RMT strike Sunday 19th June

Well it was jolly nice of them to cause no inconvenience to the public whilst undoubtedly making their point with the management. If only all disputes could be dealt with in such a passenger-friendly way...

It must be tricky for Bob at the moment. He has to keep his profile up to justify his salary and does this by confrontation with management. He's certainly not stupid, but I missed the point as to why he called the strike before the outcome of the adjudication is known. Maybe something to do with timing. He's on dodgy ground with pay strikes as the public are not on the side of the workers as they're one of the main causes of high fares.

Where would the system be without any workers? The greatest wage bill is the number of managers who do little else but polish a chair.

The only reason he needs to keep his profile abreast as this is the reputation he has forged for himself. One very strong principle of Maciviallian power theory concerns playing to your strengths and keeping your 'subjects' in this case RMT members contented. As his method as have proven to work and to get him what he wants Bob is continuing to do just that. I might not agree with the motives or the outcomes of his mantra, but he's very good at sustaining his position, his salary and his ego in the process.

He may be popular with the LUL portion of RMT membership but not so popular with other sections. When engineering was sold down the river under the PPP suddenly Metronet and Tube Lines RMT members were second class union members. The RMT did nothing to prevent the great sell off and then happily sold us down the river again when Ken Livingstone got his grubby mitts on the Underground, accepting a promissed pay increase for LUL RMT members and conveniently forgetting about all those members transferred to Metronet and Tube Lines. It is no wonder that many engineering workers left the RMT to fend for themselves especially following such incidents as the Camden Town derailment when uncle bob quite happily slagged off Tube Lines workers even though they had formerly been LUL workers and some of whom were still in the RMT.

Let's face it, the RMT for more than a decade has really only ever been about operating staff while others were kept on the sidelines. Is it any wonder that after years of supporting motormen and signalmen in their disputes but being ignored by them in engineering disputes that in the end those of us that remained in the RMT chose to ignore all strike calls and carry on working as normal. I spent my whole 28+ years with LT/LU/Tube Lines as an RMT member but found that from the beginning of the 1990s it really didn't represent the engineering workforce any longer.

Bob Crow is quite militant but also very political, he would have fitted in very well in the 1970s when the Ungerground unions operated a closed shop and the NUR as it was then was calling staff from all sections to secondary picketting duties at Grunwicks and elsewhere. His style is out of place in today's world.

So he was elected by one sixth of the membership, that's hardly popular!

Most union members are sheep and take little or no interest in what goes on as long as they are getting their wedge, if all were forced to vote I expect the outcome might have been different!

Couldn't agree more. RMT knew they were going to take a hit in membership when these recent strikes started. But I don't think even they expected the exodus to little aslef that has occurred. My depot is now almost to a man little aslef, with I think about fourteen remaining in RMT, and one of those defected yesterday.