SEÁN GERAGHTY:HE CARRIED the title modestly, but few trade union members in Fleet Street – and across the British union movement, for that matter – were unaware that Seán Geraghty was Public Enemy Number One.
He earned the accolade of that full-page description from the Daily Express by leading some 1,300 newspaper electricians – members of the London Press (Fleet Street) branch of the Electrical Electronic Telecommunications and Plumbing Union – on a one-day strike in defiance of the Tory government’s 1980 Employment Act.
Typically of Seán, he was acting in the interest of others, and not even of his own branch colleagues. The TUC had called a Day of Action in August 1982 in support of nurses and other health workers, and Seán and his colleagues answered the call.
Twelve million copies of national papers were lost that day, and the proprietors were furious. They secured a High Court injunction against Geraghty, and there was a real prospect of his being sent to prison. But the voice of the union movement was strong. Union leaders – with the notable exception of the right-wing leadership of Seán’s own EETPU – made it clear they would take action if Seán suffered in any way.
Seán was fined £350; the penalty was paid anonymously, relieving the government of some embarrassment, and the costs awarded against him somehow never arose.
The then leader of the National Union of Public Employees, Rodney Bickerstaffe, says Seán Geraghty’s steadfast support of the health workers was typical of the man. “Solidarity was a key part of his makeup. Everyone knew that he wasn’t in it for himself but that he was there to support others, especially those who were most vulnerable. There was terrific respect for him throughout the movement.”
Not all employers shared the Daily Express view of Seán Geraghty, either. Former director of labour relations at the Financial Times George Healey told the journalist Peta Steel: “I always found him a tough negotiator, but you knew where you stood with him, he stuck to the agreement. He was straight and committed. He was a charming man, a good man to negotiate with.” Trade unionists from across London and beyond crowded into the Marx Memorial Library on July 18th to
remember Seán and pay their respects. There, too, were his brothers Des and Tom, widely respected trade union leaders in their own right.
Seán Geraghty was born on February 19th, 1936, in Dublin, the eldest of five sons, all of whom were to become leading trade unionists . He was predeceased by his brothers Seamus and Hugh. His mother was a member of the Irish Communist Party, and his father a lifelong republican.
Originally apprenticed as a coppersmith, he moved to London in 1956 where he studied at night school to become an electrician before joining Odhams Press to pursue that trade in the early 1960s. He later worked for the Daily Mirror, the job he held through most of his time in Fleet Street.
He became branch secretary of the London Press Branch of the EETPU in the mid 1970s, maintaining and adding to the branch’s radical tradition in the face of deep hostility from his union’s right-wing leadership. Eventually the union’s behaviour at Rupert Murdoch’s Wapping plant and elsewhere led to it being thrown out of the TUC. Many Fleet Street electricians joined the print union SOGAT, and Seán eventually became a SOGAT official, still serving the interests of his members and all working people.
He was predeceased by his wife, Breda Coloe and is survived by his daughter, Siobhán and three grandsons.