19 Facts About Rodney Bickerstaffe

Rodney Kevan Bickerstaffe was a British trade unionist.

Rodney Bickerstaffe was General Secretary of the National Union of Public Employees and UNISON, Britain's largest trade union at the time.

Rodney Bickerstaffe later became president of the UK National Pensioners Convention.

Rodney Bickerstaffe had a brief romance with a carpenter from Dublin who returned to Ireland and ceased all contact.

Rodney discovered that his father, Thomas Simpson, had died in 1991 but Bickerstaffe subsequently discovered three Irish half-brothers.

Rodney Bickerstaffe became an organiser for the National Union of Public Employees in 1966 in Yorkshire, rising through the ranks to be divisional officer of the northern division.

Rodney Bickerstaffe then became national officer responsible for members working in local government, universities and the water industry.

When NUPE, COHSE and NALGO merged to create UNISON in July 1993, Rodney Bickerstaffe became associate general secretary.

Rodney Bickerstaffe was elected general secretary in November 1995, taking office on 28 February 1996.

Rodney Bickerstaffe was a popular and highly visible trade union leader, calling for better rights and fairer treatment for staff working in public services and those transferred to the private sector through national and local privatisations.

Rodney Bickerstaffe was a warm and passionate socialist and a much underrated man.

Rodney Bickerstaffe retired from UNISON in 2001 and succeeded Jack Jones as president of the National Pensioners Convention in April 2001.

Rodney Bickerstaffe stood down in 2005 to focus on his international commitments and was succeeded by Frank Cooper.

Rodney Bickerstaffe chaired the Global Network which works with organisations in Asia, Africa and Latin America and was President of War on Want.

Rodney Bickerstaffe chaired the Ken Gill Memorial Fund, a non-charitable trust established to commemorate his late friend, the British trade unionist and internationalist Ken Gill.

Rodney Bickerstaffe was involved in fighting discrimination of all kinds and was a patron of the Dalit Solidarity Network, an organisation in London for opposition to the oppression of India's caste system.

Rodney Bickerstaffe had honorary doctorates from Keele University, the University of Hertfordshire and Sheffield Hallam University as well as the Freedom of the Borough from Doncaster metropolitan borough.

The marriage was dissolved soon after, and on 14 July 1973 Rodney Bickerstaffe married Patricia Ann Colpus; they had four children.

Rodney Bickerstaffe died of oesophageal cancer on 3 October 2017, at the Marie Curie Hospice in Camden, London aged 72.