![]() This is good: we need public spokespeople for labor who demonstrate what it looks like to be an ordinary working class person fighting to improve their station. They are articulate public ambassadors for the working class. They’re clear about which side they’re on. Lynch and Fain have a few qualities in common. But I can be moved by Fain’s invocation of the book of Matthew: “if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move.” I’m not myself religious (nor is Mick Lynch, whom a protester once accused of being “ anti-Christ,” although not the antichrist). Yes, these corporations are mountains, but together we can make them move.įain is actually a deeply religious man and frequently quotes Scripture. Making bold demands and organizing to fight for them is an act of faith. And for many of us, who have yet to see our union fight hard and win big, it is hard to imagine what that would look like. It comes from the worst of our union’s history, of setting expectations low and settling even lower. It comes from a company mindset and is the direct result of company unionism. I’ve read comments such as, “you can’t get COLA back, it’s gone forever.” Or “you can’t bargain for retirees.” Or “You’re asking for too much.” That is company talk. As he said in a speech republished in Jacobin:įor years, as a member of the UAW, and even during this current round of bargaining, I have found it heartbreaking to read comments from members and retirees with such low expectations. He also believes, to reference Jane McAlevey, in “ raising expectations and raising hell,” meaning that he takes an aggressive negotiating stance but also understands that working people need to feel they deserve more. Fain is an uncompromising class warrior (the “ Eat the Rich” shirt is not subtle) who sees corporate executives as enemies to be fought and defeated, not as partners. We now have an interesting parallel figure to Mick Lynch here in the United States: Shawn Fain, the United Auto Workers (UAW) leader known for his “ relentless anti-executive rhetoric” and for his role in helping the UAW win historic contracts for its members. (You can see in the YouTube comments sections of videos of Lynch’s interviews just how delighted people are to hear someone arguing in a forceful, plain-spoken way that everyone deserves to have their basic needs met and condemning the hideous inequality of 21st-century Britain.) Britain lacked visible public champions for the rights of working people. Jeremy Corbyn, the previous Labour leader, was grounded in the radical labor tradition but had been thrown out of the party by his successor. But Lynch also emerged at a time when there simply weren’t many “working class heroes” around to celebrate, a time of “historically low level of collective self-confidence and class consciousness of workers.” The head of the Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer, is so disconnected from the labor movement he has refused to even voice support for workers in strike actions. For Gall, it was partly that Lynch was skilled at patiently making the case for his workers even in hostile forums. Gall is a sociologist interested in the question of why Mick Lynch suddenly achieved prominence in Britain, where transit union heads do not usually become celebrities. Lynch is now the subject of a forthcoming book, Mick Lynch: The Making of a Working-Class Hero, by University of Leeds professor Gregor Gall. But in part thanks to Lynch’s effective public advocacy, popular support shifted significantly in favor of the rail workers and against the government. He faced a challenging task, because rail strikes caused significant disruption to Britain’s transit system, and it wasn’t obvious that the British public would be on the side of the rail workers when the trains weren’t running. Lynch’s exchanges with TV interviewers were master classes in communication. There’s been an ongoing dispute between the country’s Conservative government and rail workers, and in 2022 Lynch emerged as an effective spokesman for rail workers. In the UK over the past couple of years, the head of the country’s railroad union, Mick Lynch, has become something of a household name.
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