LAST OF THE ‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED MEN’

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2015 :: RMTnews 22 Gordon Norris, a pivotal figure in the 1966 seaman’s strike and the struggle to democratise the National Union of Seamen has died. Gordon was a thorn in the side of the right wing leadership of the union for many years and a champion of seafarer’s rights. He had first gone to sea when he resided in Australia in the late 1940s and 1950s where become involved in the Australian seamen’s union. When he returned to the UK he had intended to stay for only one year but he got involved in the fight for improved pay and conditions for British seamen as he explains: “I had joined the Communist Party in Australia, after a childhood born in poverty in the 1920s with hunger, deprivation and a limited education, I was barely able to read and write, but had served in the Royal Navy from 1939-1945. “However my association with the trade union movement and the Communist Party had equipped me with the political understanding, along with my previous experiences, to understand the missing link in the seaman's struggle. “I became a British merchant LAST OF THE ‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED MEN’ Gordon Norris, last of the ‘politically motivated men’ named by the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson during the 1966 seamen’s strike, passes away Gordon Norris speaking at he 2006 RMT AGM