We were deeply saddened to learn of the death this week of Jon Rogers. Jon was a life-long Labour Party and trade union activist, who contributed several articles to Labour Hub in recent years.

Labour Hub reviewed his book,  An Obscure Footnote in Trade Union History, which covered his 33 years of working in local government, 25 of them as a trade union Branch Secretary, twenty on UNISON’s Greater London Regional Committee and fourteen serving on the UNISON National Executive Council. It’s a narrative full of sharp observations, delivered with a cheerful and self-effacing detachment.

Jon himself wrote of his memoir: “There is no better work than rank-and-file trade union activism, representing workers against employers and defending activists against officials. It was a tremendous privilege to spend my working life as a trade union activist and I hope that, in sharing a few recollections from that time, I might encourage other comrades to follow this example so that we can leave a record of our time from which others may be able to draw lessons for the future.”

Jon blogged regularly. It was fitting that his last post, penned a few days before his death, was entitled “Support the strikers!” He concluded: “Those of you who are still at work, and whose health permits you to participate in these vital struggles, I wish you all the luck in the world.”

Below we publish some tributes from comrades who knew and worked with Jon down the years.

George Binette writes:

I write from France where I learned early on Monday 5th February that Jon Rogers had passed away, aged just 59. Given the terminal nature of Jon’s cancer, his death came as little surprise, though for me and many others who knew and worked alongside – and in some sense studied under Jon’s tutelage – the sense of loss is no less profound.

Jon was immersed in labour movement politics for almost all of his adult life, principally on the difficult terrain of UNISON and for several years before in one of its precursor unions, NALGO.

In addition to some three decades as the leading light of the Lambeth local government branch, Jon was a member of UNISON’s national executive for 14 years, waging often lonely battles against a bureaucratic machine that was all too often a bulwark for New Labour among the Party’s union affiliates and which had precious little tolerance for the union’s ostensible commitment to lay democracy.

His battles included a quixotic quest in 2005 as a candidate for General Secretary as well as a brave stand in opposing the rule-breaking chicanery practised especially in the union’s London region in the campaign to secure Dave Prentis’s fourth and final term in office.

Above all, perhaps, Jon was a committed, if often frustrated, architect of a non-sectarian left in UNISON. He deployed his keen intelligence, exhaustive knowledge of the union’s rulebook and sometimes sardonic wit to the construction of such a left even as his health declined dramatically. Jon did begin to see his efforts bear fruit, especially with the success of the ‘Time for Real Change’ slate in the 2021 elections for the national executive. Alas, he has not lived to see that project advance further.

I shall miss his wit, wisdom and cast-iron commitment to working class struggles, but I am grateful he forged a loving relationship with Hassina Malik, a dedicated activist in the same union branch and a remarkably steadfast partner amidst awful adversity.

George Binette is the former Camden UNISON branch secretary and current Trade Union Liaison Officer, Hackney North and Stoke Newington CLP.

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Dan Sartin writes:

I sadly only knew our dear comrade Jon Rogers for a relatively short time from 2017. I joined the UNISON NEC just at the time that Jon retired from it, choosing to stand down.

Jon was a legend in our union though, so I knew of him before 2017, mostly through enjoying his blog and conference speeches. The blog was essential reading for anyone who wanted to know what was really happening inside UNISON.

Jon had a keen eye for the bureaucratic absurdity that can afflict any large organisation. He fought tireless battles for all of us, which we would enjoy regular updates on in his inimitable and very funny writing style.

As well as wanting his union to act in a rational way (a modest aspiration, reflecting the humble blogger he was), Jon was vociferous and consistent in his condemnation of the witch-hunting culture which has been an all too familiar hallmark of the history of UNISON. Jon knew that trade unions, if they were ever to fulfil their mission for our class, had to be fully democratic and run by their members in line with their rulebooks. Those members who sought to assert their rulebook rights to run their own unions and determine their strategy and tactics, like our own Rulebook Rogers, had to be welcomed and cherished, not hounded and persecuted using bureaucratic means.

