Who Is Mick Lynch?

What does Mick Lynch do

Career – In 1993, unable to find any more work in construction, he began working for Eurostar, and became active in the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). Twenty years later, he received a settlement for the illegal blacklisting.

Lynch voted for Brexit in 2016 because, “I don’t personally believe that the European Union should be a sovereign country”. This stance was in line with that of his RMT union which encouraged its membership to vote for Brexit, providing several reasons including protection of workers rights. He reiterated his support for Brexit in 2022, and later said he had done so in order to renationalise the railways, which he said was not possible within the EU.

Lynch served two terms as Assistant General Secretary of the RMT, and two terms on its executive. In 2020, after General Secretary Mick Cash took time off due to ill health, Lynch was appointed as the acting General Secretary, but stood down after a few months, accusing members of the union’s national executive of bullying and harassment.

This accusation was similar to Cash’s. During his time as Assistant General Secretary, Lynch criticised Boris Johnson ‘s suggestion that allowing driverless trains should be a condition for the funding of Transport for London services, accused the government of “using the tube as a political football” before mayoral elections, and threatened strike action if privatisation of the London Underground began.

The Stonehaven derailment also took place over these months, and Lynch offered his condolences on behalf of the RMT. He won an election for the permanent role of General Secretary and took up the position in May 2021. As part of the media coverage of the RMT’s 2022–23 strikes, Lynch gained widespread attention for his appearances in interviews and debates on the BBC, Sky News, TalkTV, and ITV,

• On 23 June 2022, Lynch was a panellist on BBC One ‘s Question Time,
• Piers Morgan criticised him in June for using a picture of the villain The Hood from the children’s TV series Thunderbirds as his Facebook profile picture, to which Lynch replied “is that the level journalism’s at these days?”.
• On 23 September 2022, he was a panellist on BBC One’s Have I Got News for You,

Media coverage in December 2022, particularly from Metro, as well as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, likened him to the Dr Seuss character the Grinch and accused him of wanting to “steal Christmas.” Lynch retorted that “I’m not the Grinch, I’m a trade union official, and I’m determined to get a deal.” In May and June 2023 Lynch was featured in the BBC series Strike: Inside the Unions,

What is the history of Mick Lynch

Mick Lynch has never sought fame. The Londoner has become something of a celebrity despite himself. Last year, when the union he leads, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, went on strike to demand better pay in the face of rising inflation, his calm demeanour and unflappable logic won him many admirers both at home and abroad.

1. I wouldn’t call it fame,” says Lynch.
2. But equally nobody wants to be in a union that nobody knows about.
3. If you’re in a completely anonymous union then they are probably not doing anything.
4. The RMT has always had a bit of a profile.
5. We’ve always been at the cutting edge and had a leading role in the union movement but it has gone a bit stellar recently.

I’m not stellar, but it’s gone into orbit really.” Those that follow and support the 61-year-old would beg to differ with him on his modest opinion of himself. In the age of squeaky-clean social media, anxious pr, and the constant threat of cancel culture, Lynch’s brand of communication has been embraced by many as a breath of fresh air.

“I think it’s that bit of straight-talking and not playing the media game,” he says. “Using fancy words like ‘disingenuous’ when what a person is doing is ‘lying’. And they’re just not used to that in the Westminster bubble. People are just too polite. They might not like to hear words like class struggle, destitution, and poverty, but there are people here, in working poverty, working full-time that are absolutely skint.

It’s got to be told. Some of the media don’t seem to like it but the public seems to. They are hearing an authentic working-class voice talking about problems that they are seeing in their communities.” Inevitably, some would prefer him to stay quiet on the failings of the country and its Conservative government. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch on a picket line outside Euston station in London, as members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union begin their nationwide strike along with London Underground workers in a bitter dispute over pay, jobs, and conditions TACKLING THE TASKS As his name suggests, Lynch has strong Irish roots.

His father moved to Britain from Cork during the second world war where he met and married Lynch’s mother from Armagh. Lynch was one of five siblings and was raised a Catholic in what he describes as “real poverty” in Paddington. Though poor, his home was rich with debate. “A lot was going on in the news back in the day between the Vietnam War and Northern Ireland and there were lots of radical things happening.

