Mike Griffiths, a trade unionist since 1964, joined his union on his first day of employment at a large packaging company. He quickly also joined the Labour Party and soon became active.

Born in the year that the National Health Service was created, Mike has enjoyed the “golden generation” of improving health care, the Swinging Sixties, Beatles, and an improving education system. His trade union and political activity has seen him in adult life face the savagery of the Thatcher experiment in branding trade unions as the enemy within and, in this regard, has served his time on the picket lines around the country in Warrington, Wolverhampton and Wapping and in other more obscure places.

Like so many activists, he grew up in a strong Labour family and was engaged by his parents as a young boy stuffing envelopes and delivering leaflets.

Typical of many eager activists in the Party, Mike was selected to stand for a local council seat at the very first branch meeting he attended and, regardless of an enthusiastic and energetic campaign [which as the weeks went by, he became convinced he had a chance of winning], the safe seat finished up with less than 200 votes for Labour, 400 votes for the Tories and over 1,000 votes for the Independent!

Mike has held office as Branch Secretary, Constituency Chair, Trade Union Liaison Officer, Political Education Officer, Election Agent and, through the formation of a Labour club, chaired both the Bar Committee and Chair of the Kingswood Labour Club.

At the same time as continual activity within the Party, Mike has been a life-long activist within his union and, through a succession of print union mergers culminating in the last merger with Amicus, he is now the Amicus National Political Officer heading up the work of the Amicus Political Department.

In his union, he has previously held a major industrial brief negotiating with large and small companies and print groups, primarily within packaging. Prior to being elected as a full-time National Officer, he was a senior lay representative culminating in Chair of his Executive and President of the union’s bi-annual conference.

Ten years’ service on the National Executive Committee of the Party has meant that Mike has been a member of the Executive during each of the years that Labour has been in power. Chair of the influential Organisational Committee, he is best known for contributions at conference dealing with constitutional issues but he is equally active in the development of Labour’s policy-making arrangements where he co-convenes a policy commission and sits on the Joint Policy Commission.