Mick Lynch has said he will retire as general secretary of the RMT union, after four years during which he became perhaps the most recognisable presence on picket lines amid the biggest rail and tube worker strikes for decades.
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) said it would appoint a new general secretary in the first week of May. Lynch, 63, would remain as general secretary until then.
Lynch has led the RMT since 2021, after 30 years involved in the union. He became a national figure in 2022 when he led the RMT into the biggest industrial action on the rail network for more than 30 years, causing severe disruption across Great Britain.
Videos of Lynch went viral as he responded calmly but combatively to abrupt questioning in a series of interviews with journalists criticising the strikes. Even the rightwing Spectator magazine praised his ability to use “simple, plain-talking language” to make “mincemeat out of politicians and broadcast interviewers alike”.
Much of his time as general secretary, and assistant general secretary before that, was taken up with battles against the Conservative government, which opposed the union’s demands for pay increases. In September, shortly after the Labour government took power, RMT workers voted in favour of new pay offers.
Lynch said on Thursday “now it is time for change”.
“This union has been through a lot of struggles in recent years, and I believe that it has only made it stronger despite all the odds,” he added. “There has never been a more urgent need for a strong union for all transport and energy workers of all grades, but we can only maintain and build a robust organisation for these workers if there is renewal and change.
“We can all be proud that our union stood up against the wholesale attacks on the rail industry by the previous Tory government and the union defeated them.”
Lynch grew up in a union household, with his father an engineering worker and shop steward, according to a biographer. The RMT said Lynch qualified as an electrician and worked in construction, before being “illegally blacklisted for joining a union”.
He was then involved forming a breakaway union, the Electrical and Plumbing Industries Union, in 1988 after another union signed deals with companies at which it had few members.
He joined the RMT in 1993 when he began working for the nascent Eurostar rail link between London and Paris. He then rose through the RMT ranks.
Lynch’s salary in 2023 was £97,000, plus pensions taking his annual package to £127,000.
He became the face of the rail strikes in 2022, delighting some leftwing commentators with clearly articulated socialist politics – although he had previously alienated some with his support for the Brexit campaign.
His profile grew particularly after interviews with Sky News, Piers Morgan and Richard Madeley.
On Sky News he responded to comparisons to the 1980s miners’ strikes by calmly turning towards the picket line and saying, “Does it look like the miners’ strikes?”
When Piers Morgan asked him about his use of a Thunderbirds villain – to which he has some resemblance – on his social media profile, he said he wanted to “talk about the issues rather than a little vinyl puppet”.
And when Richard Madeley started an interview with a question about whether he wanted to bring down capitalism, Lynch responded: “You do come up with the most remarkable twaddle.”
Source: theguardian.com
