Bale was a Newport docker and Communist. He joined the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers Union in 1917 and, along with other South Wales dockers, was a supporter of the formation of the amalgamation that founded the Transport & General Workers Union in 1922.
By the 1930s, he was the leading force in Newport docks. A leading lay activist in the union’s wider Docks Trade Group, Bale was awarded the TUC Diploma for union studies and the TGWU Bronze medal for recruitment services.
This – and his long service – did not stop him from being banned from holding office as a Communist in the early 1950s, to the dismay of his highly supportive union branch.
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