Sidney Greene, Baron Greene of Harrow Weald

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Sidney Francis Greene, Baron Greene of Harrow Weald Kt CBE JP (* 12. February 1910 in London , † 26. July 2004 in Harrow , Middlesex ) was a British trade union functionary , who for seventeen years secretary general of the railway union ONLY ( National Union of Railwaymen ) and 1970 President of the umbrella organization of the trade unions TUC ( Trades Union Congress ) and 1975 as Life Peer due to the Life Peerages Act 1958 became a member of the House of Lords .

Life

Rise to General Secretary of the Railway Union ONLY

Greene began his career with the railroad in 1924 at the age of fourteen after attending school, working mostly in the marshalling yards of London before he began his career as a union official in 1944 as a youth organizer. In 1941 he was magistrate ( Justice of the Peace ) for London and held this position until 1965. After working for a time as a union organizer in London, he became in 1954 Vice-Secretary General of ONLY.

His appointment as general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen in 1957 came unexpectedly and suddenly after the previous general secretary James "Big Jim" Campbell was killed in a car accident during an official trade union exchange in Ukraine . He was considered a compromise candidate. Greene served as general secretary for eighteen years until he was succeeded by Sidney Weighell in 1975.

Even during his tenure, the union continued to lose membership, which in 1945 was the fifth largest union with 408,900 members, but only had 369,400 members in 1956 and just 227,800 in 1966. Unlike his predecessor Campbell, at the end of the 1950s he also sought contact with the Conservative Party government under Harold Macmillan and Ernest Marples , the Minister of Transport in this government, although this was viewed critically by other union leaders.

Even after the Labor Party was able to provide the prime minister with Harold Wilson due to the election success in the general election of October 15, 1964 , Greene proved to be helpful to the government and spoke out against strikes . Housing Minister ( Minister of Housing ), Richard Crossman , listed on 10 February 1966 in his diary:

“At Checkers (the prime minister's country residence) there was no mention of this strike and all Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I was as good as certain that this would not happen, that it could somehow be resolved. The railroad workers were divided and Sidney Greene was passionate about it. I was pretty sure that at the right, dramatic time, the Prime Minister would intervene. But the general public didn't care and was still afraid that the trains would stand still on Monday. "
('At Checkers this strike hadn't been mentioned at all and throughout Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I had been virtually certain it couldn't take place, that somehow it could be settled. All the way through the railwaymen had been divided and Sidney Greene passionately against it. I was pretty certain that at the right dramatic moment the PM would intervene. But the general public didn't know that and they were still afraid that the trains would stop on Monday. ')

This, as well as a number of other strikes during Greene's tenure, were averted. In doing so, he took the view that strike action would mean great deprivation for the women of the union members. On the other hand, he referred to the fact that the railway was exposed to growing competition with freight transport and buses, as well as with the emerging, but rapidly growing, aviation industry. On the other hand, he was one of the strongest critics of price and income policy in the mid-1960s.

For his many years of service he was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1966 .

Promotion to president of the trade union confederation TUC

During this time he was also chairman of the economic committee of the TUC from 1968 and also resigned this office in 1975, this time to Alfred Allen , the general secretary of the USDAW ( Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers ).

Greene was deeply concerned with the problem of unemployment. In his diary of December 15, 1968, Tony Benn , then Minister of Technology in the Wilson cabinet, wrote:

“I went to Checkers for the second round of talks. This time the TUC wanted to discuss their economic paper, which they wanted to discuss with us before publication. Sid Greene gave the introduction, saying there were major concerns about unemployment and the current rate was politically difficult. He doubted the £ 500m budget surplus was correct. "
('I went to Checkers for the second day of talks. This time it was the TUC discussing their economic document, which they wanted to talk to us about before they published it. Sid Greene introduced it, saying there was a lot of concern about unemployment and the present rate was politically difficult. He doubted whether the £ 500m balance surplus was right. ')

Greene became a critic of the economic policy restraint by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer ( Chancellor of the Exchequer ), Roy Jenkins . Prime Minister Harold Wilson described in The Labor Government, 1964-1970 (1971), referring to the events of June 11, 1969, that a revised price and income document had been adopted and Vic Feather (General Secretary of the TUC), Frederick Hayday (National Secretary of Commerce of the Union General and Local Workers ), Alf Allen (USDAW General Secretary), Sidney Greene, Hugh Scanlon (Mechanical Engineering Union President) and Jack Jones (Transport Workers Union General Secretary) have been appointed as members of an ad hoc committee to review pricing and income policies to verify.

At the trade union congress of the TUC in Brighton in 1970 , Greene, who was already President of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress between 1969 and 1970, was elected as successor to John E. Newton for a one-year term as President of the TUC and held this office until his replacement by Jack Cooper at Union Day 1971 in Blackpool .

House of Lords

Greene, who was beaten in 1970 to the Knight Bachelor and henceforth had the suffix "Sir" and was also director of the Bank of England between 1970 and 1978 , was by a letters patent from January 21, 1975 as a life peer with the title Baron Greene of Harrow Weald , of Harrow in the County of Greater London, was raised to the nobility and was a member of the House of Lords until his death. He made his maiden speech in the House of Lords on February 25, 1975 on the Trade Union and Labor Relations Amendment Bill .

He also served as director of the multinational mining company RTZ Corporation between 1975 and 1980 and, at the same time, of The Times Newspapers, and was then a member of the board of directors of Times Newspapers Holdings from 1980 and 1982.

He also remained associated with the union as a member of the House of Lords and in 2002 took part in the opening of the headquarters of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the successor organization to NUR, in Clapham .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 43854, HMSO, London, December 31, 1965, p. 10 ( PDF , accessed 2013-11-2013, English).
  2. ↑ TUC: Details of Past Congresses ( Memento of October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 34 kB)
  3. ↑ London Gazette . No. 46473, HMSO, London, January 23, 1975, p. 977 ( PDF , accessed October 26, 2013, English).
personal data
SURNAME Greene, Sidney, Baron Greene of Harrow Weald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Greene, Sidney Francis, Baron Greene of Harrow Weald (full name); Sid Greene (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British union official
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 2004
Place of death Harrow , Middlesex