Jack Jones, who died on 21 April, 2009, aged 96, was one of Britain’s best known trade union chiefs, as well as an anti-fascist activist and a campaigner for pensioners’ rights.

He was general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, the largest workers body in the country, for a decade in which the unions were at the height of their power. At one stage he was regarded as more powerful than the prime minister, James Callaghan.

Born James Larkin Jones in Liverpool on 29 March, 1913, he did an apprenticeship in engineering but was forced to work as a sign writer and docker during the Great Depression. Influenced by leftist literature, he became involved in unionism and was elected a shop steward, organising rallies against Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.

In 1936 he joined the International Brigades fighting Franco in the Spanish Civil War, returning to England after being wounded two years later at the costly republican defeat at Ebro.

When the Second World War broke out, in his new role at the TGWU in Coventry, Mr Jones oversaw industrial production towards the war effort and continued to represent West Midlands workers after the conflict ended.

He was elected general secretary of the TGWU in 1968 and between then and retirement in 1978 took on three successive governments and prime ministers Harold Wilson , Edward Heath and James Callaghan , wielding a level of power that caused much disappointment among right-wingers.

After stepping down from the TGWU, he became president of the National Pensioners Convention, a role to which he brought as much passion and energy as he had in his position as a workers’ representative.

Former TUC general secretary Norman Willis was one of those to pay tribute to Mr Jones following his death at a care home in Peckham, London. He said: “Jack Jones was a great fighter for ordinary people whether they were at work or unemployed or later as pensioners. He never forgot the underdog and will be remembered with affection.”

Former Labour leader Lord Kinnock said: “No airs and graces, easily approached, he was strong and he used his strength for its best possible use – that's to help people who either permanently, because of disadvantage, or temporarily, because of illness or age or youth, weren't strong. That's what he thought the privilege of strength was.”

Tony Benn said: “I feel a real sense of personal bereavement. Everything he said, he believed. He was bitterly attacked, but if he was powerful it was only because he represented people.”