Being a trade union member in recent years has been as fashionable as double breasted suits, but keep something in the wardrobe long enough and it eventually comes back into vogue.
He might not be wearing flared trousers and he’s no fashion icon but Mick Lynch has emerged to become the champion of disgruntled workers across the country as many begin to realise that the old cry ‘unity is strength’ may just be true.
The RMT union boss has captured the mood of folk both in and outwith his own industry as he leads his members in their fight to protect their terms and conditions of employment.
With a laser focus on the facts and forensic attention to detail the unassuming sixty year old has left highly paid but slovenly and badly briefed TV and radio presenters looking like talent less duffers who haven’t done their homework.
He’s schooled them and in doing so revealed their ignorance and general lack of understanding with humour and a gentle disdain, which has bruised their reputations more effectively than any wild eyed tirade would’ve done.
He affably lampooned Sky television’s Kay Burley who appeared not to understand how a picket line operates despite being a long established journalist and presenter, leaving her attempting to claim that he’d been flustered, when in fact she was the one who ended up looking like the shopper whose carrier bag had burst at the checkout while a huge queue formed behind her.
Agency rail workers will be stopped at picket lines and asked not to cross.
RMT union's General Secretary Mick Lynch got a little flustered explaining why…#KayBurley FC pic.twitter.com/GiTb0WQkxn
— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) June 21, 2022
Similarly he left the overgrown schoolboy Richard Madeley looking like the class dunce as he flailed unsuccessfully trying to link the strike to Marxism; even Groucho wouldn’t have raised a titter with that lame effort.
Government propaganda can’t hide the truth
When lawyers and labourers alike are striking and joining picket lines you know the winds of change are blowing through the country.
In England criminal barristers are withdrawing their services, the RMT representing cleaners and catering staff among its membership are withdrawing their labour, and teachers and communications workers are contemplating action to preserve their living standards amid rising inflation and living costs.
It may shock some people to discover that striking legal aid lawyers in England are often earning less than minimum wage once expenses are deducted.
In Scotland many are withdrawing completely from representation, with younger lawyers deserting criminal practice in increasing numbers because they can’t make a decent living at it.
Unsophisticated attempts in some parts of the media to present strikers and trade unionists as radical politically motivated left wingers are backfiring as tired and hackneyed tactics.
When the professional classes and workers who are often disparagingly labelled as unskilled find themselves fighting in common cause to protect their living standards and jobs, then no amount of government propaganda can hide the truth.
The greed is good culture didn’t disappear
In 2017 thirty three thousand workers went on strike, now if communication workers win their ballot on industrial action over two hundred thousand workers will be withdrawing their labour between them and the RMT alone in just one month.
While Boris Johnson contemplated installing a £150,000 tree house for his children working folk have become scunnered at the avarice and hypocrisy of those in power.
Boris Johnson who tells us we can’t afford a pay rise to deal with his cost of living crisis, also wanted to get a Tory donor to pay £150K for a bulletproof treehouse for him
The same donor he asked to pay for his gold wallpaperMan of the people……just not normal people pic.twitter.com/3pfnuJz3Cs
— nazir afzal (@nazirafzal) June 25, 2022
Society has always had extremes of riches but the greedy grasping nature of what we’re seeing now with vast disparities of wealth is challenging all notions of fairness and decency.
There are people in work struggling to make ends meet having to use foodbanks, and it’s far too glib to tell them to budget better when their wages are too niggardly to cover the essentials of daily living.
The greed is good culture didn’t disappear with Gordon Gekko the rapacious financier played by Michael Douglas in the film Wall Street: it’s alive and kicking and there are sadly too many in power who don’t give a damn for anyone else as long as they’re doing very well.
A decent rate of pay is deserved by everyone who grafts
Across the board living standards are under pressure while the mantra of progress and efficiency is chanted by those who’ve never known a hungry day.
The old terminologies of working and middle class are also being exposed as outdated as professionals, trades-folk and others, all find that making ends meet is increasingly onerous.
My late mum used to say, ‘If you’ve to work for a living then you’re working class’, and any attempts to divide folk on the antiquated basis of a supposed class system are in today’s world misguided.
Whether you’re a labourer or lawyer, a driver or a doctor, you only have your skills to sell.
In a civilised society a decent rate of pay is deserved by everyone who grafts.
It should allow people to pay their way without constantly worrying about the costs of electricity or food or petrol to fill the car to get to work.
Mick Lynch and the RMT along with English criminal lawyers realise their best chance of success is solidarity and togetherness.
Recent opinion polls show the public recognise that too, with strong support for the strikers even among those adversely affected by their action.
Workers are singing from the same song sheet, and the old refrain being sung is ‘United we stand divided we fall’.
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