Over the past forty years, Jimmy Reid has been one of Scotland's most important voices. That voice first came to prominence in the early 1970's during the standoff between the Conservative Heath Government and the workers at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. And that's when I first heard it, and have listened to it ever since with critical affection. I was young, I had already been a shop steward and local representative for the Transport and General Workers' Union while working at Mayfield Brickwork. So when he stood before the massed union meeting and laid down the rules of engagement, I remember the electrifying impact of the Scottish language being used in the vernacular, with rhetorical power and moral force. "There will be no hooliganism; there will be no vandalism; there will be nae bevvying. The world is watching…and it's our responsibility to conduct ourselves responsibly and with dignity and with maturity." And they did.
Two tributes, one by Tony Benn and one by a worker who was an apprentice in 1971, sum up Jimmy Reid – "classic self-educated working class intellectual of moral principle", and "a leader you could like, who was on your side and who had the big ideas." It's hard to over-estimate the impact of this working class intellectual, who was the equal in intelligence and ethical passion of any of the more elitist figures with whom he argued and bargained in the struggle to save jobs, livelihood and communities. Because it was Jimmy Reid who understood long before the Thatcher government's attack on the mining industry, that long established local industry is the cohesive that makes community possible. And he understood the corrosive effect of unemployment on human dignity and morale, and the hopelessness felt by workers who heard in the clang of shut factory gates, the slamming shut of their own and their families' life opportunities.
A few years after the UCS dispute, Jimmy Reid was on a TV programme which explored the influences and circumstances that had shaped his world-view. Asked about his favourite piece of music, this self educated working class shop steward chose the final choral movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Why? Because it celebrated the joy of human existence, presented a vision of humanity living in harmony, and by the use of human voices co-operating with an orchestra, showed the radical connectedness of human aspirations with human industry. As a working class lad myself, that was my first introduction to Beethoven's symphonies – so even then, Reid was expanding the minds of those who heard him.
Asked then about what made him such a passionate union member he referred to his brief stint as a 16 year old in a stockbroker's office. There he saw figures that showed wealthy people making more money in a single share transaction, than his own father could have earned several lifetimes over. I suspect today he would be accused of the politics of envy – but then the prophet Amos might have been accused of the same, and his response echoed the values and vision of Reid's political passion – "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream."
Of the obituaries so far written, The Guardian is not uncritical but is fair, admiring, and acknowledges the passing of a great man. Few individuals in the political or trade union arena have, over the last century "raised so many spirits, challenged so many assumptions or offered more vivid glimpses of a different social order." I hope someone takes on the significant task of writing an intellectual and social biography of Jimmy Reid. Communist, Labour, SNP – it's quite a cluster of political rosettes – but each move was principled and each cost him friendships and alliances. The title of his book describes what he loathed most – power without principles. He embodied Scottish working class culture at its best – a man with self-admitted faults, but a great man, a leader whose ethical principle and rhetorical power galvanised an industry and gave working people a respected and effective voice. He has been a background presence in my grown-up life, and his death marks the end of an era in Scottish trade union and political history.
Two examples of that respected and passionate voice –
"From the very depth of my being, I challenge the
right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to
tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable."
And on the permissive society
"When any society permits 1 million people to be unemployed, then yes, I am against such a permissive society."
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