I was the youngest of five. So there was always discussion in the house, whether it was religion, politics, and music. It was quite an articulate house, loud, like most Irish houses and the community was like that too. There was a pub culture and you learn a lot in that environment; arguing your point or winding people up.

• That carried on into the workplace.” Lynch’s path to the role of Secretary-General was most certainly not “by design butwasn’t an accident either”.
• My upbringing was in a Labour household and I’ve always been in the union and the union movement,” he explains.
• My dad had been a shop steward in factories and he was a postman when there was a big strike in 1971.

My sister was active in the Labour movement.” “We always elect people in our union and people have elected me for different positions and all these things are a matter of circumstances. When the vacancy came up, I was asked to stand and went for election.

It wasn’t by design or a career path. It was more about tackling the tasks in front of us on the shop floor, in work and the union as an activist and then being pushed to the fore.” The Secretary-General comes to Dublin to address the inaugural Robert Tressell Festival. The event takes place all day Saturday, May 6, in Dublin’s Liberty Hall and celebrates the life of the Irish-born author of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists,

The novel, which was once described by George Orwell as “a book that everyone should read” is a semi-autobiographical work that tells the story of painter and signwriter, Frank Owen, and his co-workers, as they struggle with poverty, poor working conditions and unscrupulous employers at the beginning of the 20th century.

When a heavily watered-down version of the tome was published shortly after Tressell’s death from tuberculosis in 1911, it initially sold little. The ripples of that initial small splash would later turn to waves however, and its influence is credited, in part at least, with Labour’s victory in Britain’s first post-war election and the formation of the party’s first government.

“I read The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists when I was about 14,” says Lynch. “It informed ideas that were already welling up in me instinctively through all those conversations and arguments we had at home and in the pub. It put some theory and some knowledge behind it and it still informs me now. Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) joins members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) during a rally in Parliament Square, London STILL JOSTLING FOR A PLACE Though his seminal work has sold over one million copies, Tressell who was born and raised in Dublin, remains largely unknown in Ireland.

I think he’s still jostling for a place really,” says Lynch. “When it comes to the story of nationalism and republicanism, there are a lot of ingredients already in the mix in Ireland. The main character in the book, Frank Owen, is English. Tressell died in the UK when he was quite young. And when the book was eventually published and gradually became popular in the 1920s and 30s, you already had a lot of history to discuss and get through in Ireland.

So I just don’t think it found its place. Perhaps it will now.” No doubt, Lynch’s appearance at this weekend’s festival will help that reputation along and he is always happy to make the trip back home. Unfortunately, he won’t have time to see his beloved Cork City take on St Patrick’s Athletic this weekend but he gets back to Ireland as often as he can and was famously spotted last year at Turner’s Cross.

• Unfortunately, we didn’t get over that often when I was a child,” says Lynch.
• I only went back once with my dad, during the queen’s silver jubilee, because he couldn’t stand it over here.
• He used to go and visit his mother alright, but we could never go as a family because we were so poor.
• But I get over a bit more now.

When it comes to Cork City, I‘d support Cork in anything, even in tiddlywinks if they had a team. I support Ireland too. I was watching Ireland play cricket before it was fashionable. I’m going to Athens to see the football team play against Greece with my son.” Before that, Lynch has lots of work to do, and he will no doubt play his part in getting the Tories all out and keeping them away from the political crease for quite some time.

The Robert Tressell Festival takes place at Liberty Hall, Dublin on May 6. For more visit: https://tressellfestival.ie/

Was Mick Lynch a train driver

Who is RMT leader Mick Lynch?

• Britain’s rail networks will on Tuesday as more than 40,000 members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers () across and 14 train operating companies stage their latest 48-hour walkout, part of a long-running dispute over pay and conditions.
• Train bosses who want to cut 1,900 jobs argue that the railway has not recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, is currently losing millions of pounds a day and is in desperate need of modernisation and hence cannot grant the wage rises demanded by the RMT, despite the hardship that means for its staff.
• The first strike runs from Tuesday to Wednesday, followed by a second from Friday to Saturday.
• It is the first of 12 strike dates across December and January announced by the RMT, threatening to disrupt the festive period.

