UNION LEADER MICK Lynch has announced his retirement as general secretary of the UK’s biggest rail workers’ union.
The 63-year-old, who was elected general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) in 2021, has led the union through a series of pay strikes over the past two years.
He has held a number of posts in the RMT after working in the construction industry for many years before being illegally blacklisted for joining a union.
In a statement announcing his retirement, Lynch said he was incredibly proud to have served the union both as a rank-and-file member and an elected officer.
“It has been a privilege to serve this union for over 30 years in all capacities, but now it is time for change.”
In 2022, the biggest rail strikes in Britain in 30 years saw the train network almost entirely grind to a halt as 40,000 workers downed tools in protest over pay rates and job security.
As head of the RMT, Lynch went from being virtually unknown at the time to something of a celebrity in a matter of days.
He went viral online for his run-ins with politicians and journalists, including an interview with Piers Morgan which included Morgan quizzing Lynch for having a picture of ‘The Hood’ from Thunderbirds as his Facebook profile picture.
“I am just wondering where the comparison goes,” said Morgan, “because he was obviously an evil, criminal, terrorist mastermind, described as the world’s most dangerous man who wreaked utter carnage and havoc on the public.”
"Do you think I look like the most evil person in the world, Piers?"
— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) June 16, 2022
Piers Morgan challenges RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch over his Facebook profile picture showing Thunderbirds baddie The Hood.@piersmorgan | @TalkTV | #piersmorganuncensored pic.twitter.com/hXd2sSEkps
When Lynch queried why Morgan had spent “two or three minutes of this interview talking about an irrelevance”, Morgan claimed that a disinterested Lynch was “irritated”.
A clip of an interview with Sky News’s Kay Burley also went viral on social media when Burley asked “what will picketing involve”.
Lynch replied: “Picketing is standing outside the workplace to try and encourage people who want to go to work, not to go to work. What else do you think it involves?”
Well done to Mick Lynch for his handling of this line of questioning. He could see what #KayBurley was trying to do. I could see what Kay Burley was trying to do. And he wasn't having any of it.
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 21, 2022
Oh, and solidarity to all @RMTunion members on strike today!✊🏽 pic.twitter.com/L0TQBPZ2g9
And on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Lynch infamously said host Richard Madeley had “come up with the most remarkable twaddle” when Madeley asked if Lynch was a Marxist who “is into revolution and into bringing down capitalism”.
“I’m a working class bloke leading a trade union dispute about jobs, pay and conditions of service, it’s got nothing to do with Marxism,” replied Lynch.
Richard Madeley goes full 'Alan Partridge' as he's shot down for asking rail trade unionist Mick Lynch if he’s a Marxist.
— Ragged Trousered Philanderer (@RaggedTP) June 21, 2022
‘Richard... you do come up with the most remarkable twaddle’ pic.twitter.com/L4hNajReXN
Lynch also has strong Irish roots - his father left Cork city in 1941 to travel to Britain to get work, while his mother is from Co Armagh.
“My dad was a proper Paddy, as I’m not ashamed to say,” Lynch said in a 2022 interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson.
“He went down the pub a lot. He was a labourer working on building sites with the original John Murphy, the big contractor.”
Lynch has also said that his family are from a “republican tradition” and once hailed James Connolly as a “hero”.
“Who’s your political hero?”
— Ógra Shinn Féin (@Ogra_SF) June 23, 2022
“James Connolly … he was an Irish, socialist, Republican”
Mick Lynch abú!🇮🇪✊ pic.twitter.com/ex0oaW46Gq
He told an ITV interview: “He (James Connolly) was an Irish republican socialist, and he educated himself and he started non-sectarian trade unionism in Ireland and he was a hero of the Irish revolution. He was a hero.”
In his statement announcing his retirement, Lynch remarked that the RMT “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.
“RMT will always need a new generation of workers to take up the fight for its members and for a fairer society for all and I am immensely proud to have been part of that struggle”.
The union said its executive committee has adopted a timetable for the election of a new general secretary, which will conclude in the first week of May.
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