Reynolds was an indefatigable campaigner for better industrial relations and investment in Britain's manufacturing base, particularly in the West Midlands, where he lived in Birmingham.
He used the columns of The Pioneer, described as "a constructive shop- floor voice of British industry", for that purpose, writing many articles into his senior years. At the age of 96, Bert Reynolds, Publisher of The Industrial Pioneer, was still working on the publication's website on the morning before he collapsed and died.
A former member of the Post Office telecommunications workers' union, Reynolds became the Publisher of The Industrial Pioneer in 1987 when he was already in his seventies. He had retired, aged 60, from the Post Office in June 1975, having worked there for 45 years.
The Industrial Pioneer, published monthly since the 1960s, though more recently bimonthly, was seen in the trade union movement as the moderate voice of trade unionism. It was never affiliated to any political party, though Reynolds and the editorial team came more from the Christian socialist tradition of Labour's founding father, Keir Hardie, than from that of the hard left. The paper was funded by subscriptions and donations from supporters as well as a willing volunteer staff of writers.
