As I write this piece, the Trades Council has just said its farewells to our late president, Tommy Anderson, at his well-attended funeral, and a tribute at the Waltham Forest Community Hub, one of the charities Tommy assisted. Most of the report was written before his sad passing in January 2025, but we felt that his role in the trade union movement should be marked in the annual report.
Tommy, a proud Glaswegian, spent most of his working life in London, working on refuse and street cleansing teams in a number of London boroughs. He joined the Transport & General Workers Union, one of Unite’s legacy unions, and was acquainted with Tommy Douras, who later became a T&G full-time officer.
He came to Waltham Forest around 2005, and joined the TGWU branch, having briefly been in the GMB. He became a shop steward on street cleansing, where most significantly, he led the famous protest against Single Status wage reductions. Single Status was an agreement between employers and unions to equalise the pay scales between mainly male occupations, like refuse and street cleansing, with mainly female ones, such as social care and school catering. But Waltham Forest proposed to do this by reducing wages in the street services by up to £4,000 a year! As a result, the council found the roads at the Town Hall completely blocked by refuse lorries, street cleansing vehicles and other trucks! They soon backed down on their proposals!
However, after privatisation, managers in street cleansing targeted Tommy for his trade union activities, we believed. They moved him from a loader on a truck to a street barrow beat, despite knowing he had problems with his legs. Despite Unite’s intervention, he lost his job and never worked again.
Despite this, he continued to play a prominent role in the trade union movement, locally by becoming chairperson of the Unite LE1228 Waltham Forest Branch, and then later the President of Waltham Forest Trades Council. He was also active in the trades council movement as a delegate to the Greater London Association of Trades Union Councils, where he became the Organiser, responsible for the development of new and existing trades councils where they need assistance, and represented London, Eastern and the South East on the the TUC Joint Consultative Committee for one term.
He played a role on the London May Day Committee and, reflecting his passion for workers’ health and safety, was a keen promoter of Workers Memorial Day and later became chairperson of the London Hazards Campaign.
We will sorely miss his fighting spirit and advocacy for the working class. The best way for us, as trade unionists, to remember Tommy will be to represent our members, collectively and individually, in the same uncompromising manner as he would have done.
Kevin Parslow
Secretary, Waltham Forest Trades Council