In September RMT will elect a new General Secretary and
candidates are already stepping forward to fill Unkle Bob’s somewhat larger
than life shoes. I’ve been talking to
RMT colleagues both on the Tube and on the mainline and then doing a little
Googling to get an idea of who might be next to become the hate figure for
millions of Daily Mail readers in the next five years. If I’ve made any errors then my apologies to
the gentlemen concerned, as with all my posts I am always willing to retract
and correct.
Mick Cash is one of the two Assistant General Secretaries
and currently Acting Gen Sec so he’s getting a bit of attention as he’s
“leading” the strikes next week. Like
Bob he joined the railways straight from school, starting at BR’s Signals and
Communications Department, became an active member of the Watford branch before
becoming a full time RMT official in 2002.
Unlike Bob he is very much from the “right wing” of the union and when
Jimmy Knapp retired in 2002 Mick helped organise the election campaign of one
of Bob’s rivals.
He was a local Labour councillor, used to sit on Labour’s National Executive Committee and he angered the left wingers by
abstaining from the vote when RMT were expelled. Not unexpectedly opinion is divided among
those RMT members I’ve spoken to, the left see him as not militant enough
while the right see him as refreshingly moderate after years of militancy.
Steve Hedley is the other Asst Gen Sec and is the polar
opposite of Mick Cash, at the last GLA elections he stood as a candidate for
the Trades Union and Socialist Coalition, the ragbag of minor left wing parties
that Bob cobbled together in 2010. Like
Bob he’s an ex-Tube worker, from the Engineering branch but unlike Bob he came
to the railways through Birkbeck College and a Catholic grammar school in
Derry.
He’s certainly up for a fight, a keen amateur boxer who
was convicted of assaulting a manager during the RMT/TSSA strikes at the end of
2010 but cleared on appeal when CCTV footage that had been “overlooked” at his
trial proved his innocence. That appears
to be the stumbling block with some of the RMT members I talked to, he’s just
too pugnacious, too abrasive and lacking in diplomacy to succeed Unkle Bob (and
yes I’m sure some of you read those words in utter disbelief).
John Leach is an ex-Station Super from the Central Line,
was RMT President from 2006 to 2009, is the London Regional Organiser and is
also getting his face seen doing interviews with the media in the run up to the
strikes. He seems to fall somewhere
between Cash and Hedley politically, certainly on the left but like Bob not
enjoying the full support of the hardliners (again I can feel some of you
reading that in disbelief). He’s been
equally prepared to stand up to management and the union leadership, having had
a few disagreements with Bob in the past. He seems to be generally regarded as a decent bloke who make a good Gen Sec although some think he's a bit too much like Bob.
The only other name I’ve seen nominated is Edinburgh’s Alan
Pottage, another “lifer” who started as a 19 year old guard back in 1982 and is
the National Organising Co-ordinator. As
most of my contacts are London-based no one seems to know much about him,
the only thing I’ve been able to find out about him online is that he plays the
bass and recently recorded a tribute to Bob Crow with the Alabama 3, the South
London band who did the music at the start of “The Sopranos”.
Feckin' cool or what?
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