A FORMER North-East coal miner is the new president of the country's largest union.

Dave Anderson, 49, said he will use his year in office as head of Unison to campaign against racism and the privatisation of public services.

Mr Anderson, who has also lived in Wales and Yorkshire, worked in the pits for 20 years, was a National Union of Mine-workers' activist, and was made redundant 14 years ago.

He went into social work with Newcastle City Council as a personal care worker with the elderly.

He became Unison's Newcastle branch secretary in 1990 and was elected to the public service union's national executive three years later.

He has been a member of the TUC General Council and the Labour Party Policy Forum since 2000.

Mr Anderson, who lives near Sunderland, said: "I am proud to be elected the president of the UK's largest un-ion. I have been disgusted by the fact that the BNP got such a vote in the local elections.

"I believe that we need to once again make the Labour Party relevant to ordinary working men and women in the North-East. It should still be the people's party.

"And I will be fighting against so-called reforms of our public services, which lead to cuts in our members' pay and conditions.

"Private companies should not be allowed to come in to make huge profits at the expense of front-line services.''

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said Mr Anderson would "keep Unison in the mainstream of the trade union movement and at the forefront of our campaigns to defend and promote our public services for the benefit of our local communities".