By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 28 October 2011
Campbell Christie, the former trade union leader whose Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services in Scotland reported earlier this year, has died at the age of 74.
Christie, who had been battling cancer, was general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress from 1986 to 1998 and one of the architects of the devolution settlement, was a key figure in the Scottish Constitutional Convention.
His successor at the STUC, Grahame Smith, said this morning: ‘He was a tremendous ambassador for the trade union movement and for Scotland, bringing genuine strength of feeling and commitment to everything in which he was involved.’
First Minister Alex Salmond said Scotland had lost ‘a giant of the trade union movement and of public life’.
The son of a Galloway quarryman, Christie became a National Assistance clerk at 17 and rose through the ranks of the Civil Service Clerical Association.
Together with his younger brother Leslie, who would also become a union leader, he was a leading light in the ‘Sauchiehall Street Mafia’, a Left-wing cadre of young Scots who transformed and radicalised the civil service unions in the 1960s.
By the 1980s, Christie was the Broad Left’s top union strategist, in line to lead a planned civil service super-union and seen by some as a future TUC general secretary. But he was determined instead to help build a new post-Thatcher Scotland, and his acceptance of the STUC post dismayed many southern colleagues.
Under Christie, the STUC became natural convener of civic Scotland’s anti-Conservative consensus, leading colourful campaigns on issues such as the Poll Tax and the closure of the Ravenscraig steelworks. He also pulled together the loose but inclusive home rule alliance that led to the Scottish Constitutional Convention and ultimately to a Scottish Parliament.
Christie followed his STUC term with a vast array of activities, including membership of the European Union economic and social committee, chair of Falkirk Football Club, and president of the Scottish Council for Development & Industry.
His recruitment by the Scottish National Party government to head the public services commission reflected the respect he commanded across the political spectrum. The ensuing report is proving to be a practical template for greater partnership and efficiency in public service delivery.
