Bill Spiers: 1952 – 2009

Posted by Ken Ferguson on October 2, 2009. Filed under Obituaries. Posted with the tags:Obituaries, STUC
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When I first met Bill Speirs he and I were both in the springtime of our lives.

And, as with the spring, it was a time of optimism, hope and potential renewal.

It was 1973 and the aftershock of the 1968 thunderclap still echoed across the left. In the UK industrial militancy was high and internationally the murderous Vietnam War raged.

As student activists we participated in a mass movement which campaigned against apartheid, in solidarity with workers and for the protection of grant aided free education.

It is to their eternal shame that such figures as Gordon Brown and John Reid who were part of that movement, after enjoying its benefits, kicked away the ladder for today’s students.

It was a world a million miles from today’s business friendly sound bite politicians and Bill Speirs was, first as a student activist then as a trade union leader, at the heart of it.

The years between have seen the ideas of that time sorely tested and, in many cases written off as dreams and traded in for the plush life of the professional politicians.
Unlike them Bill remained rooted in the political action that extended solidarity to workers in struggle such as the miners and Caterpillar workers while building solidarity with a myriad of struggles by the “wretched of the earth”
At the heart of his approach was what has now become the hallmark of the STUC’ s commitment to broad cross party campaigning which has its origins of the popular front politics of the Communist Party which heavily influenced the organisation at that time.

It nurtured a galaxy of activity including opposition to the now defeated apartheid regime in South Africa, material support for the victims of Pinochet’s fascists in Chile and in a major pioneering way in support of the rights of the Palestinians And of course the STUC was also constantly campaigning in favour of democratic and economic advance in Scotland.

The long struggle against the industrial vandalism of the Thatcher years with battles to save coal, steel, shipbuilding, car making and engineering were all crucibles of struggle and their defeat echoes to this day as the hollow promises of the “new” industries collapse about our ears.

However the period also had it moments of sweet victory. Who can forget the sight of Nelson Mandela walking free after 27 years in Apartheid jails or the defeat of Chilean fascism and the arrest of bloodstained satrap Pinochet in the plush Home Counties.

But surely above them all is the final victory of winning back a Scottish Parliament in the teeth of Tory opposition and, lest we forget, unionist Labour MPs who scuppered the first attempt in 1978.

Far from the popular media myth that the Parliament was delivered by the benevolence of “father of the nation” Donald Dewar and modernising Tony Blair, the reality is that they had no alternative but deliver home rule in the face of a massive campaign which saw Bill as a key player but which also involved scores of unsung heroines and heroes across Scotland who made it so.

Bill’s death at a young 57 is indeed a matter of great sadness for his many colleagues, family and friends in all walks of life.
I for one feel privileged to have known him both as a comrade and friend and feel his loss deeply.

Unlike the fashionable script of the “look after number one” cynicism of the New labour years he remained steadfast to his ideas and in that he represents many thousands of other who share collective values and remain the heart of the trade union movement.