Thomas McKenna (trade unionist)
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Thomas McKenna (4 April 1876[1] – 13 October 1939) was a British trade unionist.
McKenna was born in Felling, Tyne and Wear, to an Irish father.[2][3] By 1885, McKenna was employed at an ironworks in Stockton-on-Tees, and he joined the National Association of Blastfurnacemen in 1889,[4] becoming an official of the renamed National Federation of Blastfurnacemen around 1899.[5] He was elected as secretary of the Cleveland and Durham Blastfurnacemen and Cokemen's Association in 1912,[6] then in 1914, he was elected as the federation's president,[4] and as its general secretary in 1917.[7]
Under McKenna's leadership, the federation became a more centralised union, the National Union of Blastfurnacemen, Ore Miners, Coke Workers and Kindred Trades.[4] He also took part in the International Metalworkers' Federation, becoming secretary of its British section in 1930.[5]
In 1939, McKenna was appointed to the iron and steel control committee of the Ministry of Supply, but he died later in the year.[5]