Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde obituary

Brenda Dean was the first woman elected to head a major industrial trade union.Brenda Dean, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, who has died aged 74, became one of the best-known trade union leaders in Britain as a result of her leadership of Sogat during the Wapping dispute in 1986-87, a brutal confrontation with Rupert Murdoch’s News International that would prove a watershed for the future of the print industry.