Roger Lyons

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Roger Lyons (born 1942-09-14) was the General Secretary of the MSF trade union from 1992 and re-elected leader of the union in 1997. When the union merged with the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union to form Amicus in 2002 he subsequently became one of the Joint General Secretaries of Amicus.

Lyons studied for a degree in Economics at University College London. His union career began in 1966 as a full time union official for the North West England region of ASSET, one of the unions which later became ASTMS. In 1970 he became a National Officer of ASTMS and in 1987 Assistant General Secretary. In 1988, ASTMS merged with TASS to form MSF.

In 1992 Lyons became General Secretary of MSF. He was re-elected to that position in 1997 by 67% of the members.

After the North Sea Piper Alpha disaster in which 167 men died, Lyons gave evidence to the Cullen Inquiry which led to new safety legislation to protect off-shore workers.[1]

Lyons was a founder member of the Anti-Apartheid Movement and nominated Nelson Mandela for his first international honour as honorary president of University College London Union. Roger Lyons also organised the first ever South African Scholarship in a British university (UCL). Lyons was an observer for the European Union in the first ever free elections in South Africa.

Lyons was the first General Secretary of a major trade union to be removed from office by the Trades Union Certification Officer: Under the agreement to form Amicus, Lyons became Joint General Secretary of Amicus's MSF section. Amicus's other Joint General Secretary was Derek Simpson, who was responsible for the AEEU section. Lyons planned to remain as JGS of Amicus until December 2004, although the union members in the ballot to form Amicus had voted for him to remain JGS until his 65th birthday in September 2007, which would result in his being a General Secretary for more than the legally-mandated limit of six years in a new union merger. He and his supporters maintained that the ongoing merger meant that the requirement for an election was waived but a legal challenge resulted in a ruling [2] in May 2004 that he should "cease forthwith to hold office as Joint General Secretary of Amicus". Derek Simpson therefore became the sole General Secretary seven months early.

Roger Lyons was President of the Trades Union Congress for the period September 2003 to September 2004, after which he retired. During this time he visited Israel and Palestine in November 2003 on behalf ot the TUC[3]. In February 2004 he took part in a fact-finding visit to Colombia organised by Justice for Colombia[4].

Roger Lyons is a long-standing member of the Trade Union Friends of Israel. He addressed a TUFI fringe meeting at the 2005 Congress of the Trades Union Congress.