VETERAN health and safety campaigner Caroline Shelton died on Saturday June 28 after a long and painful battle with cancer.

Shelton came from a trade union family. Her mother was a book binder and Mother of Chapel in Sogat and her father was a lorry driver and in TGWU.

In the 1990s she herself was a MSF, and later Amicus, workplace rep at Welcome Dartford (later Glaxo Welcome), an officer of the MSF/Amicus Glaxo Welcome South East branch and a delegate to the MSF/Amicus London Regional Council and regular annual conference delegate.

Her mum and dad were so proud of her when in 2010 she became a Labour councillor in Gravesend.

More recently she was an active member of the Unite Clerkenwell and St Pancras branch for many years attending nearly every meeting and branch activity and was the branch’s H&S officer keeping us up to date on all things H&S and ensuring H&S stayed on the agenda.

Shelton was a branch delegate to Kent and Medway Trades Council and also a Labour Party delegate to Gravesend CLP. She was also delegated from the branch to sit on the London Hazards Centre management committee since 2018 and to attend the National Hazards Conference at Keele. She took all these positions very seriously and reported back regularly at branch meetings.

She attended at protests, demos and pickets with the branch banner whenever she was able and was firmly committed and dedicated to ensuring the value of having an active union branch.
 
London Hazards Centre board of trustees elected Shelton as honorary president in May in their grateful appreciation for her many years’ service as a determined fighter for a safer London.

She was a long-standing widely respected TUC tutor at the Workers’ Educational Association, and at other TUC education providers, tutoring and encouraging new and more experienced H&S reps to build the union and challenge their employers to ensure healthy and safe workplaces as well as tutoring workplace reps from a range of unions.

Shelton was one of the pioneer women trade union tutors making a difference through her strong caring concerns for working people. Her influence will still be felt by many trade unionists and those who worked with her.

The fact that she had previously taught children guitar and music theory as a peripatetic teacher must have given her a head start and affinity with teaching.

She was a big force for workers’ health and safety and so kind and caring. She had a good sense of humour, was a good listener, and was amazingly modest, humble and unassuming, and was liked by everybody she came into contact with.

She was softly spoken with important things to say which she always did with clarity and conviction.

And a committed socialist who had a strong sense of justice and who wanted to see a more passionate and equal society and she absolutely did what she could to contribute to this happening and to make our communities and the world a safer and more equal place.

The words and appreciation of Shelton that have been shown from across the trade union community since she died demonstrates what sort of a woman we are remembering and what sort of a difference she made in our fight for a fairer world.

She is survived by her younger brother Craig.

You will be missed, Caroline, by us all.

For funeral arrangements please email monicagorta@hotmail.com