Alan Jinkinson obituary

The career of the trade union leader Alan Jinkinson, who has died aged 87 after suffering a spontaneous sub-arachnoid haemorrhage, may have looked unsurprising: Yorkshire lad rises through the ranks of his union to become the leader of the mighty Unison.

In essence, having been from 1990 the general secretary of Nalgo (the National and Local Government Officers’ Association), when in 1993 that union merged with Nupe (the National Union of Public Employees) and Cohse (the Confederation of Health Service Employees), Alan became head of the new creation, the public service union Unison, until his retirement in 1996.

But though the Labour movement had always been his natural destination, the route he took was not the one he had first hoped for: to win a Labour seat and serve one day in a Labour government. With that he made a less than successful start.

In 1962 he was chosen to stand for the party in one of the most famous byelections of the century, at Orpington, in Kent, now part of the London borough of Bromley. The Tories were duly defeated – but not by him. A tactical vote swept the Liberal Eric Lubbock to victory but left Alan third, with a lost deposit.

Alan Jinkinson, left, with fellow union leaders Hector MacKenzie of Cohse, centre, and Rodney Bickerstaffe of Nupe, in 1990. Photograph: Unison

That outcome was almost redeemed when in the 1964 general election he cut the Conservative majority in Hendon North from more than 5,000 to a mere 1,124. Yet he now began to accept that the parliamentary road might be closed to him.

He might never have got even that far. One of four children of Sheffield working-class parents, Maggie (nee Bramhill), a part-time cleaner, and Raymond Jinkinson, an engineering fitter, he had expected to wind up his schooling and bring in a wage. But a teacher at King Edward VII school insisted that he could expect to pass the entrance examination to Oxford, and his family, though hardly awash with money, assented. He stayed on, and won a place at the university.

First, there was national service. He joined the Royal Signals, and as Corporal Jinkinson was posted to Graz, in southern Austria, a time on which he would always look back with affection.

After gaining a degree in history (1958) at Keble College, Oxford, where we first met, he embarked on becoming an accountant, starting with a firm in the City. But this was not his world.

Coming from a Methodist family, he had gone to Sunday school, joined the Boys’ Brigade, and taken the pledge – a solemn promise to forswear alcohol, to which he would not stick. Quite soon, too, he gave up on his parents’ faith. Yet perhaps the Methodism left some mark. It was once observed – probably by Morgan Phillips, the party’s general secretary (1944-61) – that the Labour movement owes more to Methodism than to Marx; and Marxism was never part of Alan’s makeup.

After a brief uneasy spell as a teacher, in 1960 Alan turned to the world of the unions by joining Nalgo’s education department. He made steady progress, rising to the rank of deputy general secretary in 1981 before taking the top post in 1990. By then Alan had experienced the effects of a decade of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, with its anti-trade union agenda, privatisations and the miners’ strike.

It made no sense for unions to remain weak by competing for the same members and negotiating with the same employers over the same issues. To facilitate the merger of Nalgo with Nupe and Cohse, which required delicate steering, Alan agreed to avoid a divisive general secretary election by taking the post himself, overseeing the first three years of its development and retiring early. Rodney Bickerstaffe, the former Nupe general secretary, was then able to stand in 1996 as leader of the new organisation with the support of all its sections.

Old colleagues recalled Alan’s straightness, decency, and dependability in getting things done. A skilled negotiator, he never looked on compromise as a dirty word, always looking for the best available outcomes for the working people he represented, their families and communities, changing Nalgo from a somewhat conservative staff association into a stronger and then larger trade union fighting on behalf of its members.

In 1968 Alan married Madeleine Douglas, who became the head of human relations at St Mary’s hospital medical school, Paddington. They met though the Labour movement: she was secretary to the Labour party leader on Kensington and Chelsea council.

Madeleine died in 1995, the year before Alan retired. He continued to serve as the employee representative on the Employment Tribunal, and was also for a spell on Lewisham council.

In April this year he became the civil partner of Ann Cutting, a lawyer who, before changing careers, had been active in Nalgo’s universities section. For the previous 15 years they had pursued their shared enthusiasms: travel, theatre, music (classical and jazz) and food (Ann, she said, loved cooking; Alan loved eating), together with rather more drinking than the pledge allowed.

Both were keen on cricket: Ann as a Lancastrian, Alan passionate about Yorkshire, most of all when they played at Scarborough. Anyone who ever supposed from his generally temperate union career that he was some kind of stranger to outrage can never have heard his views on the county’s performances in recent decades.

Ann survives him, along with a daughter, Alex, and granddaughter, Amy, from a previous relationship, and three siblings, Brenda, Dorothy and Keith.

Alan Raymond Jinkinson, trade union leader, born 27 February 1935; died 6 November 2022