John Thomas Byrne MBE (24 January 1903[1] – 5 December 1969) was a Scottish trade union leader and anti-communist activist.
In 1948, he stood to become assistant general secretary of the union, losing to Frank Haxell, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
[4][5] In 1956 Byrne was awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours for his services as an Area Secretary to the Electrical Trades Union in West Scotland.
He and Frank Chapple took Haxell and fourteen other CPGB members to court, alleging that the election had been fixed.
They banned communists from holding elected office in the union, and the ETU was subsequently readmitted to the TUC and Labour Party.