It’s hard to believe it’s five years since Ken Gill died. It was Ken’s leadership of the Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section (Tass), his style of work and political astuteness that started me out in trade union activity.

I was 17 and active in Youth CND and received an invitation to speak at a Tass youth committee meeting. Most of those in the room worked in defence-related industries, and
so the prospect was somewhat daunting.

But they were part of a union that could have an open debate about issues from a wider perspective than just industrial protection, and so by the end of the meeting they had affiliated to Youth CND and I'd joined Tass.

I still believe Tass was a union ahead of its time, and this was in no small part down to Ken.

It had vibrant youth structures in most regions and a national youth committee that took a high-profile role in the union.

Despite its industrial base in male-dominated industries, it was never a “pale, male and stale” union, with women’s committees and reserved seats for women on its executive and all its key industrial committees.

Its international work was high profile and Ken’s personal and political commitment to the liberation of the South African people led to our youth committee picketing Tesco’s over South African fruit and our women’s committee collecting nappies and toiletries for the ANC’s Women’s League.

By the age of 21 I was chair of the TASS national youth committee and sat on the electronics industry national advisory committee.

In my dealings with Ken he always treated me as an equal, and was never too big to ask my views — I know many activists shared that experience.

Indeed we recently held a reunion of the Tass youth committee of ’88, and all of those present talked about how Ken had inspired and shaped their trade union and political work.

Members of that committee of ’88 are still industrial activists. Several now lead trade union education units, some are involved in delivering projects for women, and all are internationalists.
The legacy Ken left runs deep.

Ken and I shared a birthday — and when he retired at the age of 65 I joked that I would be ‘retiring’ too as I would be 27 and too old for the youth committee, and we should have a combined party.

“What a great idea,” was Ken’s reaction and so instead of some formal stuffy retirement event, he opened the doors of his family home in Balham to activists from across both of our generations, with an obligatory collection for the ANC Youth League and a couple of guest speakers that you would have been honoured to have on any platform.

Ken was a leader whose politics were always presented in a strong but warm way. A search on YouTube will bring up some of his speeches — his TUC presidential address of 1986 about Thatcher remains relevant to today’s Tories and is a must-watch for anyone wanting capitalism put into context.

And his explanation of why he was a communist, to a reporter at the TUC in 1991, with a smile and a lilt, is enough to convert anyone.

Trade unions today still grapple with the need to have an organising focus, the need to engage young workers and women in the movement and the need to ensure that, while focused on the key issues of pay and conditions, we don’t ignore the wider social responsibilities we have to workers throughout the world.

Tass, under Ken’s leadership, got that just about right, attracting many into lifetime activism who the trade union movement might otherwise have passed by. I’d count myself as one of them.

I’ve recently been invited by Unite to speak at an event planned to get young members more involved in the structures.

It will be the lessons I learnt, not under the leadership of Ken Gill but alongside him, that I will share with them.

Lynn Collins was chair of the Tass National Youth Committee from 1987-1990 and is now regional secretary of the North West TUC