Jordan gets global union post

BILL JORDAN, the most prominent right-wing trade unionist in Britain, is to resign as pounds 35,000-a-year president of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union to take up an international post, writes Barrie Clement.

Mr Jordan has been nominated by British unions to become the pounds 67,000-a-year leader of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which claims 120 million affiliated members and is effectively the world's TUC. The AEEU president will have to go through an election process, but it is regarded as a formality because he has secured a majority of nominations from member countries. He will start as acting general secretary and be confirmed at the ICFTU congress in 1996.

Mr Jordan, AEEU president since 1986, has been one of the leading backers of Tony Blair in the union movement. His departure will leave the way for a charismatic left-winger, Jimmy Airlie, to stand for the AEEU presidency. Mr Airlie, one of the leaders of the 'work-in' at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in the 1960s, is a former Communist.

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