Ian Lavery Ian Lavery Ian Lavery (born 6 January 1963) is a British Labour Party politician and former trade union leader from Northumberland who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wansbeck since the 2010 general election. Born and raised in Ashington, Lavery began work in the construction industry after leaving school before becoming a mining apprentice. Noted for being the sole apprentice to refuse to work during the miners' strike of 1984-1985, he gradually rose up the ranks of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and was chosen to succeed Arthur Scargill as NUM President in 2002. Once elected to
History of trade unions in the United Kingdom as international bodies such as the international Confederation of Free Trade Unions that excluded communist unions of the sort that joined the Soviet-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions. In some trades, especially coal mining, the Communists did have some power, as typified by Arthur Scargill, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. Scargill defied public opinion, a trait Prime Minister Thatcher exploited when she defeated his strike in 1985. More effective in the Communist cause was Ken Gill, president of a large union and in 1974 the first Communist elected in decades to the