Henri Berckmans

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Henri Berckmans (died 1950) was a Belgian trade union leader. He started as a wood engraver and became secretary of the Union of Wood Engravers of Brussels in the 1910s. In 1913 the union merged into the Central Union of Workers in Lithography and Kindred Trades. When François Poels was sent to government work during World War I, Berckmans acted as general secretary and then held the job permanently in 1919, also editing the union’s journal, De Arbeider der Graphische Kunsten.

In 1924 he helped form the Union of Bookworkers of Belgium, becoming its general secretary and editor of its journal De Boekbewerker. Poels died in 1926, and Berckmans was elected secretary of the International Federation of Lithographers, Lithographic Printers and Kindred Trades, but he did not succeed in that role and stood down in 1929. He retired from his trade union post in 1935 and later worked at the Cartographic Institute.