Larry Flanagan (born Scotland 1955) is a Scottish former trade union leader and politician.
Flanagan attended the University of Stirling before becoming a teacher at Blantyre High School. He also became active in the Militant Tendency and in the Labour Party. [1] He was elected to Glasgow City Council, where he called for the party to oppose the Poll Tax with a campaign of non-payment. [2] He hoped to stand in the 1988 Glasgow Govan by-election, but was not considered as a candidate due to his involvement with Militant. [3]
Early in the 1990s, Flanagan was suspended from the Labour group on the council due to disagreements about strategy with relation to the Poll Tax. [3] He instead focused on his teaching career, at Penilee High School in Glasgow and then Hillhead High School in Glasgow. He also became increasingly prominent in the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) trade union, being elected to its council and convening its education committee. In 2012, he was elected as the union's general secretary. [1] [4] He also represents the union on the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, and the General Council of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. [5] He retired as General Secretary of the EIS in 2022. [6]
The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) is the national trade union centre in Scotland. With 40 affiliated unions as of 2020, the STUC represents over 540,000 trade unionists.
The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) is the oldest teachers' trade union in the world, having been founded in 1847 when dominies became concerned about the effect of changes to the system of education in Scotland on their professional status. The EIS is the largest teaching union in Scotland, representing 80% of the country's teachers and lecturers. As of 2022 it has 56,342 members.
Scottish Labour, is the part of the UK Labour Party active in Scotland. Ideologically social democratic and unionist, it holds 22 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 37 of 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons. It is represented by 262 of the 1,227 local councillors across Scotland. The Scottish Labour party has no separate Chief Whip at Westminster.
The General Teaching Council for Scotland is a fee based registered charity and the world's first independent registration and regulation body for teaching. The current Chief Executive and Registrar is Pauline Stephen. The GTC Scotland maintains a register of qualified teachers and college lecturers; there were 80,695 teachers and college lecturers on the register on 31 March 2022.
The All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation, commonly known as "the Fed", was an organisation in Great Britain to co-ordinate the activities of local Anti-Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) campaigning against the Poll tax brought in by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1989 (Scotland) and 1990.
Anas Sarwar is a Scottish Labour and Co-operative politician who has served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party since 2021. He has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Glasgow region since 2016, having been Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Central from 2010 to 2015.
William MacLeod Speirs was a Scottish trade union leader, a socialist and internationalist. He was General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions that collectively represent most unionised workers in England and Wales. There are 48 affiliated unions with a total of about 5.5 million members. Paul Nowak is the TUC's current General Secretary, serving from January 2023.
The Militant tendency, or Militant, was a Trotskyist group in the British Labour Party, organised around the Militant newspaper, which launched in 1964.
Richie Venton is a Scottish trade unionist and political activist. As of 2018, he is one of two Scottish representatives on the National Executive Council of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) and the national trade union organiser of the Scottish Socialist Party. A former Militant organiser and a founding member of the SSP, he was a high-profile activist in the Scottish independence referendum campaign and spoke at a number of public meetings and debates.
Christopher Charles Stephens is a Scottish National Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow South West from 2015 until 2024. He was SNP Spokesperson for Justice and Immigration between September 2023 to July 2024.
David R. Gilmour was a Scottish trade unionist.
Margaret Hardinge Irwin (1858–1940) was a Scottish suffragist and labour activist who held important posts in the trade union movement.
William Elger was a Scottish trade union leader.
Charles Murdoch was a Scottish trade union leader.
George Carson was a Scottish trade unionist.
William Shaw was a Scottish trade unionist and politician.
Elizabeth Mary Jane Fish was a schoolteacher and the first elected woman president of the Educational Institute of Scotland, the oldest teachers' trade union in the world.
William Paterson was a Scottish trade unionist and fire officer.
John Denton Pollock was a Scottish trade unionist.