Baroness brenda dean biography of barack

British trade unionist and Labour Party politician

Brenda Dean, Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, PC, FRSA (29 April – 13 March )^[1][2] was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician.^[3] As general secretary of SOGAT from until , she was "the first woman elected to head a major industrial trade union."^[4]

Early life

She was born in Salford; her father was a railway signalman and her mother worked in a carpet factory.

When she was a child the family moved to Eccles, and she attended Stretford High School for Girls.^[4]

Trade union career

She began her career as a trade unionist as a teenager,^[3] initially as a member of the National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers.

In she became assistant secretary of the Manchester branch of the print union SOGAT (Society of Graphical and Allied Trades), and became involved in negotiations over the introduction of new technology to the printing industry.

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Rising through the union hierarchy, she became President of SOGAT in , and was elected as its General Secretary in , becoming "the first woman elected to lead a major industrial union".^[4]

She recognised the threats to her members' jobs of impending changes in the print industry, and, it later became clear, held private meetings with Rupert Murdoch in secret to discuss his plans.

During the Wapping dispute of /87, she "became one of the best-known trade union leaders in Britain."^[4] However, in her attempts to resolve the strike, "she was bitterly denounced by some people in the militant Fleet Street chapels (union branches) as a “Judas”, she was derided as “a film star” because of her blond good looks and her leadership was decried when she put the survival of the union, with 90% of its members in the provinces, ahead of what was essentially a London dispute."^[4]

In , SOGAT became part of the Graphical, Paper and Media Union.

Dean stood for the general secretaryship, but was narrowly defeated by Tony Dubbins, by 78, votes to 72, Instead, she became the union's deputy general secretary, serving for a single year before resigning.^[5]

Member of the House of Lords

Dean was raised to the peerage in October as Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, of Eccles in the County of Greater Manchester^[6][7] and was appointed to the Privy Council in ^[1]

She was a member of the Labour opposition front bench in the House of Lords from until ,^[4] and a member of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education that published an influential report in ^[8] She chaired the armed forces pay review body (), the Covent Garden market authority (–13) and the Housing Corporation, now Homes England, (); and was a member of the Royal Commission on House of Lords Reform in ^[4]

Other activities

She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in

Her autobiography, Hot Mettle, deals largely with her tenure as SOGAT General Secretary at the time of Rupert Murdoch's battles with her own and other trades unions, notably the Wapping dispute.

She was a vice-president of the Debating Group.^[9]

She was interviewed by National Life Stories in –8 for the 'Oral History of the British Press' collection held by the British Library.^[10]

She became a director for Labour Tomorrow on 28 June ,^[11] an organisation that funds groups that oppose Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.^[12][13]

Personal life

From , her partner was Keith McDowall, later deputy director general of the Confederation of British Industry; they married in ^[4]

Brenda Dean died on 13 March , aged ^[4] Her death was described as "sudden" and "a shock" by Conservative peer Philip Norton.^[14]

References

External links