On the parts of the network that are operating, trains will only run from 7.30am to 6.30pm on this week’s strike days, although many parts of the country will have no services, including most of Scotland and Wales. The man at the centre of the dispute is again RMT general-secretary, who has repeatedly insisted his members have no alternative as they pursue a pay rise in line with as the crisis rumbles on.

1. Railway workers have been treated appallingly and despite our best efforts in negotiations, the rail industry, with the support of the government, has failed to take their concerns seriously,” he has said.
2. We have a cost of living crisis, and it is unacceptable for railway workers to either lose their jobs or face another year of a pay freeze when inflation is at 11.1 per cent and rising.

Our union will now embark on a sustained campaign of which will shut down the railway system.” In the most recent round of negotiations, the RMT said 63.6 per cent of its members had of a five per cent pay rise in 2022 and a further four per cent in 2023 on an 83 per cent turnout.

1. This is a huge rejection of Network Rail’s substandard offer and shows that our members are determined to take further strike action in pursuit of a negotiated settlement,” Mr Lynch said in response to that outcome.
2. The government is refusing to lift a finger to prevent these strikes and it is clear they want to make effective strike action illegal in Britain.

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union

1. “We will resist that and our members, along with the entire trade union movement will continue their campaign for a square deal for workers, decent pay increases and good working conditions.”
2. To promote and explain his cause earlier this summer, the veteran trade unionist carried out a media blitz in June and July during which he served up a well-deserved roasting to some of Britain’s most prominent news anchors and politicians.
3. Speaking to Sky News’s on 19 June, Mr Lynch was asked whether the strikes amounted to “class war” and he answered, very reasonably: “There’s a class aspect to everything in the economy.
4. “There are lower paid people and there are wealthy people in this society and what’s wrong in this society is that there is an imbalance between the people that do the work to keep this country going, who create the wealth of our civilisation and don’t get a fair share of that wealth because it’s going to people who are vastly wealthy.”

On resorting to industrial action, he said: “What else are we to do? Are we to plead? Are we to beg? We want to bargain for our futures. We want to negotiate I don’t want any working-class people in this country to have to beg their employers for a decent living.”

• He rounded off that interview by calling the reality of full-time workers having to seek state benefits and use food banks “a national disgrace”.
• When the strike got underway two days later, Mr Lynch was back on our screens to torch at his most Partridgian on ITV’s Good Morning Britain,
• When the presenter demanded to know whether he really was a Marxist hell-bent on bringing down society, the RMT man simply chuckled and observed: “Richard, you do come up with the most remarkable twaddle sometimes, I’ve got to say.”
• By lunchtime, he was on BBC Politics Live responding magnificently to a haranguing from Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis, who accused him of being a regressive relic and demanded that he apologise to doctors, nurses, school children and war veterans for interfering with their plans.

“I think Jonathan should apologise for talking nonsense,” Mr Lynch, “None of that is true. We have got automated technology on trains. We’ve got pantograph cameras, we’ve got ultrasonic sensors, we’ve got things that detect faults on tracks. So that is all rubbish, I negotiated that deal with Network Rail myself.

• That is just stuff that is written in Conservative Central Office for backbench MPs to spout.
• I don’t want this disruption, I don’t want people to be inconvenienced.
• I want a settlement to this dispute but I can’t do that with a backbench MP who’s just learned it off a script.
• We know what the issues are.” Mr Lynch later found himself up against the level boss of the beat-’em-up game that is broadcast news, none other than Sky’s formidable herself, who subsequently posted a clip of their encounter on social media insisting he had been “flustered” by her doggedness.

This was not the case. Mr Lynch was perhaps mildly exasperated but had simply refused to swallow the bait when she asked him persistently about whether union members would stop agency workers from crossing picket lines, seemingly insinuating that fights could break out between the two sides.

“What are you talking about? We seem to have gone off into the world of the surreal,” the union veteran said when Ms Burley invoked the miners’ strikes of the 1980s, standing aside to reveal a very quiet and well-behaved protest being staged over his right shoulder. “Your questions are verging into nonsense We will stop agency workers crossing the picket line by asking them not to go to work.

What is it you’re suggesting we will do?”

