Trade union leader who led British Leyland walkouts

Born: 1927;

Died: October 31, 2017

DEREK Robinson, who has died aged 90, was a trade union official and Communist activist who led walkouts at the car giant British Leyland's plant in Longbridge, Birmingham. Dubbed Red Robbo, he became one of the central figures of the industrial unrest in the late 1970s before his downfall in the 1980s.

Robinson had grown up in Birmingham and joined Longbridge as an apprentice toolmaker when he was 14 years old at a time when there was already unrest at the company.

The Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), led by Dick Etheridge, was in a dominant position, but when Robinson succeeded Etheridge as shop steward, the unrest intensified. It is said that after Robinson took over, man hours lost to stoppages increased by nearly 90 per cent.

It all came to a head in 1975 when British Leyland faced bankruptcy; the company was nationalised, before a new chief executive, Michael Edwardes, was brought in to oversee a major change in working practices and the loss of thousands of jobs.

Robinson was determined to resist the plans through strikes, but lost a vote among the workforce. A pamphlet was then produced by the combined trades union committee, of which Robinson was chairman, which urged the workers to concerted, united strike action. Robinson was asked to disassociate himself from the pamphlet which he refused to do and he was dismissed.

It was an extraordinary moment in British labour relations after many years in which the big trade union leaders had looked untouchable. Robinson's union the AEU could have swung in behind him, but the mood has started to change and by the time of a mass meeting in February 1980, Robinson had lost the workers' support and they voted against going on strike in support of their former leader.

For Robinson, it was end of his association with British Leyland. He worked as a tutor in trade union studies during the 1980s and 1990s, and was chairman of the Communist Party of Britain for a period in the 1990s. He also stood as a Communist candidate in four consecutive general elections in Birmingham, Northfield between 1966 and 1974.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey described Robinson as a dedicated life-long trade unionist who fought, as convener, for the rights and future of the British Leyland workforce.

"History will show that Derek was unfairly maligned by the media as he aimed to find solutions to British Leyland's industrial disputes and turn around the car company," said McCluskey. "He is quoted as saying: 'If we make Leyland successful, it will be a political victory. It will prove that ordinary working people have got the intelligence and determination to run industry'. These words are a suitable epithet for a stalwart of the trade union movement, whose passing we mourn."

Derek Robinson was married twice; his second wife died in the 1990s.