Thomas Kennedy (1887 – 18 September 1947)[1] was an Irish Labour Party politician and trade union official.

While O'Brien was elected general treasurer of ITGWU in 1918,[6] Kennedy started serving on the Executive Council.

[8] Such low wages and poor living conditions caused the plan to be collectively opposed by workers after it was promulgated.

Kennedy claimed that the problem of unemployment would have to be dealt with "on the basis of camp life", and urged support for the scheme with O'Brien at the Irish Trades Union Congress (ITUC) executive.

After the negotiations with them in 1941, de Valera introduced two bills, the Trade Unions Act 1941 and Emergency Order Power No.

So when the bill was introduced, O'Brien and the ITGWU leadership limited any discussion against new trade union law.

Instead, since O'Brien had made an unsuccessful proposal a few years earlier to rationalise the structure of the Irish Trades Union Congress, he simply condemned Order No.

Influenced by O'Brien, the ITGWU leadership and executive committee members, including Kennedy, eventually compromised on the trade union law.

[5][9] Senior Lecturer in Sociology at University College Dublin Kieran Allen pointed out the reasons why the ITGWU leadership including Kennedy, showed such a compromising attitude.

The others was the overwhelming popularity of de Valera's neutrality policy among the people, and the common hostility towards British trade unions.

Kennedy proclaimed that "we in the union are in firm and determined agreement on this neutrality and we will do all in our power in maintaining it", and denounced the war as "an imperialist blood-lust".

In the debate over this move in the ITGWU Conference, Kennedy tried to increase support for the split with a bitter anti-communist attack which failed to allay the doubts of many delegates.

[5] At the end of 1923, the engineer Thomas McLaughlin working for Siemens-Schuckert approached the new Irish Free State's Minister for Industry and Commerce Patrick McGilligan with a proposal for a much more ambitious project.

The government was accused of playing "fast and loose with established conditions of employment … in their latest outrage on the Shannon banks".

He accused, O'Brien and Kennedy of having supported the Executive Council in defiance of the interests of the members of their own organization.

However, at the ITUC's 1935 Congress, held in the Guildhall in Derry, Kennedy argued that "it was the first measure to give male labour their rightful place in the new industries".

[14] Helena Molony of the Irish Women Workers' Union (IWWU) responded, telling delegates that "it was terrible to find such reactionary opinions expressed ... by responsible leaders of labour in support of a capitalist minister in setting up a barrier against one set of citizens".