The Deputy General Secretary is Joe Mann, MBE
The Deputy General Secretary is Joe Mann MBE
Born in Carshalton, Surrey, married to Diane with 4 daughters, Joe began his career in engineering at Westland Helicopters in Somerset, where as TGWU ACTSS Union convener, he cut his teeth politically during the “Westland crisis” of 1986. A Union member since 1969, holding a number of positions in the TGWU, Joe was elected General Secretary of the NLBD in 1995 on a 65% turnout, the highest turnout ever recorded in Trade Union history in a General Secretary election.
Joe has been a Labour Party member since 1979 and has held a number of offices including Branch Chair, Trade Union Liaison Officer, Agent in European Elections, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in the 1992 General Election, and City Councilor in Exeter where he won a seat from a Tory to give Labour overall control of the council for the first time in 1994.
Joe led the merger between ISTC and NLBD and has been a Regional Secretary, National Officer, National Secretary and now Deputy General Secretary, and is responsible for the regions; politics; equal rights; merged Unions; external relations, and the voluntary sector.
Joe has been an elected member of the Labour Party National Executive Committee and Policy Forum, and participated in various Policy Commissions. He is also elected to the GFTU National Executive Committee. He was honoured with an MBE in 2000 for his work with disabled people.
Joe’s interests outside of work are walking, theatre, and flying aerobatics in his light aircraft, where he has become a regular feature at the annual Tolpuddle Festival in Dorset, where we were the first Union to put our banner in the sky!