1. At that point, it was Ms Burley who declined to answer the question.
2. Back out in front of the cameras in December, Mr Lynch again found himself up against Mr Madeley, who this time accused him of “targeting” Christmas and told him to in an even more bitter and bickering exchange.
3. We should perhaps not be so surprised by Mr Lynch’s calm under pressure, given his long history in industrial relations.
4. Born in Paddington in 1962 to Irish immigrant parents, he was one of five siblings and raised in that he has since described to The Guardian as a “slum”.
5. He left school at 16 to train as an electrician before later moving into construction, working for Eurostar from 1993 and becoming active in RMT politics, eventually winning compensation for the illegal blacklisting he had suffered earlier in his career.
6. The man described as a and “even more militant than the infamous Comrade Crow” by The Daily Mail served two-terms as the RMT’s assistant general-secretary before stepping in as acting general-secretary in 2020 when was taken ill.
7. He was elected to the role full-time in May 2021.

: Who is RMT leader Mick Lynch?

Which union does Mick Lynch support?

Firebrand union leader Mick Lynch is to address the May Day rally in Belfast next weekend. Mr Lynch, who is the head of rail worker’s union the RMT and whose mother is from Co Armagh, will offer his support to those taking strike action in Northern Ireland.

The assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Gerry Murphy, said: “Every trade unionist across these islands, and many outside our movement, have been inspired and encouraged by the wisdom and clarity offered by RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch. “In a series of media interviews which became internet phenomena, Mick ignored attempts to sideline the justified demands of his members by trivial and stereotypical questioning, and instead outlined their just cause for decent pay and working conditions with style and wit.

“By doing so, Mick has assisted trade union representatives from every sector of our economy and society to explain with clarity why so many working people are taking the principled and initially costly decision to vote for strike action.” Mr Murphy said some unions were going on strike for the first time ever.

Three days before our May Day celebration, we are hosting a strike rally at Belfast City Hall on Wednesday April 26 for striking teachers and civil servants,” he said. “These strikes follow ballots of members passed with large majorities, including for the first time ever the National Association of Head Teachers.

“Eight trade unions plan to strike that day, and this can be added to ongoing disputes in our NHS, local government and universities and colleges. In recent months, we have seen strike action being successful in gaining better pay settlements for workers across the private and public sector.” Mr Murphy said the rally would also feature local speakers involved in industrial action across the economy.

What is the public opinion of Mick Lynch?

As rail workers prepare for Christmas strikes, what do Britons think of trade unionist Mick Lynch?

• As the public face of this winter’s railway strikes, trade unionist Mick Lynch has been thrust into the national spotlight, bringing with him a blunt interview style and the ability to divide opinion across Britain.
• Echoing comments from prime minister Rishi Sunak, unflattering media coverage has seen the general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) compared to and accused of waging over his support of strike action.
• But away from press and politicians, what do Britons really make of Mr Lynch?

Half of the public (50%) say they don’t know whether or not they hold a favourable or unfavourable opinion of the 60-year-old. Among those who do, he’s generally dividing opinion. More than one in five Britons (22%) have a favourable opinion of Mr Lynch, including 10% who think “very” favourably of him.

1. That gives the trade unionist a net favourability rating — the result of subtracting the percentage of people with an unfavorable view from the percentage with a favorable view — of -6, making him significantly more popular than the government’s transport secretary, Mark Harper (-16).
2. In contrast, the Conservative Party currently has a net favourability rating of -45 while prime minister Rishi Sunak’s is -24.
3. Keir Starmer’s net favourability rating now stands at -10 and the Labour Party’s at -3.

How much do union bosses get paid?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE RESEARCH – Key findings:

• The average total remuneration of the 30 senior union roles on more than £100,000 was £152,272 in 2021.
• There were six public sector trade unions with two senior staff on total remuneration of more than £100,000. These were; the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen; the National Education Union; the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers; the Prison Officers’ Association; the Royal College of Nursing; and the Fire Brigades Union.
• Nine senior staff at education unions shared £1,404,252 between them.

How much money is Mick Lynch on?

Mick Lynch is the frontrunner in the UK train strikes protesting against the government and train corporations over wages, job losses, and changes to terms and conditions. He is the general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the British trade union.

