Nationality British Name Brenda Baroness Political party Labour Role Trade unionist | Spouse(s) Keith McDowall (CBE) Party Labour Party Occupation Peer
Trade unionist | |
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Born 29 April 1943 (age 80)
Salford, England, UK ( 1943-04-29 ) Books Hot Mettle: SOGAT, Murdoch and Me | ||
Brenda Dean, Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, PC, FRSA (born 29 April 1943), is a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician.
She began her career as a trade unionist as a teenager, became President of the print union SOGAT in 1983, and was its General Secretary from 1985. In 1991, SOGAT became part of the Graphical, Paper and Media Union. Dean stood for the general secretaryship, but was narrowly defeated by Tony Dubbins, by 78,654 votes to 72,657. Instead, she became the union's deputy general secretary, serving for a single year.
She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1992. Dean was raised to the peerage in October 1993 as Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, of Eccles in the County of Greater Manchester and was appointed to the Privy Council in 1998. She was a member of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education that published an influential report in 1997.
Her autobiography, Hot Mettle, deals largely with her tenure as SOGAT General Secretary at the time of Rupert Murdoch's battles with her own and other trades unions, notably the Wapping dispute. She is a Vice-President of the Debating Group.
She became a director for Labour Tomorrow on 28 June 2016, an organisation that funds groups that oppose Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.