Not so much losing a deputy general secretary...The Oxford branch wishes John Fray well in his retirement John Fray is retiring from his position as Deputy General Secretary of the NUJ, which he has held since his election 10 years ago, though we consider it not so much loosing a deputy general secretary as gaining a branch activist.
A local lad, he gained early experience in trade union organisation while working at the Cowley car plant. The call of the movement led him to study at Ruskin college, and subsequently to a job organising broadcasting staff in ABS, which through successive mergers became BETA and now BECTU, one of the NUJ’s sister unions in broadcasting. He moved to the NUJ when the NUJ’s own broadcasting organiser, John Foster, was elected General Secretary, and saw the union through some of the more turbulent “Birt” years at the BBC.
These were turbulent years for the union as well, with the General Secretary, the financial controller and the Deputy General Secretary all being sacked within the period of a year.
John Fray’s election to the DGS position ushered in a welcome period of stability and focus at the top of the union. Together with Foster, the two Johns led the NUJ out of the darkness left behind by the Thatcher years of derecognition, and set about rebuilding a fighting union from the chapels up.
That strong working relationship carried on after Jeremy Dear took over from Foster to become Britain’s youngest general secretary, and the NUJ became recognised within the TUC as a model of recruitment and regeneration.
John is known in Oxford not just to members of the BBC and ITV chapels but to some of our books chapels as well, having stepped in to take individual cases on a number of occasions.
The Oxford branch wishes him a happy retirement, and thinks of this occasion not as losing a DGS but regaining a branch member.
With the burden of high office lifted from his shoulders, John has promised to start making it to meetings again.
The NUJ and the branch owes a lot to John and his wife Carole, also a lifelong local trade unionist. We hope to organise a social in their honour this summer.
AW 2008-05-05
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