The train strikes in the UK come weeks leading up to Christmas causing trouble for many. What is the dispute? According to unions, any wage offer should reflect the growing cost of living. However, the train sector is under pressure to cut costs after the epidemic emptied its coffers. Unions say that measures must be agreed upon in order to fund pay raises and modernise the railway.

Network Rail is to remove 1,900 positions as part of changes to the way its maintenance teams operate, while it claims that the majority of this can be accomplished by employees departing voluntarily. The RMT opposes some of the modifications and wants an assurance that no compulsory job losses would occur.

Mick Lynch, the RMT’s head, has been one of the strikes’ key faces, bargaining behind the scenes and speaking to the media about the action they’re doing. After months of unsuccessful discussions, he recently sought a meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Who is Mick Lynch? The 60-year-old was raised in London’s Paddington neighbourhood, dropped out of school at the age of 16, and went on to become an electrician.

He started working in construction and joined a union, which resulted in him being blacklisted, for which he eventually earned a hefty payment. Lynch began working for Eurostar and became engaged in the RMT. He spent two years as the RMT’s assistant general secretary and two terms on its executive until being nominated interim general secretary in 2020 owing to Mick Cash’s illness.

Despite stepping down, Lynch won an election and assumed the post permanently in 2021. In this capacity, he has emerged as a prominent character in the ongoing rail strikes, with thousands of RMT members planning to strike over employment, wages, and conditions. What is his demand? Mick said that unless assurances are given concerning employment, pensions, and negative changes to working conditions, railway strikes would continue.

Lynch has also accused rail firms of neglecting to provide a better contract following the three walkouts in June. Companies, he claims, are ‘ransacking’ terms and conditions, and RMT will continue to negotiate in good faith but will not be pushed or cajoled.

He went on to say that the government should cease interfering in this conflict so that the rail employers may reach a negotiated settlement with us. What is Mick Lynch’s salary? There has been some discussion over how much Lynch gets paid for his job. According to reports, the trade unionist gets paid £84,000 a year.

Piers Morgan said in an appearance on TalkTV that Lynch is paid more than £124,000, which Lynch refuted. Lynch is said to have received £763,000 in pay and perks since joining the union in 2015.

Do people support Mick Lynch?

I’ve abandoned my useless British passport – Lynch better hope that the ticket office campaign means the public are warming to his strike action – because so far that hasn’t been the case. The last time the pollster Ipsos Mori asked the public in July, only 36 per cent of those surveyed backed striking railway workers.

Is Mick Lynch married?

Description – Born in 1962, Michael Lynch has served two terms on RMT’s Executive as well as two terms as RMT Assistant General Secretary and was elected RMT General Secretary in May 2021. After leaving school, he qualified as an electrician, then worked in construction before being illegally blacklisted for trade union activities.

Was Mick Lynch for Brexit

Mick Lynch challenged over his Brexit support by James O’Brien

Rail union boss was grilled over his support for and the potential for the UK’s exit from the to cause the ripping up of workers’ rights. LBC host James O’Brien challenged the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport () union over his decision to back a Leave vote in 2016 and the planned “bonfire” of EU laws after Brexit.”These are hard-won rights that the TUC now fears are going to be abolished by legislation being pursued by the current government as a direct consequence of the Brexit you supported,” the host said.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch LBC : Mick Lynch challenged over his Brexit support by James O’Brien

What does Mick Lynch want?

‘You don’t think strikes are the answer? What is?’ RMT’s Mick Lynch on work, dignity and union power I t is rare, these days, for the general secretary of a trade union, let alone a small one, to become a national figure. Yet Mick Lynch has done exactly that.

1. The leader of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), which represents 80,000 members, doesn’t like flattery.
2. Nonetheless, as the rail strikes in Britain enter their third month, he will concede that “a lot of people are telling me I’m doing good”.
3. I meet him in the RMT’s boardroom, round the corner from Euston station in central London, where the RMT recently had 1,000 people turn up at very short notice, to support a picket line in the dispute between railway workers and Network Rail.

