George Smith (trade unionist)
Sir George Fenwick Smith CBE (24 June 1914 – 21 November 1978) was a Scottish trade unionist.[1]
Smith was born in Arbroath, Angus, and educated at Inverbrothock and Downfield Schools.[1] He worked as a carpenter and joined the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers in 1933. He also joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in the early 1940s but left it in 1954.[2]
Smith became the full-time National Organiser of the Woodworkers in 1945, and then Assistant General Secretary in 1949. Ten years later, he was elected as the union's General Secretary.[3] When the Woodworkers merged with other unions to form the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, Smith became its first General Secretary, serving until his death in 1978.[4] He also serve as the President of the Trades Union Congress in 1972, and on the council of Acas from 1974.[3]
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1969 and knighted in the 1978 New Year Honours.[1]
He died in Sutton, London, in 1978.
References[]
- ^ a b c "Sir George Smith – Influential Trade Union Leader". The Times. 24 November 1978. p. 16.
- ^ Stephen Milligan, The new barons: union power in the 1970s, p.150
- ^ a b "Smith, Sir George". Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U159695. Cite journal requires
|journal=(help) - ^ Wolodymyr Maksymiw et al, The British trade union directory, p.357
- 1914 births
- 1978 deaths
- People from Arbroath
- Scottish carpenters
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- Communist Party of Great Britain members
- Knights Bachelor
- General Secretaries of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers
- General secretaries of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians
- Presidents of the Trades Union Congress
- Scottish trade unionists