William Alfred Morrison was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

leader. Morrison became active in the

National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers The National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers (NUPBPW) was a British trade union. History The union was founded in 1921 as the National Union of Printing, Bookbinding, Machine Ruling and Paper Workers when the National Union o ...

, and in 1938 was elected as secretary of its London Central branch, the largest branch of the union. In this role, he supported C. C. Diels in refusing to work with the ''Mosley News Letter'', a fascist publication put out by

Oswald Mosley Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...

. Mosley Publications took the two to the High Court, along with the uninvolved Cyril Watt, arguing that they were guilty of conspiracy to prevent their publications being printed, but Morrison and the union activists won the case. Later in the year, he was elected as general secretary of the

in 1947, taking 31,515 in the election, compared to 11,290 for Vincent Flynn, and 4,204 for F. A. J. Stickland. While leader of the Paper Workers, Morrison played a prominent role in various other organisations. From 1950 until 1952 he was president of the bookbinders' group of the International Graphical Federation, and for many years he served on the executive committee of the IGF. In 1955, he was elected as vice-president of the Printing and Kindred Trades Federation, becoming president in 1956. In 1955, he was also chair of the scrutineers at the

Trades Union Congress The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are 48 affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.5 million members. Frances ...

. He retired at the end of 1960, but in 1963 he was appointed to the committee of the Joint Industrial Council for the printing industries. In 1957, Morrison was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morrison, Bill Year of birth missing Year of death missing General secretaries of British trade unions