to Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. After school, Basnett first worked as a banker before serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II , for which he flew across the Atlantic in Short Sunderland flying boats .

After the war, Basnett joined the General and Municipal Workers' Union (GMWU), a predecessor union of today's GMB , in 1948 and was initially involved in the Liverpool area. Soon, however, he also made a nationwide career within the union: in 1955 he was appointed national officer for educational affairs, five years later he was appointed representative for industrial questions, with a focus on the chemical and glass industries.

Basnett became known to a wider public in 1970 during a glass workers' strike at the Pilkington Glass Company in St Helens . 8,000 British glass workers were involved in this strike, but it turned out that they felt insufficiently represented by the GMWU. In the past few years, the union leadership had distanced itself further and further from the grassroots, which accused it of complacency and an absolute claim to power. There was an increased number of people leaving the union. Basnett finally managed to settle the dispute between the union leadership and base and restore the credibility of the GMWU in St Helens.

General Secretary of GMWU and later years

His courageous demeanor during the St Helens strike strengthened Basnett's position within the union, and so he was elected general secretary in 1973. Under his leadership, the union joined with many smaller trade unions, for example, with the union of the Boilermakers in 1982, and could so with 800,000 members the third largest union in the United Kingdom are. On the other hand, the autonomy of local union federations prevented Basnett from pushing through more far-reaching reforms that would have allowed the GMWU to benefit more from the general influx of unions during the 1970s.

Basnett has represented his union on the general council of the umbrella organization Trades Union Congress (TUC) since 1966 , which he represented during his entire time as GMWU general secretary in the National Economic Development Council . From 1977 to 1978 he was chairman of the TUC.

Under the Labor governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan , the unions, and with them Basnett, had a major influence on British politics. The Winter of Discontent of 1978/79, which was marked by numerous strikes, damaged the relationship between Labor and the trade unions and ultimately resulted in the 1979 takeover of government by the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher .

In the period that followed, the influence of the trade unions under the Tory government declined increasingly. Basnett tried to strengthen the Labor Party again through various initiatives of cooperation with the trade unions, but had little success. In 1986 he resigned from his posts in the GMWU and the TUC and thus ended his union career at the age of 62.

In 1987 he was promoted to the status of a Life Peer . Since then he has officially held the title of Baron Basnett, of Leatherhead in the County of Surrey and took a seat in the House of Lords .

Basnett had been married since 1956 and had two sons. He died of cancer at his Leatherhead home at the age of 64.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Biography of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, p. 23 ff ., Accessed on July 8, 2015
  2. ↑ International Socialism, No. 44, July / August 1970, pp. 5–6, online here , accessed July 8, 2015
  3. ^ Obituary on nytimes.com, accessed July 8, 2015
  4. ↑ David Basnett, Baron Basnett on thepeerage.com , accessed August 17, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Basnett, David, Baron Basnett
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British trade unionist, Life Peer
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Liverpool
DATE OF DEATH January 25, 1989
Place of death Leatherhead