Sam Apter

The Labour Research Department was saddened to hear news of the death of Sam Apter, a very long-serving member of the LRD’s executive committee.

Sam, who died on 30 June at the age of 98, was a member of the EC from 1994 until 2014, where his long experience in the labour movement was highly valued.

Born in 1917 to a family of immigrants from Eastern Europe, he learned his politics on the streets of London’s East End in the 1930s.

After military service in the Second World War, he became an active trade unionist, holding lay positions at branch and regional level in a number of unions, including ASSET, ASTMS, MSF and Amicus — all predecessor unions of Unite — as well as in his local trades council.

Beginning university education in his 70s, he was one of the London School of Economics’ oldest PhD students.

Sam continued to be active in local politics until very shortly before he died.

As his local MP Jeremy Corbyn said of him, “he was someone who never lost his belief in the possibility of a socialist world”.