Arthur Creech Jones - Trade Unionist

Trade Unionist

On leaving prison Creech Jones was unable to resume a civil service career, and instead did research on prisons for the Labour Research Department, a trade union-funded body (it did not have any formal connections with the Labour Party). Later that year he was appointed as Secretary of the National Union of Docks, Wharves, and Shipping Staffs and edited the union journal. When his union joined the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1922, Creech Jones was promoted to be national secretary of the administrative, clerical and supervisory section. At the 1922 London County Council election, Creech Jones was one of the Labour candidates for Dulwich; he sat on the London Labour Party executive from 1921 to 1928.

Among his work for the TGWU, Creech Jones visited the Ruhr Area to observe the effects of French occupation in 1923 (writing a pamphlet about the issue on his return), and helped to train Clements Kadalie of the South African Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union in how to organise a union. He wrote a pamphlet on "Trade Unionism To-day" which was published by the Workers' Educational Association in 1928. Creech Jones was heavily involved in the Workers' Educational Association and also served as a Governor of Ruskin College, Oxford which was funded by the trade unions.