He was educated in Edmondsley and worked as a panel beater from 1951 to 1957, joining the General and Municipal Workers' Union (GMWU, later merged to form the GMB).
A polite and unassuming man with a low profile, he was an effective "fixer" behind the scenes, drawing from a base in the union's heartland in the northeast and setting many on the path to power.
He was also a trustee of the Board of Governors of the University of Northumbria, a Deputy Lieutenant and Honorary President of Hartlepool United.
He was an important moderniser on Labour's National Executive Committee in the years before the party's landslide victory at the 1997 general election.
On 21 October 1997, he was created a life peer as Baron Burlison, of Rowlands Gill, in the County of Tyne and Wear.