There are few unions as powerful and effective as the National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport workers, or the RMT as it is more popularly known. And there are few unions as radical as they are in the political world of the Labour Movement.
It’s officers and its executive are all rank and file workers, from the permanent way and from the High seas. Not for them the appointed career professionals that do the heavy lifting in other trade unions. They elect their own and hold their own accountable.
They enjoy, especially on the railways, raw power in their negotiations with management. And are not afraid to use it. The result has been a growing membership that is largely well paid and who enjoy good conditions of service. A membership loyal to their union, comfortable with its power, appreciative of the way in which it is exercised. Responsive to calls for action. A union elite.
There are few executive committees of any union as tough and as committed as the National Executive of the RMT. They take no prisoners and do not flinch in the face of pressure. Every time they initiate industrial action they are pilloried in the press and media. They know what it is to be under media scrutiny, and it phases them not. For this reason alone, it is slightly ridiculous to suggest they have crumbled in the face of “Murdoch’s press” in their decision to suspend the Assistant General Secretary Steve Hedley, and that it is now Murdoch who is setting their agenda. This is not an executive that crumbles. Not for Murdoch, not for anyone. They set their own agenda, thank you very much.
Hedlley is a first-class trade unionist. You would be proud to have him stand beside you in any kind of labour struggle. He is committed, fierce, carries the radical legacy of the late Bob Crow and it must have cost the executive, all of them, great distress to have to make the decision to suspend him. It would not of been easy or simple for they know him as a comrade who can be relied on in a fight.
But they were right to suspend him. He had effectively called for and endorsed the suffering and death of the Prime Minister. He exulted in the prospect saying he would celebrate such an outcome.
We are trade unionists, not killers. We applaud the NHS, the doctors, nurses, ambulance workers, porters, cleaners and all the ancillary staff because they are committed to saying life. Any life be they low or be they high. They embody the decency and values of working people. We are trade unionists, not killers.
We are fortunate that there are no doctors or nurses so committed to the left that they might endorse such claims and ambitions of Hedley, be they direct, indirect, implied or otherwise, that suggest they should not give so much of their care to Tory patients as they might to members of other political parties, that they might neglect their duties in response to the ambition of a union leader who has chosen to play the man rather than the ball.
Yes we want to overthrow this Tory government. Yes we want to block their policies, oppose their plans, send them packing. But we want to do it industrially, politically, democratically. We are not killers who want them to suffer and die.
Hedley’s call is, thank goodness, a long way from the ambitions that Stalin held for “class enemies” but it is on the same footpath. And it must be rejected by the trade union movement.
There must be a way back for Hedley. . We need strong trade union leaders, effective trade union leaders, radical trade union leaders. He must find a way back.
The suspension is not permanent. It is while an enquiry into his conduct is conducted. Hopefully, he will compromise and be authorised by his executive to return to his work. He can only do so by recanting. The Unions seek to defeat the Prime Minister, we do not seek that he, or anyone else, should suffer and die. We do not call on NHS workers to withhold treatment of our political opponents. He must recant. He has damaged the union’s reputation, and the common decency of working trade unionsits everywhere..
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 
Steve Hedley has form on this, he’s abused his own members on social media in the past. He is far too arrogant to see that his many Facebook & Twitter outbursts do not show the union in a good light. He has broken the RMT’s own Policy on Mutual Respect on multiple occasions, that’s why the RMT is adopting a more professional approach with its officers now.
The rank & file membership of the RMT far outweigh the vocal left activists & Steve Hedley’s non-RMT groupies from outside the road, rail & maritime sectors. He has many social media aliases plus a hardcore group of sychophants banging his drum. He (in his multiple online guises) can post as many pictures as he wants of him visiting picket lines on his support group, that was his job, he’s no hero. The pictures of his various worldwide junkets on union expenses don’t wash with the membership either. The RMT is supposed to be a member-led union & the majority of members want him gone it’s as simple as that.