He served as general secretary of the North West region (comprising Lancashire and Cumberland) from April 1961 and joined the national executive in 1963.
Combined with the shortages caused by the Middle East oil crisis, Britain faced widespread power cuts.
On 20 December Gormley attended negotiations with Willie Whitelaw, Secretary of State for Employment, and was forced to shelter in an Italian restaurant due to an IRA bomb scare.
[8] The Prime Minister, Edward Heath, called a snap election on this issue, asking the public, "Who governs Britain?"
[citation needed] In 1981, the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, threatened to break with the 'Plan for Coal' and close 23 pits.
In 1982, his last-minute appeal got miners to accept a Government offer of a 9.3% raise, rejecting Scargill's call for a strike authorisation.
[citation needed] He was made a life peer as Baron Gormley, of Ashton-in-Makerfield in Greater Manchester[11] in the 1982 Birthday Honours.
[citation needed] In 2002, the BBC uncovered that Gormley had passed on information to Special Branch about extremism within his union.