Along with Sammy Barr and Jimmy Airlie, he was one of a trimvirate of Communist Party shop stewards who became the public face of the "work-in" when 8,000 upper Clyde shipyard workers defied the government-imposed closure and occupied their yards for 15 months. 

Reid's eloquence ensured that the issue was broadened beyond that of shipyard jobs to the right to work for all workers facing redundancy and unemployment.

"We are not going on strike," said Reid.

"We are taking over the yards.

We refuse to accept that faceless men can take these decisions."

Reid was born in Govan, left school at 14 and served his apprenticeship as a fitter at Polar Engines.

 In 1952 he helped lead the strike by Clydeside engineering apprentices for a living wage and became chairman of the strike committee.

Originally a member of the Labour League of Youth, he joined the Young Communist League (YCL) in 1950 and in 1956 moved to London as one of its full-time organisers, becoming its general secretary in 1959.

He returned to Scotland in 1966 to become Scottish secretary of the Communist Party.  

Reid's involvement with the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) came when he returned to his trade in the Govan Division of UCS in 1969, moving to the John Brown Division in Clydebank where he married Joan Swankie and was elected as one of the four Communist Party councillors on Clydebank town council.

The semi-nationalised UCS had been created in 1968 by Tony Benn to rescue five loss-making shipyards on the upper Clyde. 

The Conservatives came to power pledging to kill off industrial "lame ducks" and in June 1971 they withdrew trade credits, pushing the company into administration. 

Some 6,000 workers were scheduled to lose their jobs within three months.

Under the leadership of Reid, Airlie and Barr the co-ordinating committee of the joint shop stewards refused to accept this outcome and occupied the yards. 

The great achievements of the shop stewards leadership was to keep the workforce united across all yards, build a much wider alliance involving the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and convert the issue of shipyard jobs into a struggle that galvanised the entire British trade union movement. In this Reid played the leading role.

Recently released government records reveal the dismay of ministers at the "monopoly of publicity" achieved by the shop stewards and the degree to which the occupation of the yards was directly undermining their wider industrial relations strategy. 

In Scotland two one-day strikes stopped industry across the country and over the following 12 months 200 other workplace occupations took place across Britain to halt redundancies.

Reid's power as a public speaker saw him winning election as Rector of Glasgow University in 1972 in a contest against the Tory MP Teddy Taylor and Labour's Margaret Herbison. 

Following the success of the work-in, Reid and his fellow Communist Party councillors played a decisive role in winning Clydebank town council over to the position of refusing to implement the Tory Housing Finance Act, which was designed to undermine council housing. In the following parliamentary election Reid won 5,928 votes for the Communist Party.

In 1977 he left the Communist Party.

Two years later he unsuccessful contested a parliamentary seat for the Labour Party, and then became a columnist for the Daily Mirror and Glasgow Herald. 

In the 1980s he wrote for Murdoch's Sun newspaper and criticised Arthur Scargill during the miners' strike.

In the 1990s he moved back towards the left and was critical of Blair, new Labour and the Iraq war.

He helped establish the Scottish Left Review and joined the Scottish National Party in 2005.

However, his lasting legacy is witnessed by the 5,000 shipyard workers still employed on the Clyde today.