Gavin Laird

Sir Gavin Laird, CBE, is a trade unionist, who became General-Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) and a Member of the Court of the Bank of England.

Growing up in Clydebank he attended a local high school then began working for Singer.[1] He became a Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) shop steward there, then convenor.[1]

Three years after taking up a full time position with the union, he was elected to the AEU executive and later appointed AEU general secretary, remaining in that position after the merger which created the AEEU.[1] He addressed the Confederation of British Industry annual conference in 1986 - an unusual move for a trade unionist at the time.[1]

He appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 25 October 1992,[2] was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) under Margaret Thatcher's government and knighted in 1995 at the behest of Tony Blair.[1]

He retired from the AEEU in 1995.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Rogers, Roy (28 June 1995). "An era ends with the going of Sir Gavin". Herald Scotland. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  2. ↑ "Desert Island Discs - Castaway : Gavin Laird". BBC Online. BBC. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
Political offices
Preceded by
John McFarlane Boyd		 General Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union
1982–1994
with Eric Hammond 1992-1994 		Succeeded by
Paul Gallagher
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