Walter James Knox ONZ JP (6 March 1919 – 1 December 1991) was a leading New Zealand trade union leader.

[1] Knox worked as a truck driver and watersider, becoming involved in the 1951 waterside strike, and rose through the union ranks to become secretary of the Auckland District Woollen Mills Employees’ Union and vice president of the Auckland Trades Council in 1961.

In 1969, Knox became secretary of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, working alongside the organisation's president, Sir Tom Skinner.

Skinner, Knox and other trade union leaders Ken Douglas, Bill Andersen, Pat Kelly, Blue Kennedy and Con Devitt were all well known in New Zealand 1980s due to ongoing industrial action.

[1] Knox was married twice, first to Margaret Joyce Svendsen in 1943, they had two children and a long marriage, then to Elizabeth Watson Bell Curtis (née Norrie) in 1983.