Trade unionist and politician;
Born: March 6, 1955; Died: October 22, 2011.
John Ross, who has died aged 56, was a trade unionist and Labour politician in the east of Scotland. Born in 1955, he worked in housing for Edinburgh District Council then the City of Edinburgh Council for almost 38 years. A former Scottish vice-chairman of the National Association of Local Government Officers, he was a stalwart member of Unison's Edinburgh branch until his death.
Known affectionately as "Rossi", he embarked upon a parallel career as a local politician on being elected to the old Lothian Regional Council in 1990. He was vice-convener for Economic Development and chairman of the Water and Drainage Committee, as well as a member of the Finance, Transportation and Education Committees, and the Lothian Police Board.
Following local government reorganisation in the mid-1990s, Mr Ross was elected to the new East Lothian Council as the councillor for Musselburgh South. There he became chairman of the Environment and Education Committees, and played a key role in securing a multi-million pound modernisation project for the county's six secondary schools.
He also served as the first chairman of Cosla's Development Forum and was a board member of Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise. A tough negotiator, an irreverent biography once described him as "knowing just about everything before you do and feeling distinctly uncomfortable if he doesn't". A self-confessed technological luddite, he did not rely on the internet for any of this knowledge.
"He would stand at the bar in deep thought, then snap his fingers, thump me with not inconsiderable force on the back and shout, 'I've got it!' as he launched into some cunning plan or another," recalled his Unison colleague John Stevenson. "Some more realistic than others. Sometimes his jokes were funnier to him than the rest of us, but he was the master of the one-liner."
Latterly, he served as Unison Edinburgh's service conditions convener, and was proud to have tabled one of the first motions to the Unison conference on discrimination in pension schemes against non-married partners. He also tabled motions on disability leave and rights for same-sex partners alongside resolutions on pay and conditions.
A gentle, sensitive man who disliked "any form of retrospection", he possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and was an ardent Elton John fan. He took a similar approach to his beloved Heart of Midlothian FC, a pleasure he shared with his son David.
John Ross died in hospital on October 22 and is survived by his daughter Vicky, son David, and three grandchildren.
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