Lord Gladwin of Clee

Labour Party conference major-domo

Derek Oliver Gladwin, trade unionist: born Grimsby, Lincolnshire 6 June 1930; Regional Officer, General and Municipal Workers' Union 1956-63, National Industrial Officer 1963-70, Regional Secretary (Southern Region) 1970-90; Chairman, Conference Arrangements Committee of the Labour Party 1974-90; OBE 1977, CBE 1979; Chairman, Governing Council, Ruskin College, Oxford, 1979-99, Honorary President 2000-03; created 1994 Lord Gladwin of Clee; married 1956 Ruth Pinion (one son); died Woking, Surrey 10 April 2003

For most members of the Labour Party the working relationship with Derek Gladwin was that of a supplicant to an acknowledged just and fair ruler. He was the all-powerful chairman of the very powerful Conference Arrangements Committee, and his yea or nay would determine whether an issue could be aired on the floor at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, or at the conference centres at Brighton or Bournemouth.

Brisk and to the point, but never rude, often having to say no without being wounding, Gladwin was a major figure in the Labour movement. In his position he was tender towards first-time delegates to conference and justifiably blunt with ministers, MPs and fellow trade-union barons. He would say to us with a hard look straight in the eye: "You ought to know the rules." Off-duty, he was a delightful companion of sardonic humour, a fund of funny and poignant stories and an ever-present genuine concern for working people.

Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, the former Prime Minister, enjoyed a close personal friendship with Gladwin, "whose informed guidance and advice to me on political and trade-union matters was always forthcoming", he remembers. "He had a cheerful approach and a lively mind and his constructive attitude to our many problems eased the way for me on several occasions."

Personally, I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that in the difficult years of the late 1970s and 1980s Gladwin did as much as any man to hold the Labour Party together. Had it not been for his skill and the trust of all sections of the party that resided in him, "this great movement of ours" (one of his favourite phrases) might have fallen apart. Every morning at Labour Party conference he would appear, shirt-sleeved and often perspiring, to give us the programme of the day for conference; and throughout the day would emerge from the fug of his office which was the Conference Arrangements Committee room to plead with delegates to accept alterations. He was not a man whom it was easy to challenge because we all knew that he was straight as a die.

I will however treasure the moment at the Brighton conference in 1983 when, faced with the hugely difficult issues of the expulsion of militant supporters such as Derek Hatton, Tony Mulhearn and Felicity Gowling, Gladwin told us that a private session on "witch-hunt" would take place. By a slip of the tongue and without meaning it Gladwin drew the attention of delegates to resolutions not on "witch-hunt" but on "witchcraft".

Derek Gladwin was born in Grimsby in 1930, into an Amalgamated Engineering Union family. His father was a fitter and a shop steward who imbued him with the importance of collective loyalty. Leaving Wintringham Grammar School at the age of 16 – he told me of his regrets that he never went to university at 18 – he worked for six years for British Railways mostly in Grimsby docks.

At the age of 23 he got the chance after seeing an advertisement in the Daily Herald for working men to apply for places at Ruskin College, Oxford, to enter serious study. It was his great good fortune to meet Bill McCarthy, later to be the most distinguished employment lawyer of his generation, on his first day at Oxford in 1953. He was to be McCarthy's best man and McCarthy was his best man in 1956 at the beginning of what was to be an outstandingly happy marriage to the magnificently supportive Ruth Pinion.

Having done well at Ruskin, where he was to be later Chairman of the Governing Council for 20 years, he landed a job with the General and Municipal Workers' Union as their Regional Officer from 1956 to 1963, when he was promoted to National Industrial Officer.

The post of Regional Secretary of the GMB in the southern union came to him just as the Wilson government was defeated in 1970. He was, therefore, one of the trade-union barons to guide the Labour Party through the Heath years and its delicate attitude to the National Union of Mineworkers and the three-day week, which brought down Edward Heath's government. In the words of John Edmonds, present General Secretary of the GMB, Gladwin gave "a new impetus to the politics" of his union.

In 1994 there was great pleasure – it is not always thus – in the Labour movement when Gladwin was made a member of the House of Lords. In his maiden speech on 24 November 1994, Lord Gladwin of Clee said:

I realise that the part played by trade unions in our society has been and perhaps still is a matter of some controversy. For instance, some economists have described trade unions as having no more than a fugitive role, an imperfection in the Labour market. Whatever theory may say, in practice the fugitives have survived. However, the environment in which they operate today is more challenging than it has been for decades. The world of work is more insecure for everyone nowadays, global markets have exposed British business to a colder competitive climate. Keeping up with the competition now means much more than matching their prices. Increasingly today's product quality and standards of service decide whether customers are prepared to pay premium prices and whether businesses survive.

Gladwin had accumulated considerable experience outside the trade-union world. He spoke as a board member of the Post Office from 1972 to 1994, and of British Aerospace, 1977-91. Employers spoke highly of the valuable contribution that he made – far more meaningful than that of a token trade-union representative.

He would remind us that there was a stark choice facing workers on modern economies. They could either sell their skills, or work for low wages, or not work at all. He wanted

Britain's employers to invest in their workers, to exploit their potential, to tap their talents and to develop their capacity. The alternative is for Britain to slide down-market into a low-skill, low-wage economy.

Another issue, which Gladwin helped with Baroness Turner of Camden to bring to the attention of the House of Lords, concerned the problems of casualisation of labour. He highlighted the proportion of people doing part-time work in the 1990s as being three times what it was in the 1960s: part-time working accounted for fewer than one in 10 jobs in 1965, but by 1995 become widespread.

He was concerned about people being forced into low-paid temporary jobs and about those who had held jobs in the premier league of the labour market experiencing relegation to the lower divisions, where rewards, status and security were poor when compared to their former positions: "This is a kind of 3D world of the middle manager who has been downsized, de-layered and devalued."

Gladwin's third concern was the problems of redundancy and that the legal changes that the Government had introduced in the 1980s were having a dramatic effect on employment security:

At a stroke they cut from 56 per cent 20 years ago to only 36 per cent today the percentage of the population of working age who enjoyed rights to protection against unfair dismissal and to statutory redundancy pay.

His speech on 25 July 1997 on the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolutions) Bill was a classic:

The main problem today is delay with regard to the length of time that can elapse between the registration of a complaint of unfair dismissal and its determination. Months can go by before a case comes before a tribunal. If the losing party decides to appeal, much more time elapses. Therefore, reinstatement is no longer an effective remedy. That is why it is used only in 1 per cent of the cases that come before industrial tribunals.

Gladwin was a veritable prince in innumerable industrial tribunals, whether dealing with racial harassment, sex discrimination or the fine points of redundancy payments.

Tam Dalyell