Joe Gormley (trade unionist)

Joseph Gormley, Baron Gormley, OBE (5 July 1917 – 27 May 1993) was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain) from 1971 to 1982, and a Labour peer.

Joe Gormley was born in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire in 1917, one of seven children, and became a miner at the age of fourteen. He was an active trade union official and became a committee member of the St.Helens area branch of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1957. He served as general secretary of the North West region (comprising Lancashire and Cumberland) from April 1961 and joined the national executive in 1963. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1970 New Year's Honours. He was a lifelong fan of Wigan Rugby League Football Club.

In 1971, he was elected as leader of the NUM and presided over the national strike that began on 9 January 1972. The strike lasted for seven weeks and the Middle East oil crisis caused widespread power cuts. Emergency measures were used to economise on electricity by reducing the working week to three days. After much negotiation the strike was resolved on 25 February 1972 with a 21% increase in pay and concessions won by the miners. Miners moved to the top of the UK's industrial wage league, having previously been seventeenth.

Only two years later, NUM members voted again for to strike and stopped work on 4 February 1974. Prime Minister Edward Heath called a snap election on this issue, asking the public, "Who governs Britain?" Gormley tried to persuade the National Executive Conference to postpone the strike until after any election, but the strike went ahead. After the election brought in a new Labour government, the union's demands were met.

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