During this period, he was a delegate to its national conference on five occasions, serving on its standing orders committee for five of these.
[4] In 1950, Hanley began working full-time for the union, as divisional organiser of its number 12 district.
[4] Six years later, he narrowly defeated Edwin Boyce to become executive councillor for division number 5, which covered Sheffield and the East Midlands.
He held this seat in 1964, when he beat Boyce by an even smaller margin, being seen as the more right-wing of the two candidates.
[4] Hanley retired from all his union posts in 1970, and was succeeded on the executive council by Les Dixon, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.