Jon stood up for himself when personally subjected to unjustified harassment and was the first to stand up for others in similar predicaments, always available to offer wise counsel. UNISON’s new NEC does welcome and cherish comrades like Jon Rogers, and in 2022 the UNISON NEC was delighted to award Jon an honorary life membership award for the exemplary work he did in the union he dedicated his life to.

Jon, we salute you and we thank you for your service to our movement. You will be missed by all comrades, friends and family.

Dan Sartin is a UNISON NEC member.

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Liz Davies writes:

Jon joined the Labour Briefing Editorial Board around 1990. I hadn’t previously known him but immediately warmed to his sense of humour, his wit and his politics so obviously based on humanity and respect for others.

In the mid-late 1990s, when I was a slightly well-known figure on the Labour left, he would invite me to UNISON Conference to address the left fringe meeting (or one of them, there were competing left organisations and competing left fringe meetings). Comrades would be outraged at the day’s shenanigans happening in UNISON Conference. I would make an impassioned speech about the shenanigans from the Labour Party leadership (Blair and co). Jon would manage simultaneously to make the argument about why socialists, particularly trade union socialists, should stay in the Labour Party and encourage unity between the different strands of the left represented on the UNISON left.

Jon had a deep understanding of anti-racism, of solidarity with the women’s liberation movement and what we then called lesbian and gay liberation. In 2000, he had been criticised by an Employment Tribunal as, in his evidence, he had tried to explain why, as UNISON Branch Secretary, he might spend more time dealing with complaints of racism from black members than from white members (in a case alleging race discrimination brought by a white member). The Tribunal had not understood his explanation of the difference between institutional racism and racism experienced by an individual.

As a result of the public criticism, UNISON launched an investigation into Jon and Jon asked me to accompany him to an interview with a high-up official (probably a Deputy General Secretary). I put on my best lawyer’s black suit, picked up my counsel’s notebook and rocked up alongside Jon to take notes, trying to give the impression that I knew a little about employment law. Of course, Jon knew far, far more about employment law than I did. And of course Jon didn’t need my presence at all. As he walked into the room, and said hello to the official, he was instantly charming and started cracking jokes. Rapidly, the official was apologetic about even having asked Jon for an interview and by the end, they were just swapping anecdotes. The investigation was withdrawn. I gather that this may have been the first of very many instances when Jon displayed his knowledge of the UNISON Rule Book.

He is taken before his time. In the last few years, despite his advancing cancer, he was clearly so very happy with Hassina, enjoying life in Brighton, engaged as always in Labour Party activity (and gossip) and of course continuing to follow events in UNISON attentively. At a birthday gathering on 30th December, he half-joked that he had expected to become a pensioner activist and that he would be denied that – it was hard to hear.

It’s a tribute to Jon and to his family that his last post on his blog, just four days before he died, was “Support the Strikers” and that Hassina has asked that donations be made to strike funds in his memory.

Liz Davies KC is a barrister specialising in housing and homelessness law. She was an elected member of Labour’s National Executive Committee (1998 – 2000).

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Kevin Flack writes:

Most of the political memories of Jon will come from his activities in UNISON. But my memories are of when he lived in my street in Lewisham. I knew him from his early twenties, as an officer of Hither Green Labour Party in East Lewisham Constituency – and as a babysitter for my kids. I last saw him on his 59th birthday in Brighton in December, his infectious smile lighting up the room even though we all knew how ill he was.

Many of my friends’ memories of Jon recounted over recent days have come from late night debates over drinks at Lewisham Labour Club. Indeed, we had little knowledge of just how important his role was organising the left in UNISON until activists on a national level started praising him to us – it wasn’t something he boasted about – or bored us non-UNISON members with – at all. His pacifism, I remember, was often the centre of heated discussion – of course he never backed down even if he was in a minority of one. Just days before he died, he was still ‘liking’ Facebook posts on the Labour Club diaspora page.

In East Lewisham Labour Party Jon could win votes with his sense of humour, making the most radical idea seem common sense. At a time when we were very much in the retreat on the left, this was invaluable. Even if much of the time all we won was laughs, he gave the left a human face and defused tensions. Standing up with a smiling call of “Comrades, I beg to differ,” is how I still picture him now.

I am so proud to be able to call him my friend.

Kevin Flack is the former Chair of Hither Green Labour Party.