Lynch looks, in his own words, like “the personification of what an RMT general secretary is”: white, male, bald, 60. He is making the point that he hopes the RMT will be more diverse in the future. He also looks like a man in charge of the moment: relaxed, with an easy sense of humour. ‘Marxist or the Hood?’: RMT’s Mick Lynch asked bizarre questions amid rail strikes – video Lynch’s detached, almost amused scorn spoke for many of us, not just about Piers Morgan, but also about how long we have been putting up with a media culture that means you can find 17 stories about the orphan/pensioner/dog who had their day ruined by a rail strike, but if you want a sober explanation of what the strike is about you will have more luck on TikTok.

1. It is about whether railway workers will accept what the RMT says is a real-terms pay cut over the next two years, plus the loss of one‑third of frontline maintenance roles and half of scheduled maintenance work.
2. In short, they will not.) “The state of journalism,” he says, shaking his head.
3. The questions they ask are so ” He chooses his word carefully.

“Dopey. They obviously don’t know what trade unions are. They think that we are all these cliches that they perpetuate. I’m a baron. My members are pawns. I can just move them about according to who I want to annoy that morning. Which is completely the wrong way around: unions are very democratic.

It sounds a bit pompous, but the members are sovereign in this union. They tell us what to do.” People have been told that they should be grateful for having a job, grateful for earning a living The traditional attacks on striking transport workers – that they are out to stop hard-working people getting to work, that they are better-paid than you anyway – are failing to land.

Gotcha. Oh, wait!

A poll during the strikes in June showed that supported the railway workers getting a pay rise that took into account the cost of living. The classic, convoluted centre-left position, held by Labour – that the demands are fair but strikes are bad – has come unstuck; the same poll found that only 18% of people were opposed to railway workers’ right to strike.

The bishop of Durham was on a panel with me last week, saying: ‘I identify with the issues, but I don’t think strike action is the answer,'” Lynch says. “But what is the answer? Do we pray, or play tiddlywinks, or have a sponsored silence? What is there for working people to do if they’re not organised?” Something has changed.

Conservative MPs’ insistence that railway workers’ conditions are pretty good, actually, is no longer provoking kneejerk resentment; it is generating solidarity. At the launch rally last week for the cost of living campaign Enough Is Enough,, “Our message must be this the working class is back,” he said.

“We refuse to be meek, we refuse to be humble, we refuse to wait for politicians and policy-writers – and we refuse to be poor any more.” Today, he says: “They are saying: ‘Because you’ve got the final-salary pension, because you’ve got sick pay and decent holiday pay, because you’ve got the ability to negotiate and not just be consulted on your working time and working practices, that’s all out of date.

You’re out of fashion.’ Everybody else in the country, at fulfilment centres or mega-warehouses, where they chase you around night and day, there’s no dignity in the work, is saying: ‘Well, why am I treated like this? Why can’t I have a union?'” ‘People have lost the ability to organise’ on the picket line at Euston station on 27 July. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA Lynch had no great ambition to lead the RMT, he says. “I didn’t want Bob to pass on, and I didn’t want Mick Cash to have to retire last year, but he did.

So we’re here. I didn’t become an officer in this union till I was 54. I didn’t have a trade union career. I was out doing my shifts. I was on the tools for 37 years, as an electrician.” Lynch has never been on a trade union course. He says there is nothing special about him, or the way he argues. “There’s lots of people who could be in my position, doing what I’m doing.

And that’s what they find so shocking, middle-class journalists, present company excepted: that they meet somebody who might have read something in their own time, or is able to go toe to toe with senior people in industry while being on the tools.” He was born in Paddington, west London, to Irish parents.

• It was a big family (he is one of five) with no money (his father, a shop steward, went on strike for seven weeks in 1971 and the hit on their income was unimaginable).
• He says he didn’t notice, because he was the youngest and his siblings shielded him from it.
• But you weren’t indebted.
• That was the key difference in working-class communities.

People now are carrying debt that my parents would have thought: ‘That is impossible.'” I didn’t become an officer in this union till I was 54. I was out doing my shifts. I was on the tools for 37 years He left school at 16 and did an apprenticeship. He rattles through his brothers’ and sister’s work – a painter-decorator, a teacher, a plasterer, a midwife – to illustrate that the horizons were fairly broad, especially with free tertiary education.

