Catalogue Number
NMLH.2011.2.7
Object Name
Badge
Title
'TUC For Organizing Services. Trades Union Congress Award.'
People
Jack Jones, Trade Union Congress (TUC), Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU)
Description
A round brass badge. 'TUC Award. For Organizing Services.'
This badge was presented to the British trade union leader, Jack Jones (1913-2009) at a Trade Union Congress (TUC) conference. Jones was born in Liverpool, and became a docker after losing his job as an engineer during the Great Depression. He describes being a socialist after reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists after being passed the book in workplace. Jones describes this as the method through which many workers became convinced of the need to participate in an organised labour movement. Jones joined the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), became a shop steward, then joined the National Docks Group Committee, becoming general secretary of the entire TGWU in 1968. One of his achievements as a union leader was helping to establish the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) which acts as a neutral party to help solve disputes and grievances between workers and employers. By 1977, polls indicated that 54% of people viewed Jones as the most powerful man in
the country, outstripping even the Prime Minister and the monarch.
A committed anti-fascist, Jones also fought in the British Battalion of the XV (Fifteenth) International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, and was wounded during the Battle of the Ebro in 1938. PHM's collection of medals from Jones are largely a mix of honours relating to his service in Spain, and acknowledgements of his service to the trade union movement.
