RMT

We'd like you to strike
when it doesn't disrupt us
when it won't interrupt us
going about our daily life

We'd like you to strike
when it won't cause strife
when no-one will notice
Please don't misquote us

Of course we support you
we don't want to thwart you
just asking for some consideration
Don't get ideas above your station

These are the opening speeches from this event, held on Zoom on Tuesday 22 March 2022.

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Sarah Woolley (General Secretary, Bakers’, Food and Allied Workers’ Union): Welcome to the joint RMT and Free Our Unions TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference fringe meeting.

Walk down locked and empty streets alone,
arrive for start of shift, it's bear-the-brunt time
to serve some others' families not your own
Going from the home front to the frontline

Frozen pay, now tiny, ice-cold 'offers', 
red-bordered bills alert approaching deadline
The firing line ignites key workers' coffers
Going from the frontline to the breadline

after Gershwin's song from Porgy and Bess

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Summertime 

and the cost of livin' ain't easy

Bills are jumpin'

and prices are high

Oh, the bosses are rich

and the workers are strugglin'

But hush, little baby

don't you cry

 

One of these mornin's,

you're going to wake up strikin'

'The Eleventh Commandment' at a flash rally in support of RMT rail strikes, Brighton, 25 June 2022.

 

Jeremy Westlake

has the second best take

He's in charge of the cash

and makes sure he gets a big stash

Andrew Haines

carefully explains

That his £593,000 pay is not a perk -

He really is worth twenty of the people who do the actual work

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*Chief Executive Officer of Network Rail

Grant Shapps

He talks and he craps

But often gets confused

About which end he's used