Mick Lynch, working class fighter, union stalwart and slayer of British TV presenters.

Now, British trade unions are the biggest democratic movement in the country.

They represent around six million workers, including of course key workers,

pillars of society who were applauded by conservative politicians and rich bosses during the pandemic

and then treated like crap by all of them.

And yet they are routinely the trade unions demonised or ignored,

certainly compared to the bosses of companies who were often treated on TV and in newspapers

with deference and respect. So Mick Lynch, general secretary of the transport union,

the other M.T. has been a bit of a nightmare for the media,

because rather than being rolled over by their often ignorant obtuse and inane questions,

he's turned the tables and eloquently put forward a persuasive case based on the actual facts,

which, unfortunately for them, he knows inside out.

Let's just start, shall we, with an interview by Mick Lynch. He's back in the airways because

of a dispute. There's, I'm afraid, multiple disputes. One which was settled with the

train operating companies in the RMT's favour, a massive victory for striking workers.

But here's one that current dispute and here's how it explains it.

Aren't you at risk of putting your members out of a job and out of work? Because frankly,

you don't need people to drive trains and to guard them in the way that you used to.

You don't need staff in the way that we used to have them before,

because people can do it online. They can buy their tickets. They don't need as many staff.

You could be putting your members at risk, aren't you?

No, I don't think we are putting our members at risk. We have pushed back on all the changes

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