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RMT president praises members for making union the ‘embodiment of militant working-class industrial organisation’

TRANSPORT union RMT has seen off three different prime ministers who failed to destroy the union, president Alex Gordon said in his address today at the union’s AGM in Hull. 

Mr Gordon, who is coming to the end of his three-year term, praised members for making RMT the “embodiment of militant working-class industrial organisation.”

He said: “Since the last UK general election in 2019, three Tory governments have tried and failed to destroy our union. 

“They failed to intimidate our members or our leaders. 

“They failed to dent our fighting ability and in 10 days’ time their government is going to be put into the dustbin of history by voters massively rejecting them at the polling booths.”

Mr Gordon remarked on the wave of industrial militancy in the last two years, which saw strikes in several major sectors including the railways. 

Highlighting the leading role of RMT at the start of the strike wave, he said: “We are the union that lit the blue touch paper in 2022 for an organised working-class fightback started by rail, bus and Tube workers that spread to every sector of the economy and led to the largest number of working days lost to strike action in Britain for 35 years.

“We are the union that knocked the legs out from under that fake ‘man of the people’ Boris Johnson so his own MPs in their wisdom replaced him first with ‘Lettuce Liz’ and then with ‘Rishi Rich’.”

The union has also played a key role in the Palestinian solidarity marches against the war in the Gaza Strip. 

Mr Gordon was emphatic that Britain must recognise a Palestinian state and stop arming Israel. 

“RMT calls for an end to British arms sales to Israel and an immediate cessation of hostilities and peace negotiations to establish a Palestinian state,” he added.

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