Jim Mortimer

Who was Jim Mortimer?

James Edward Mortimer was a British trade unionist and a Labour Party general secretary between 1982 and 1985.

Mortimer's early career was in the shipbuilding and engineering industries where he worked as a ship fitter apprentice, a machinist and a planning engineer. He studied as a TUC Scholar at Ruskin College, Oxford in 1945 and 1946 and worked at the TUC Economic Department from 1946 to 1948.

He was a trade union member of the National Board for Prices and Incomes between 1968 and 1971, and at the same time he was the Director of the London Co-operative Society. From 1971 to 1974, he was a member of the Board of London Transport Executive. He had been a national official of the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen. He was the first Chairman of Acas from 1974 until 1981.

Mortimer was General Secretary of the Labour Party between 1982 and 1985, a time of great turmoil in the Labour Party with the formation of the breakaway SDP and the rise of the Militant tendency.