1. There were a lot of jobs, and the workplace was quite attractive, before Margaret Thatcher came to power.
2. His childhood was happy, he says: “I’ve got no complaints.
3. We were a coherent family.
4. My mum and dad didn’t split up.
5. None of us went to prison.
6. We weren’t in trouble; we were a respectable family.
7. But, from my memory, there were a lot of families like that.

Everyone paints working-class communities as being in crisis the whole time, as if there’s no sense of humour, there’s no fun or joy.” He worked in construction until he was blacklisted for union organising, at which point he moved to the railways. As happy as he is to talk about the casualisation of the building industry, he is careful to underline that declining conditions are a problem for everyone.

In your industry, people who are stringers or casualised find it very difficult. In universities, there’s no security whatsoever, People are beholden to whoever’s doling out the work.” The reasons for this have to do with more than the decline of unionisation, he says. “People have lost the ability to organise generally, I think, even in communities.

Where I grew up, there was a residents’ association, which had some of the most fearsome women you’d ever deal with – working-class women, who could stand up and articulate in front of councillors exactly the services they wanted.” ‘Everyone paints working-class communities as being in crisis the whole time’ at the RMT’s head office in central London. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian Then there is the fact we are two generations on from Thatcher. A lot of working people aren’t old enough to remember the assumptions of the mid-80s, when “you’d expect a level of dignity.

• You respected people for being workers and you had to respect workers’ organisations People have been told that they should be grateful for having a job, grateful for earning a living.
• They’ve been told that if you can’t earn enough in one job, to go and get a second job.” But you could argue Tony Blair was even more influential than Thatcher, in terms of outsourcing and subcontracting on a huge scale.

Now, the NHS, TfL and many other employers get their cleaners from a third party, while local authorities subcontract their housing duties to housing associations and their social care duties to exploitative providers. The results have been catastrophic for working and living conditions. ‘We refuse to be poor any more’ speaking at the launch of the Enough Is Enough campaign in south London this month. Photograph: Guy Bell/Rex/Shutterstock On this point, he has a gripe about the EU: “Everyone told us the European Union would solve all this.” This riles me a bit: however we got here, it wasn’t via Brussels.

1. It is not affiliated to Labour and can’t be held responsible for the party’s fudge, but it still contributed, I think, to the split on the left over Brexit that left Boris Johnson looking like the one with the answers.
2. He deflects that: the RMT is a small union; it wasn’t that influential; in any case, he still opposes the EU for its lack of democratic levers.

“But I’m not making the point about remain or leave. Frankly, I find all that tedious now. The point I’m making is that we can’t wait for court judgments and policy decisions. What I’m trying to encourage, with and Dave Ward and others, is we’ve got to put the industrial flag up.” The RMT’s next campaign will be for cleaners in the transport industry.

Lynch wants to get other unions involved, for cleaners in the NHS and beyond. The long game is to “punch a hole in subcontracting and make it really expensive. It’s a means of exploitation and people are fed up. Labour have got to say: ‘We believe in in-house work.'” We’re going to need the support of the whole of Britain’s public opinion.

It’s got to be bigger than my trade union He rattles off a list of other things the opposition should say: end low pay; end the housing crisis with municipally run, municipally owned council homes; end food poverty. “You’ve got to get people to identify with you, through values.” He shrugs off Keir Starmer’s proposal to as insufficiently radical: “.

1. So we’re gonna take that money off ourselves and give it to those companies to subsidise the price they’re charging the people they’re getting the money off.” He would rather the government sequestered North Sea gas and capped the wholesale price.
2. I run this past a friend later, who remarks sarcastically: “It worked for Hugo Chávez.” The Venezuelan president nationalised important industries in the 00s, but by the time of his death in 2013 the country was struggling with high inflation and endless shortages.

But socialist chaos looks a lot less scary in the middle of a crisis of late-stage capitalism. Lynch was attacked in various newspapers last week as a Putin apologist, after accusing the EU of empire-building and saying: “There were a lot of corrupt politicians in Ukraine.” That was true before Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but has also been one of Putin’s attack lines.

It is hard not to see it as a response to his popularity, an attempt to discredit him, but he is sanguine about it. “Anyone that knows me in this organisation knows that I condemned the Soviet Union; I thought it was a murderous death cult. I never played with any of the symbolism of red stars and hammers and sickles.

