New head of Organisation and Services at the TUC

date: 19 April 2013

embargo: For immediate release

Kevin Rowan, currently the Northern TUC's regional secretary, has been appointed as the new head of the TUC's Organisation and Services Department (OSD).

Kevin, 47, replaces Paul Nowak who earlier this year took up the newly-created post of Assistant General Secretary at the TUC.

As head of OSD Kevin will become part of the TUC's senior management team, and will be responsible for the TUC's work on public services, relations with unions, transport, young workers, health and safety, and its work in the regions and Wales.

Kevin has been head of the TUC's regional office, which covers the North East and Cumbria, since July 2002. He began working life in the VSEL shipyard in Barrow in Furness, becoming a shop steward shortly before his 18th birthday.

Kevin joined Preston College in 1995 and was part of the team which established the Carlisle Trade Union Education Unit. He then moved to join the GMB's Northern region as Education and Research Officer in 1997, before becoming Regional Secretary of the Northern TUC five years later.

Commenting on his appointment, Kevin Rowan said: 'With the government's policies causing huge damage to our economy, our public services and the living standards of millions of ordinary people, there has never been a more crucial time for the TUC to make the case for the alternative to austerity.

'There is also an urgent need for us to highlight the dangers of the government's keenness to involve private companies more and more in the running of our education and health services.

'Under the leadership of new General Secretary Frances O'Grady, the TUC is committed to a far-reaching campaign to win fairness for working people. Over the coming months we intend to reach out to everyone who shares our conviction that austerity and cuts are bad for the UK, and will be working towards a future that has jobs, growth and decent wages at its heart.'

Kevin has been a board member of NORCARE - a charity providing supported housing for vulnerable people in the North East - and of Equality North East and NEA2F (North East Access to Finance).

Kevin is married and lives with his wife Elizabeth and their two teenage sons in Northumberland. He is a keen cyclist and with his colleagues in the TUC office in Newcastle has taken part in a number of charity bike rides to raise money for the Emma Gyles Bursary - established in memory of Emma who died in 2008 aged just 24 of ovarian cancer.

The Bursary was set up in Emma's memory to help fund research into ovarian cancer and its aim is to raise £10,000 a year to fund a full-time medical student to work on the research at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead.

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