Mick Lynch is the commerce union icon who practically wasn’t. Leaving college at 16 to coach as an apprentice electrician, he labored in building till being blacklisted for his union actions. Unable to seek out work within the constructing commerce, in 1993 he took a job at Eurostar and have become concerned with the RMT. Development’s loss was to be the labour motion’s achieve.
Lynch was elected basic secretary of RMT in 2021, and a yr later, the UK’s first nationwide railway strike since 1989 catapulted him into the general public eye. He rapidly grew to become the face of a revitalised commerce union motion. Greater than that, to his supporters – like those that purchased T-shirts along with his face on them – he grew to become the combative, unapologetic working-class chief the left has been lacking.
On Thursday, Lynch introduced his retirement, leaving the duty of representing the transport union’s 80,000 members to somebody new. His recognition is in no small half as a result of he has been a fighter. “This union has been through a lot of struggles in recent years,” he stated in his retirement announcement. “I believe that it has only made it stronger, despite all the odds.”
In his quick tenure, these struggles have been fixed. There was the sacking by P&O Ferries of 786 UK seafarers through Zoom, earlier than “handcuff-trained security, some wearing balaclavas” marched the crew off the ship. The union fought a marketing campaign in opposition to ticket workplace closures in England that compelled the Tory authorities right into a U-turn, and is now preventing the same battle in Scotland. Much less well-known however equally important has been the union’s wrestle to finish outsourcing throughout the rail community, which noticed cleaners out on strike all through 2022.
Beneath Lynch’s stewardship, the RMT was instrumental within the battle in opposition to Tory minimal service ranges rules, which sought to severely limit strike motion within the public sector. Labour has now repealed these rules, scrapping them earlier than they’d ever been used. Their speedy disappearance could make it straightforward to overlook that they posed an existential menace to staff’ rights. “Meek compliance with this legislation,” Lynch warned, could be “the road to oblivion for this movement.”
After which there’s the nationwide rail dispute itself, which Lynch referred to as a “wholesale attack on the rail industry” by the Tory authorities. It ended after a yr, with a settlement that he admitted was “not a great deal”, however one which he argued was the very best that his members might hope for, in strained circumstances.
Lynch could be the primary to say that his job was to be accountable to RMT members, not journalists, however his persuasive, candid argumentative fashion gained him acolytes far past transport staff. Explaining his union’s industrial disputes within the media, he was routinely confronted with broadcasters and MPs who might barely conceal their contempt. By no means fazed, Lynch calmly dismantled TV and radio pundits one after the other, typically making his case explicitly by way of class battle. “I want a settlement to this dispute,” he advised then Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis. “I can’t do that with a backbench MP who’s just learned it off a script.”
When confronted with Piers Morgan’s fixation on why Lynch had the bald Thunderbirds villain The Hood as his Fb profile image, he shot again: “Is that the level we’re at? Don’t you want to talk about the issues rather than a little vinyl puppet from the 1960s?” He referred to as junior minister Chris Philp a liar on air 15 instances, advised Good Morning Britain’s Richard Madeley that he was speaking “remarkable twaddle”, and requested Kay Burley if a superbly jovial picket line outdoors Euston station “looks like the miners’ strike?”.
It was these interviews that established Lynch’s place as that uncommon factor: a distinguished, fashionable leftwing chief. And in turning daft questions on their head, he was capable of upend their primary premises: why ought to his members have to just accept below-inflation pay settlements? Why can we hear endlessly from “ordinary people” inconvenienced by strike motion, however not the bizarre folks placing for first rate pay and circumstances? Why is poverty solely improper till staff determine to do one thing about it?
When responding to disingenuous pundits and interviewers, Lynch persistently set out core commerce union ideas: that the office is a crucial web site of wrestle, that organised labour can and needs to be political and that should you’re not bargaining, you’re begging. To folks of an older era, these ideas might sound apparent. However for younger folks, having a basic secretary talking like this did essential work to demystify why commerce unions exist, and what they will obtain.
It’s essential to not overstate the influence of 1 man in a motion based on collective motion; and in any case, he solely represented a small portion of Britain’s workforce. However I used to be struck by a waitress I met who, after her colleague was unfairly sacked, made tens of pretend restaurant bookings for New 12 months’s Eve to spite her employer. Once I requested her what gave her the thought, she advised me: “I did it for Mick.”
When Lynch took the RMT union’s prime job 4 years in the past, I doubt he had any concept that his time period would coincide with the largest outbreak of commercial motion the UK has seen since Margaret Thatcher – nor that he’d retire having gained cult standing. Every time I’ve met him, he’s struck me as somebody bemused by the next he’s amassed. I’ve heard him say greater than as soon as that there are many individuals who might do what he does. Now we’ve bought the prospect to see if he’s proper.
