Tony Cooke, the former head of Unions WA and figurehead for massive industrial protests against the WA government in the 1990s, has died at the age of 62 after a long battle with cancer.

Mr Cooke, who died just after 11pm on April 24, was a well-respected union official and was at the centre of a movement against the industrial reform pushed by Richard Court's government in the 1990s.

WA Premier Mark McGowan praised him on Twitter, calling Mr Cooke "the leader the union movement needed as the 21st century began".

Tony Cooke leads a mass union march down St Georges Terrace in Perth. ( Supplied )

Loading

Deputy Premier Roger Cook said Mr Cooke was a "terrific bloke and a great friend".

"Tony was a giant in the labour movement, his strength and leadership … was an inspiration to all young members of the labour movement, such as myself," Mr Cook said.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) also praised Mr Cooke for his lifetime of service to the workers of the state.

"A proud life member of both Unions WA and the ALP, Tony leaves us loved by so many and with a better legacy than he inherited," the union posted on its Facebook page.

"No more pain. The struggle is over for others to carry on."

Loading

Unions WA secretary Meredith Hammat said Mr Cooke would be remembered as one of the most influential WA leaders in recent times.

"He was an enormous figure for the Western Australian trade union movement," Ms Hammat said.

"Even after his time at Unions WA, he continued to work to make sure working people in this state could live with dignity and respect.

"He's left a lasting legacy."

Ms Hammat said Mr Cooke had a "humble and personal style."

"There's no doubt that Tony had a strong commitment to improving the lives of working people, both at work, but broader community objectives as well and he really worked his whole life in the pursuit of that," she said.

Life devoted to protecting workers

Mr Cooke excelled at school and in the air cadets.

He came to devote himself to helping those less fortunate, which for him meant joining the union movement.

Tony Cooke engineered massive union protests against the Court government changes. ( ABC Perth: Jamie Burnett )

Protests became increasingly confrontational as he rose through the ranks of the Trades and Labour Council (TLC), which he later renamed Unions WA, becoming state secretary in 1995.

Unions and a range of community and religious organisations opposed the Court government's waves of industrial relations legislation, which they saw as severely restricting workers' rights.

Mr Cooke lead the charge when union battlegrounds shifted to the wharves and against mining companies, when stevedoring company Patrick Corporation tried to restructure, sparking mass protests at Australia's major ports.

The protests culminated in a rally of an estimated 35,000 people from the Perth CBD to Parliament House.

After leaving Unions WA in 2001, Mr Cooke worked as a consultant and stayed active in employee and volunteer organisations.

Tony Cooke and his wife Barbara at the reopening of Trades Hall. ( Supplied: Rob Mitchell )

Stepping out of a dark shadow

But Mr Cooke also had a connection to a much darker side of West Australian history — his father Eric Edgar Cooke killed eight people and tried to murder 14 others in a crime spree running from 1959 to 1963.

In 1964, Eric Cooke became the last man to be hanged in Western Australia. His son later became a vocal campaigner against the death penalty.

One of seven children, he told Australian Story in 1998 that as a child he was forced to stand up to bullies who tormented him over his family's past.

"I snapped," he said.

"I decided look, these kids haven't got any right to treat me like this, why are they so curious about it anyway, it's just part of my life.

"I'm going to have to learn to live with it, it's not going to dominate me."