Derek Simpson (born 23 December 1944) is a British trade unionist who was the Joint-General Secretary of the UK's biggest private-sector trade union, Unite, from 2007 until 2010. He was previously the General Secretary of Amicus from 2002 until its merger with the Transport and General Workers' Union to form Unite in 2007.
Early life
Derek Simpson was born and educated in Sheffield. He was an only child with an absent father. He attended Sheffield Central Technical School (a technical school, which transferred to the Ashleigh School in Gleadless and was then demolished having merged to become Myrtle Springs School which is now Sheffield Springs Academy).
In 1987 he received an Open University BSc in computing and mathematics. and held a number of increasingly senior union positions in workplaces where he was employed, learning his politics in what described as "the socialist republic of South Yorkshire".
Since becoming General Secretary, he has been supportive of the links between Amicus and the Labour Party. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain until its disbanding in 1991, he joined the Labour Party in 1994.
Personal life
Simpson met his first wife Freda when working at a greyhound track, parading the dogs and setting the traps. They married on 23 December 1967 in Sheffield. They divorced in 1974, and in 1976 Simpson married Linda Gilliver; they have two sons (born 1980 and September 1986) and a daughter (born 1982). Simpson then divorced Linda, and remarried Freda, who has two sons (born 1979 and August 1984) and a daughter (born 1977) from her previous marriage.