Clive Jenkins, trade union leader; born May 2, 1926, died September 22, 1999
Clive Jenkins was one of the most influential trade unionists of his time and did more than any other to extend trade unionism into white-collar areas particularly banking, insurance, and middle management.
The shrewd Welshman realised in the 1970s, when bank workers believed they really did have a job for life, that the largely union-free finance sector represented a vast untapped source of new members that, unlike traditional heavy industries, was destined to grow.
He was also the first union leader actively to court the press in order to exploit publicity as a weapon against recalcitrant companies. At a time when most union leaders were somewhat reluctant to speak to the press, Clive Jenkins would have regular briefings actually in Fleet Street where hacks were plied with food, drink, and a succession of stories and tips.
Not short on confidence, Clive was also only too willing to appear on radio and television discussion programmes where his quick wit was often more than a match for any employers, MPs, or presenters who came into his firing line.
Born into a trade union family in Port Talbot - his brother, Tom, went on to become general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association - Clive left school at 14 for an unskilled job in an alloy works. After three years of night school, he qualified as a metallurgist before taking over a laboratory as chief chemist, and by 19 he was nightshift manager of a tin-plate works.
In turn, he was a divisional and national officer of the small union Assett before becoming its general secretary in 1961 after which, and under the new name of ASTMS, he embarked on an ambitious expansion programme which fully justified his Who's Who entry of ''organising the middle classes''.
Under Clive, Assett membership grew from 11,000 to some 400,000 when, in the mid-1980s, ASTMS merged with Tass to form what is known today as the Manufacturing Science and Finance union. As well as mopping up many smaller unions and staff associations, Clive Jenkins's swashbuckling attitude also scared some employers into recognising in-house staff associations, the majority of which have since joined together as Unifi and are believed to be poised to join MSF before long.
Mr Jenkins was a dynamic, irrepressible, left-wing trade union leader, whose zest for the job and his passionate Welsh oratory made him not only a Labour conference and TUC favourite, but also marked him out as one of the most effective union bosses of his generation.
But he was a far cry from those who are now depicted as the hard-faced union barons of the 1970s and 1980s. Jenkins was a gourmet, wit, and bon viveur, with a partiality for gin and tonic and fine clarets.
TUC general secretary John Monks described Clive as a ''one-off - an intellectual gadfly who drove forward the growth of trade unionism among white-collar and professional workers with enormous wit and style.
''He was one of the characters of the trade union movement, equally at home in the TV studio or on the conference platform.''
Current MSF general secretary Roger Lyons said that Clive's
contribution to the union movement was immeasurable.
''He was the most outstanding trade unionist of his generation.The first to see the potential of organising white-collar workers, he was also the first general secretary to recognise the power of the media and use it in a positive way on behalf of working people. His legacy will live on for a long time to come.''
Roy Rogers
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