THE loss of Roger Sutton, a key officer of the Greater London Association of Trades Councils (GLATUC) for over 43 years is a profound one for the labour movement. An honest, highly cultured, disciplined, and committed organiser, Sutton was dedicated to worker organisation, filling roles few could replicate. Like William Morris, of whom it was said he did the work of five men, the same was true of Sutton.

Sutton was both charming and fierce — when advocating for workers, always fair and democratic in his approach. A private individual, he kept his family and activist lives separate, often misunderstood as secretive.

He neither smoked nor drank, rarely socialising in pubs after meetings, which was standard for labour activists from the 1970s to the 1990s. I feel honoured to have fought alongside him for so long, sharing many experiences both in union struggles here and in internationalist activity.

I remember Sutton vividly at countless events, always carrying union and trades council banners. Our private joke, “Never let go of the banner,” was coined during the brutal police attack on the miners’ solidarity demonstration in Whitehall in May 1984. As a senior steward, Sutton was torn between fighting back against police violence and ensuring the trades council banner wasn’t lost.

Sutton’s activism peaked during Thatcher’s assault on the labour movement and continued through post-Thatcher deindustrialisation, atomised work and the rise of precarious employment. He never wavered from his class politics, bridging the history of the movement and especially its shop steward organisation, with its future amid mega unions and a service-dominated economy.

Sutton’s work in union training and worker health and safety, particularly with the General Federation of Trade Unions and later with the Musicians Union (MU) positioned him as an expert on the impact of new technologies.

Another friend and comrade Morris Stemp, orchestras and health and safety official with the MU, remembers Sutton leading health and safety courses for the union and his “strong influence and contribution to the Health and Safety Act, which greatly assisted musicians and performers and presented a different landscape for such workers, which remains a powerful weapon for the union.”

He was open to innovation, exemplified by his role in the service workers action and advisory project (SWAAP) which bridged union organising with migrant and immigrant workers from Latin America, Africa and Turkey.

Funded by the Greater London Council, SWAAP recruited thousands of high-street workers into unions like Usdaw and GMB. It formed the first international branch of TGWU for cleaners and security staff in Knightsbridge and Oxford Street and pioneered organising hospitality workers and Hackney clothing workers. Sutton contributed strategies, tactics, and slogans to this effort.

In the mid-1980s, Sutton focused on three key struggles: co-ordinating London miners’ solidarity groups, supporting print workers sacked by Rupert Murdoch, and strengthening the Cities of London and Westminster Trades Council (CLWTUC) and GLATUC.

He oversaw the publication I co-wrote on the 125th anniversary history of London trades councils and, as secretary of CLWTUC for over 25 years, built strong ties with unions in Fleet Street, Whitehall and the London food markets.

Sutton was active in the anti-apartheid movement, Irish solidarity campaigns, and the clandestine Operation Vula, which re-embedded ANC/SACP leadership inside South Africa in the decade before the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

For over 20 years, he organised annual commemorations of the Pentonville Five dockers’ struggle, involving dockers, members of the Pentonville Five and union branches — a tradition now in need of a new steward.

With GLATUC’s president Peter Spalding, Sutton forged ties with Moscow and Berlin trade unions, facilitating exchanges of officers and lay activists. These links proved invaluable during the miners’ strike, with GLATUC facilitating financial support from the Moscow TUC.

In 1987, he organised a delegation of 20 young activists to East Berlin, including unions like Ucatt, the FBU and CPSA. Reciprocal delegations from Moscow and East Berlin to Britain toured print works, the Heinz factory in Cricklewood, unemployed workers’ centres and the Hackney dog racing track, sparking Sutton’s understated humour.

One such instance occurred during a visit to the Heinz factory. A management-led tour was interrupted by a wall slogan reading, “Give us back our tea breaks, you slave-driving bastards.” When Soviet delegates inquired what this meant, management vanished, leaving Sutton to explain. Whatever he said, the Soviets were amused for the rest of the day.

A self-taught intellectual, Sutton’s conversations ranged from Renaissance art to Celtic history. On delegations, he relished opportunities to attend performances at Berlin’s Philharmonie, Brecht Theatre, and view Canaletto miniatures in Leipzig. He was thrilled to visit the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, the site of the Stalin-Truman-Churchill meeting, though reluctant to leave. Spalding and I had to drag him away.

Sutton’s internationalist work occasionally drew unwelcome attention. One Sunday, he rang me at home, to “make myself scarce” after the Sunday People published photos of him and Spalding attending a GDR embassy meeting, alleging there was a group of London trade unionists who were receiving “instructions.”

I admit I was at the briefing, but not in the Sunday People photos. The incident, while laughable, simply evidenced Sutton’s commitment to solidarity beyond borders. If only the editors of the People knew what he was really up to!

In the 1980s and ’90s, Sutton turned his attention to an unrecognised but really significant project, creating a federation of capital city trades councils. In 1989 he was invited by the Il De France and Paris trades councils to celebrate the bicentenary of the French revolution.

Sutton thought strongly that international exchanges — all too often limited to union general secretaries — should be active internationalism, based on trades councils and lay worker representatives. At the time of his death, this was being expanded from the London-Paris-Berlin triangle to include trades councils in the Baltics and eastern Europe.

Living for much of his life near Broadwater Farm in north London, Sutton was a lifelong Tottenham Hotspur supporter. We enjoyed or suffered many games together. He led trade union delegations to Broadwater Farm after the riots to show solidarity with the community. In semi-retirement, he returned to Huntingdon, delving into the history of the English revolution and reflecting on Oliver Cromwell’s legacy.

Sutton’s early activism brought him into contact with Marxist trade unionists like Margaret Witham, Alf Salisbury, Dennis Coles, Bill Freeman, and Tom Durkin. Politically, he was close to the Workers Party of Ireland, CPGB and later CPB, though he never formally joined.

He viewed the dissolution of the USSR as a disaster for the workers’ movement and remained opposed to EU and Nato membership. Over lunch after the Brexit referendum, Sutton predicted radical political shifts in Britain, though he lamented the left’s unpreparedness to seize the moment.

Sutton’s contributions across the movement were immense. Perhaps most importantly he was instrumental in establishing the United May Day Committee, uniting union representatives with London’s migrant, immigrant and refugee organisations.

Funded through his contacts in TGWU/Unite and print unions, the committee became a cornerstone of modern labour organising, bridging rank-and-file unionism with new forms of activism. Sutton emphasised accountability: if someone volunteered, they were expected to follow through. On his watch, the May Day celebration in London became bigger and more unified. And he insisted it should be on whichever day May 1 fell, not the nearest weekend.

His work as secretary of the Unified May Day Committee alone cements Sutton’s place in labour history. Though he preferred backroom organising, his public speaking was powerful. This tribute, written to honour a comrade and friend and based on discussions with the past leader of the GLATUC Spalding and its current chair Mary Addosides, aims to capture the breadth of his contributions.

Sutton’s life was lived for socialism and for the common people, his achievements were many and enduring and of the highest calibre.

Roger Sutton’s funeral will take place on January 23 2025 at 1.15pm at Huntingdon Crematorium, Sapley Road, Kings Ripton, Huntingdon PE28 2NX. No flowers. Donations by cheque or bank transfer for Mayday 25 on Roger Sutton’s behalf to:

Greater London Association of Trades Councils
SC: 08 02 28
Account number: 59070104
Reference: Mayday25 Sutton

Send cheques to Mary Adossides, Willesden Trades Hall, 375 High Road NW10 2JR.