John Monks
 John Monks      (politician, labor leader) | |
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| Born | 5 August 1945 Manchester, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Nottingham |
| Member of | Centre for European Reform |
| Party | Labour Co-operative |
UK and European trade union leader. Member of a number of strongly pro-EU (and well paid) lobby groups.
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John Stephen Monks, Baron Monks is a member of the House of Lords and former trade unionist leader, who was General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the UK from 1993 until 2003. He also was General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) from 2007 until 2011, having been made a Life peer in 2010.[1]
He attended the 1996 Bilderberg meeting when General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress. Monks was a Governor of The Ditchley Foundation. He was a trustee of the lobby group Friends of Europe and European Policy Centre, and in 2008 he became Vice-President of the association European Movement International.[2]
Early life
Monks was born in Blackley, Manchester, and educated at Ducie Technical School in Moss Side. He studied Economic History at the University of Nottingham.
Career
From 1967 to 1969, he was a management trainee and junior manager with Plessey in Surrey.
He joined the TUC in 1969 and by 1977 was the head of the Organisation and Industrial Relations Department, and the Deputy General Secretary in 1987, leading to his election in 1993 as General Secretary.[3]
He was General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, based in Brussels, between 2003 and 2011.[3]
He took his seat in the House of Lords on 11 October 2010, having been created a life peer on 26 July 2010 as Baron Monks, of Blackley in the County of Greater Manchester.[4][5]
In August 2014, Monks was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[6]
What about the Workers?
A profile in the Economist stated that:
- The boss of Europe’s unions may seem an unlikely standard-bearer for free-market capitalism. But Mr Monks thinks unions have an important role to play as capitalism is reshaped by the financial crisis. More of a thoughtful administrator than a bombastic leader, he never really liked the language of antagonism that pitted labour against capital and saw collective-bargaining agreements as merely a truce in the class war.[7]
Not entirely divested of schadenfreude, the report revealed something of a lacuna in Monks' weltanschauung:
- Mr Monks confesses shamefacedly that until his daughter’s boyfriend joined a hedge fund in 2005 he had no idea how modern finance worked. As the young man explained hedge funds, private equity, mezzanine finance, leveraged deals and short-selling, Mr Monks’s eyes widened. Gradually it dawned on him why the solid old industry scene of ICI and General Motors was going, well, the way of ICI and GM. Up until this point he had assumed that he was just reshaping trade unions to face a world where industrial jobs and union membership were in decline.
These insinuations that he knows very little about capitalism have not deterred Monks for arguing that a rescue mission should be mounted to save "capitalism from the speculators" in Europe's World, the magazine he also advises. Here, he argues that:
- Capitalism is under threat from greedy big-time speculators, warns John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). He says the trade unions must unite with business and governments in a new social partnership to counter the financial markets’ self-destructive orgy.[8]
The article obfuscates the workings of the financial whirlpool and does not rise beyond phrases such as: "Their philosophy barely progresses beyond Abba’s refrain: “Money, money, money. It’s a rich man’s world.”"
Event Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilderberg/1996 | 30 May 1996 | 2 June 1996 | Canada Toronto | The 44th Bilderberg, held in Canada |
References
- ↑ Lord Monks Parliament.UK, accessed 22 December 2014
- ↑ https://policymogul.com/stakeholders/11302/lord-monks
- ↑ a b Stevenson, Alexander (2013). The Public Sector: Managing The Unmanageable. ISBN 978-0-7494-6777-7.
- ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/59502/page/14515
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20101227144701/http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/john-monks/69371
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/07/celebrities-open-letter-scotland-independence-full-text
- ↑ The Economist (2009) Back to the future: John Monks says trades unions should press for a return to more old-fashioned capitalism, Feb 12th.
- ↑ John Monks (2008) Saving capitalism from the speculators, Europe's World.
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