Early Career and Trade Union Activities
Thomas was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, the son of a young unmarried mother. He was raised by his grandmother and began work at twelve years of age, soon starting a career as a railway worker. He became an official of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and in 1913 helped to organize its merger with two smaller trade unions on the railways to form the National Union of Railwaymen (now part of the RMT). Thomas was elected NUR general secretary in 1917, a post he held until 1931.
Thomas was General Secretary during the successful national rail strike of 1919 that was jointly called by the NUR and ASLEF against proposed wage reductions. In 1921 Thomas played a leading role in the Black Friday crisis, in which rail and transport unions failed to come to the aid of the mineworkers, who were facing wage reductions. Before the 1926 General Strike the TUC asked Thomas to negotiate with Stanley Baldwin's Conservative Government, but the talks were unsuccessful and the strike went ahead.
Read more about this topic: James Henry Thomas
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