Alex Ferry Foundation (AFF)

The Alex Ferry Foundation (AFF) is a new Foundation established in January 2019. It aims to improve the lives of people who work or have worked in the UK shipbuilding, engineering and related manufacturing industries, as well as their families and dependants. It will be a unique charity. Never before, to our knowledge, has such a significant sum been donated by union members for the benefit of lay members of trade unions and their communities before.

Named after the former General Secretary of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (the CSEU), Alex Ferry Limited was created with the assets of a trust fund established in 1989 by the CSEU to provide financial support to workers in the UK shipbuilding and engineering industries and in related manufacturing industries who were then engaged in industrial action. It is thought that approximately 200,000 trade union members contributed to the fund, with their contributions constituting the vast majority of the assets donated.

Following successful conclusion of the initial campaign and industrial action, a surplus was left in the fund which over time, that surplus has increased very considerably with investment return and now amounts to many millions of pounds. That sum will now provide the endowment of the AFF.

Alex Ferry passed away in 1994. You can find out more about the man behind the charity in an obituary published by The Independent shortly after his death.