Jack
Jones,
the son of a docker, was
born in Liverpool in 1913. The family
were very poor and after leaving school at fourteen worked as an engineering
apprentice. Jones joined the Labour Party
and the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers (AEU)
and soon became involved in union activities.
Converted to socialism
by reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
by Robert
Tressell. Jones
later explained how the book "was passed from hand to hand among
people in the Labour movement and had a remarkable effect on our thinking."
In 1931 Jones became secretary of the Liverpool Labour College and
used extracts from books by authors such as Tressell, Karl
Marx, Frederick
Engels, G.
H. Wells, James
Connolly,
Robert
Blatchford to
educate young people.
Jones joined the Labour
Party and the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers (AEU)
and soon became involved in union activities. After the Wall
Street Crash Jones
lost his job but was eventually able to find employment with a firm
of signmakers and painters. Later he joined his father as a Liverpool
docker. He became a member of the Transport
and General Workers Union (TGWU)
and was elected as a shop
steward and was a delegate on the National Docks Group Committee.
A strong opponent of Oswald
Mosley and the
National
Union of Fascists,
Jones organized protest-meetings against the fascists holding meetings
in Liverpool. On one occasion he was beaten up by a group of Blackshirts
armed with knuckle-dusters.
After the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War Jones became active in
the Aid Spain campaign in Liverpool.
After hearing a speech given by Paul
Robeson in June
1937, Jones decided to join the International
Brigades. Jones fought for many months before being seriously
wounded at Ebro in July 1938.
When Jones returned to
England he became a full-time official of the Transport
and General Workers Union (TGWU)
in Coventry. During the Second World War he
helped to keep the city's munitions industry working through the Blitz.
After the war Jones served
as the Regional Secretary of the TGWU
and was responsible for organizing the work force in the car industry
in the Midlands.
In 1968 Jones was elected
General Secretary of the TGWU, a position he held for nine years.
He was also a leading figure of the Trade Union
Congress and was its principal spokesman on international and
economic matters. In 1977 he gave the BBC Dimbleby Lecture.
Jones was also Vice-President
of the International Transport Workers Federation and since retiring
from the TGWU has been a campaigner
for pensioners' rights. His autobiography, Union
Man, was published in 1986.
(1)
Jack Jones wrote about his childhood in his autobiography, Union
Man (1986)
My home was in York Street, Garston, in the south end of Liverpool
- a long street of poor and mean terraced houses. They had two rooms
up and two rooms down, generally in a decaying state. They had been
built some time in the last century - obviously with the minimum of
cost - to house labour for the nearby factories and docks. The houses
were infested by rats, mice, cockroaches and bugs. Our rent was five
shillings a week, and even that was exorbitant!
From a child's point of
view the street had one advantage: out of the maze of working-class
streets it was the nearest to the Mersey river. We walked past the
copper works, the tannery, Grayson's shipyard, the bobbin works (making
wooden bobbins for the textile industry), a derelict glass works and
King's ship-breaking yard and there we were on the shore, a wonderful
if muddy playground when we tired of playing our games in the the
street.
(2)
Jack Jones heard
Paul
Robeson speak
about the Spanish
Civil War
at the Albert Hall,
London, on 24th June 1937.
Like every true artist,
I have longed to see my talent contributing
in an unmistakably clear manner to the cause of humanity. I feel that
tonight I am doing so. Every artist, every scientist, every writer
must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no
standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial
observers. The battle front is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.
The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or
for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history
of this era is characterized by the degradation of my people. Despoiled
of their lands, their culture destroyed, they are in every country
save one (the USSR), denied equal protection of the law, and deprived
of their rightful place in the respect of their fellows. Not through
blind faith or coercion, but conscious of my course, I take my place
with you. I stand with you in unalterable support of the government
of Spain, duly and regularly chosen by its lawful sons and daughters.
May your meeting rally every black man to the side of
Republican Spain. The liberation of Spain from the oppression
of fascist reactionaries is not a private matter of the Spaniards,
but the common cause of all advanced and progressive humanity.
(3)
Jack
Jones went to fight in the Spanish
Civil War in 1937. He wrote about
his experiences in the International
Brigade in his autobiography, Union
Man (1986)
The focal point for the mobilization of the International Brigades
was in Paris; understandably so, because underground activities against
Fascism had been concentrated there for some years. I led a group
of volunteers to the headquarters there, proceeding with the greatest
caution because of the laws against recruitment in foreign armies
and the non-intervention policies of both Britain and France. From
London onwards it was a clandestine operation until we arrived on
Spanish soil.
