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. He was appointed an honorary fellow of Sheffield Hallam University in 1999. Career From 1960 to 1966 he worked for Firth Brown Tools, then Balfour Darwin from 1966 to 1981, then working full-time as a union official. AEU He joined the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) on becoming an apprentice at the age of 15. He became an AEU shop steward at Balfour Darwin in 1967 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". In 1981 he became a full-time union official, becoming the AEU's District Secretary for Sheffield. He was still working for the union in that city when he stood for the position of Joint General Secretary in 2002. General Secretary of Amicus Simpson was the surprise winner of the June 2002 election for the position of Joint General Secretary of the AEEU Section of Amicus. He beat Tony Blair's 'favourite trade unionist' – Sir Ken Jackson. He assumed the position of General Secretary in May 2004 following the departure of the MSF Section's JGS, Roger Lyons. In the above election, Simpson was seen as the left candidate, and was backed by the broad left in the AEEU, now known as Amicus Unity Gazette. During this election campaign he appeared at fringe meetings of the Amicus MSF section conference in Blackpool, defying an instruction from Jackson not to attend. He was still identified with the Unity Gazette and appeared at their national meetings until 2008, when he helped launch a rival "Workers Uniting Group". Simpson has repeatedly denied press claims that he was part of the "Awkward Squad" of trade union