As the Usdaw convenor of shop stewards at Glaxo Operations in Speke, Liverpool, Joan Bohanna, who has died aged 76, was one of the few female shop-floor trade union leaders in the 1970s. Joan was known across Merseyside for her shrewd tactics and campaigning energy – against the closures of Speke’s Dunlop tyre plant and Standard Triumph car factory, for example. She immersed herself in support for the miners’ strike of 1984-85. She played a leading role, too, on the steering committee of the News on Sunday, launched in 1987, the shortlived attempt to challenge what she described as the poison of the Murdoch press. She moved heaven and earth trying to hold together this noble dream of a popular leftwing Sunday newspaper. Joan was born in Hamilton, and grew up in Stonehouse, South Lanarkshire, the younger child of Chris Liddiard, an ambulance driver, and his wife, Chrissie, a textile worker. After leaving Larkhall Academy in Stonehouse, she joined the Wrens (the Women’s Royal Navy Service) and was posted to Devonport, Plymouth. Joan met John Bohanna, who was then serving in the Royal Navy, at a Wrens dance in Devonport, where John’s ship was docked. Joan was 1.8 metres (5ft 11in), and her father had told her “never to bring a man under six foot inside this house”. At 1.85 metres (6ft 1in), John got over the threshold. They married in 1965. John was born and bred in Liverpool, and they settled in the city, where he became a senior shop steward at Ford Halewood, and Joan worked as a secretary at Glaxo, and became active in Usdaw (the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers). John introduced me to Joan in the mid-1970s, confident that we would get on. I still remember the feisty warmth of her welcome. By 1976, when they invited me to stay at their house in Halewood, Joan was proud to be a socialist and a feminist. She had a clear, forensic mind and was known for her distinct political activity. She held her own in any debate and would not be patronised by anyone. In 1981, Joan joined me, Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and other non-aligned socialists in organising a conference following the publication of our book Beyond the Fragments. Our shared conviction was that experiences of organising in the women’s movement carried insights for socialism, and that people from other movements, such as radical shop stewards, could similarly offer crucial perceptions. Joan shared her experience as a female shop steward battling both management and the attitudes of male colleagues. She said the latter were “much harder to handle”. Joan handled that and other challenges, including a long period of illness and limited mobility, with courage, compassion and commitment, fuelled by a love of life and the conviviality of family and friends. She worked night and day to achieve a society that could be enjoyed by all. Joan is survived by John, their son, John, and grandchildren, Jack and Charlie, and by her brother, Charles.