All oppressive regimes, without exception, are oppressive of workers and peasants. And then people tell me I’m a Putin apologist? I’m not. Putin should stop the war, get out of Ukraine and respect the sovereignty of that nation.” It is unrealistic at this point to think that we can avoid a Liz Truss government, however long it lasts.

• She has promised to go to war with unions, pledging legislation within 30 days to ; Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has chimed in,
• So they’re escalating the battle.
• We’re going to have to respond in kind.
• But this will need a union‑wide response.
• It needs the Labour party, because they are the movement.

We’re going to need the support of the community and the whole of Britain’s public opinion. It’s got to be bigger than my trade union, because we’re not able to do this on our own.” : ‘You don’t think strikes are the answer? What is?’ RMT’s Mick Lynch on work, dignity and union power

How much do union leaders get paid in the UK?

The average salary for Union President is £83,890 per year in the United Kingdom. The average additional cash compensation for a Union President in the United Kingdom is £29,010, with a range from £8,500 – £99,008.

Who is head of RMT Mick Lynch?

Who is Mick Lynch? – Mick Lynch is a British trade unionist who has served as the general secretary of the RMT since May 2021. The 60-year-old grew up in the Paddington area of London and left school at the age of 16 and qualified as an electrician. He began working in construction and joined a union which led to him being blacklisted from the trade, which he later received a large settlement for.

• To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Unable to find work, in 1993 Lynch began working for Eurostar, and became active in the RMT.
• He served two terms as assistant general secretary of the RMT and two terms on its executive before being appointed acting general secretary in 2020 due to Mick Cash experiencing ill health.

Despite stepping down from the role, Lynch won an election and took the role on permanently in 2021. In this role, he has become a key figure in the current rail strikes with thousands of RMT members taking part in planned strikes over jobs, pay, and conditions.

Who is leader of the RMT union?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (commonly known as the RMT ) is a British trade union covering the transport sector. Its current President is Alex Gordon and its current General Secretary is Mick Lynch, The RMT is one of Britain’s fastest growing trade unions.

What are the largest rail unions?

Congress has the power to intervene if workers strike – Should there be a strike, Congress would likely intervene within hours. The Railway Labor Act allows Congress to take any number of measures to get trains running again — including imposing some version of the contract or extending the status quo, kicking any decision to the next Congress.

At a series of town hall meetings over the last month, union leaders refrained from telling engineers and conductors how to vote but warned that if they rejected the contract in favor of a strike, the matter would be out of their hands. “Make your own decisions,” Dennis Pierce, national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said at a town hall in Independence, Ohio, on November 9.

“But the idea that will let us shut down the nation’s economy for any length of time I don’t think is likely.”

How does David Lynch get ideas

As for how to get ideas to begin with, Lynch has a range of trusted mechanisms. He is a vocal proponent of Transcendental Meditation, which he has practiced twice a day, for 20 minutes per session, every day for decades. And he’s a big fan of daily routines in general.

Who is the highest paid union boss?

Embargoed: 00:01 Monday 13th September 2021 With the TUC Congress in full swing, the TaxPayers’ Alliance has revealed that the average remuneration of the top 30 public sector union bosses was £150,755 in 2020. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, has criticised plans to end the temporary uplift to universal credit and warned of a “class chasm” between the low paid and higher earners.

• But the TaxPayers’ Alliance reveals that last year she received £167,229 in total remuneration, an increase on the year before.
• Her gross salary alone (£112,395) was 22 times the average amount for someone on universal credit.
• The highest-paid trade union boss was Tim Roache, former general secretary of GMB, who took home £288,000 in total remuneration.

The boss of the National Association of Head Teachers, Paul Whiteman, was the second highest paid, taking home £216,387, In total 8 e ducation union bosses shared £1,252,709 between them. Total remuneration includes gross salary, employers’ national insurance contribution, pension contributions and other benefits, such as a car or housing allowance and health insurance.

Can you make good money in the union

These are some of the benefits of having a union job: Better wages. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2019, full-time wage and salary union members had median usual weekly earnings 22.75% higher than those who were not union members.