While in Paris we were
housed in workers' homes in one of the poorest quarters of the city.
But it wasn't long before we were on our way, by train, to a town
near the Pyrenees. From there we travelled by coach to a rambling
old farmhouse in the foothills of the Pyrenees. After a rough country
meal in a barn we met our guide who led us through the mountain passes
into Spain.
In the light of the morning
we could see Spanish territory. After five hours or so, stumbling
down the mountainside (I found it almost as hard going down as climbing
up), we came to an outpost and from there were taken by truck to a
fortress at Figueras. This was a reception centre for the volunteers.
The atmosphere of old Spain was very apparent in the ancient castle.
For the first day or so we felt exhausted after the long climb. The
food was pretty awful. We ate it because we were hungry but without
relish.
For some the first lessons
about the use of a rifle were given before we moved off to the base.
I at least could dismantle and assemble a rifle bolt and knew something
about firing and the care of a weapon. But my first shock came when
I was told of the shortage of weapons and the fact that the rifles
(let alone other weapons) were in many cases antiquated and inaccurate.
Training at the base was
quick, elementary but effective. For me life was hectic, meeting good
companions and experiencing a genuine international atmosphere. There
were no conscripts or paid mercenaries. I got to know a German Jew
who had escaped the clutches of Hitler's hordes and was then a captain
in the XII Brigade. He had
hopes of going on ultimately to Palestine and striving for a free
state of Israel. He was not only a good soldier but a brave one too.
That was also true of a smart young Mexican whom I met. He had been
an officer in the Mexican Army and was a member of the National Revolutionary
Party of his country.
(4)
Jack Jones and Lewis Clive, letter to Jim Middleton, Secretary of
the Labour Party (1938)
We believe that there can be no compromise between Fascism and Democratic
ideals for which we ourselves have come here to fight. We feel ourselves
wholly at one with the determination of the Spanish people to drive
out the invaders of their country, and as members of the Labour Party
we urge that our leaders turn a deaf ear to talk of compromise, and
continue to press ever more vigorously the Party's declared policy;
namely, the demand that the British Government's support of nonintervention
be reversed and that the right be restored to the Spanish Republic
freely to purchase arms.
Nothing could be more
encouraging to the work of those of us
fighting with the British Battalion than to feel that we are being
supported by the vigorous efforts of all the Democratic forces
of Britain led by the Labour Party. In that struggle we are
proud to act in the advance guard, and pledge ourselves to do
all in our power to maintain the high reputation already gained
by the Battalion in Spain.
(5)
Jack Jones, Union Man (1986)
People have asked me: "Did you kill anyone in Spain"? Frankly,
I do not know, but it is possible. In that engagement I didn't think
of death, yet people
were being killed and wounded by my side. In battle, one experiences
a numbness that is difficult to describe; one's first impulse is to
protect oneself as much as possible and then to fire in the direction
of the enemy. One tries to pinpoint a target, but almost in a frenzy.
To keep cool and calm in such circumstances is an ideal
not easily achieved. Nor did I have great confidence in the accuracy
of my rifle. It was a Remington-type rifle, Russian made, and after
firing a few rounds the bolt got very hot. All I do know is that some
of my comrades were killed and wounded and men on the other side suffered
the same fate. That is war.
There were many casualties
and I became one of them. Once more I
had clambered up the hill with my comrades, taking cover where we
could and firing
at the enemy wherever he appeared. The bullets of the
snipers whizzed over, grenades and shells were striking the ground,
throwing up earth
and dust and showering us with shrapnel. Suddenly my
shoulder and right arm went numb. Blood gushed from my shoulder and
I couldn't lift my rifle. I could do nothing but lie where I was.
Near me a comrade had been killed and I could hear the cries of others,
complaining of their wounds. While I was lying there, to make things
worse, a spray of shrapnel hit my right arm. The stretcher bearers
were doing their best but could hardly keep up with the number of
casualties. As night fell I made my own way, crawling to the bottom
of the hill. I was taken with other wounded men down the line to an
emergency field hospital at Mora del Ebro where I was given an anti-tetanus
injection. The place was like an abattoir; there was blood and the
smell of blood everywhere.
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