Ulster Workers' Council

The Ulster Workers Council was a loyalist workers' organisation set up in Northern Ireland in 1974 as a more formalised successor to the Loyalist Association of Workers (LAW). It was formed by shipyard union leader Harry Murray and initially failed to gain much attention. However, with the full support of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) the UWC became the main mobilising force for loyalist opposition to power-sharing arrangements.

The group had been mooted in late 1973 when Harry Murray, a shop steward at Harland & Wolff, and other loyalist trade unionists had met at the Hawthornden Road headquarters of the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party (VPUP) to discuss setting up a more formal version of the LAW The formation of the group was announced in the April 1974 edition of Ulster Loyalist, a publication of the UDA, with the announcement promising that workers would be central to the political future of Northern Ireland and that these workers were preparing to mobilise against a united Ireland. From the outset most politicians were excluded from these meetings with the exception of VPUP leader William Craig and his party colleague David Trimble.

The Ulster Workers' Council (UWC) name was adopted by February 1974 with the group chaired by Glenn Barr, at the time a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for the VPUP as well as a brigadier in the UDA. He was joined by the likes of Murray and Billy Kelly and Tom Beattie from Ballylumford power station. These were sometimes joined by Andy Tyrie on behalf of the UDA and Ken Gibson of the Ulster Volunteer Force, as well as representatives of smaller loyalist groups such as the Orange Volunteers and Down Orange Welfare.

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