'Living legend' Jack Jones at factory (From Herald Series)

'Living legend' Jack Jones at factory

11:53am Thursday 4th September 2008

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THE Mini factory in Oxford played host to 'living legend' of the trade union movement, 95-year-old Jack Jones.

The former General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union - once said to be more powerful than the Prime Minister - said the place was now "almost too nice to work in".

'It's almost too nice to work in'

Jack Jones, on the Cowley car factory

He said: "Labour conditions are so much better now. Partly that's because of the modern factory, but it's also because the workers are now treated as human beings, rather than just part of the machinery.

"It's union organisation and the trade union movement that achieved that change,' he said.

The first time he visited the Cowley factory was in 1934, when the company signed an agreement to recognise trade unions, after a long campaign of attrition.

At that time, car factories were noisy, dangerous places teeming with people, he said. With the help of robots and modern machinery 5,000 workers now produce more cars than were made by the 30,000-strong workforce in the past.

He said: "When I first came to Oxford, I was impressed by the dominance of the bosses. The workers were very weak. There has been a considerable change, to the benefit of the workers, and also to production.

"If there is a good relationship between management and trade unions, you get a better product."

He said it was an exaggeration to say that he was the most powerful man in the country during his years at the head of the union. "We were quite powerful then," he said. "But there were so many years when workers were dominated by employers, so it was a good thing to achieve."

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith, who joined Mr Jones's tour of the Mini plant, said: "You could see by his reception that he is a real hero to the labour and trade union movement. One of the very striking things that he and the other retired members said was that the conditions now are what they could only dream of."

Union convenor Bernard Moss said that since he retired, Mr Jones had built up an impressive campaign for pensioners' rights. Oxford has the largest branch of the T&G retired members association, with 830 members, some of whom joined the tour.

At 95, Mr Jones is still campaigning - for pensioners' rights and a better state pension. He apologised that he had to leave - he was going on to Manchester for a reunion of his Spanish Civil War brigade, which fought against Fascism before the Second World War. f=S

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