Career
Hicks joined the Young Communist League in 1953 and later the Communist Party of Great Britain. A full-time branch official for the union in 1986, Hicks was arrested and convicted of actual bodily harm during the Wapping dispute. His conviction and sentencing - to 12 months in prison - were controversial, with the national executive committee of the Labour Party voting unanimously to call for his release.
Hicks was expelled from the CPGB in 1984 "for allowing Rule 3(d) to be applied" as the chair of the London District Congress, id est (that is) continuing with the congress proceedings in defiance of a demand from CPGB General Secretary Gordon McLennan to close it down.
Hicks served as its general secretary until his replacement by Robert Griffiths in 1998, which led to an industrial dispute at the Morning Star and subsequently left the party and helped to form the Marxist Forum group. He is now retired and residing in Bournemouth.
He served as the trade union officer of the London-based Marx Memorial Library from 2005 to 2010. He has joined the Labour Party, and unsuccessfully stood as a council election candidate in the Boscombe East ward of Bournemouth on May 5, 2011, gaining 514 votes.