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RMT union leader Bob Crow
RMT union leader Bob Crow 'could be very shouty at the microphone'. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex
RMT union leader Bob Crow 'could be very shouty at the microphone'. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex

The Bob Crow I knew

This article is more than 10 years old
Christine Buckley
Former Times industrial reporter Christine Buckley recalls a man of dedication and belief, with an incredible attention to detail

The first time I had a proper conversation with Bob Crow, who has died suddenly aged 52, was in a dimly lit restaurant in an old cellar during a TUC conference – a somewhat clandestine dinner with other combative union leaders including Mick Rix, Andy Gilchrist, Tony Woodley, Mark Serwotka and Billy Hayes.

This was the unions' self-styled "awkward squad", a grouping formed around 2002 and dedicated to pushing the union movement to the left, challenging the traditionally moderate TUC, and using industrial muscle to improve the lot of their members. The subterranean setting made the dinner feel a little like a meeting of the Hellfire Club and one could only imagine the delight of Daily Mail news editors that such secret meetings of this "dangerous" group really did happen.

As I was then industrial editor of the Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch, I could have been forgiven for worrying that I might have been invited only to be castigated for the actions of my employer. But across the table in the vaulted room, Bob was polite to a fault, seemingly interested in my opinion about union issues, and absolutely on top of his own brief. For someone of such uncompromising views, he was willing to engage and not put dogma before dialogue.

By contrast, some union leaders, including Bob's once political mentor the former miners' leader Arthur Scargill, would simply not deal with the Murdoch press. Bob could be very shouty at the microphone (once at the TUC he had to be asked to lower his voice slightly as his amplified tones bounced around the hall). But at the dinner he came across as calm and reasonable as he criticised the then prime minister, Tony Blair, for doing nothing for working people, for the mismanagement of the railways and for the many and varied problems of capitalism. Bob may have said this more than 1,000 times since his teens but he made the arguments with as much vigour and belief as if he'd first come across the ideas.

The awkward squad was born in such behind-closed-doors, underground conversations, initially through Bob and Rix, friends since their youth when they were both in the Communist party. They generated nervousness in the labour movement because they were uncompromising, and because they won election after election. While Blair was praising the rightwing Ken Jackson as a model union leader, more and more leftwingers were elected. They demonstrated an ability to work together in a way that no band of mainstream union leaders had done in recent years. They were political comrades who worked together to pursue a leftwing agenda many thought had died under Blairism.

A railway lifer, Crow, from Shadwell in east London, had left school at 16 to join London Underground. He was first elected as a union rep in 1983, and became the RMT's general secretary in 2002. Such was his reputation then that Labour's transport secretary, Alistair Darling, declined to meet him for at least 18 months.

Bob was an effective union leader, not just for the considerable work he did for his members but also for how he steered the RMT. I've been at RMT conferences where often Bob was the only voice of reason – conferences that deserved a place alongside the Life of Brian's People's Front of Judea.

The hardline approach of the RMT led to the union's split from Labour. Its financial support for some Scottish Socialist party candidates led to its expulsion from the party in 2004. It was the first time the Labour party had expelled a union in its 104-year history. Some worried that the RMT would lose its influence, though Bob, who was never a Labour party member, was less certain that a close relationship with Labour led to influence. The RMT's expulsion was followed by unrest among more left-leaning unions, including the decision by the Fire Brigades Union to disaffiliate.

Bob always believed unions were most effective in industrial battles and that their influence was greatest in the workplace. And indeed that is where the RMT has had the most impact – ask any Londoner, although their views about Crow are likely be polarised.

London has regularly been gripped by travel chaos for days at a time by RMT strikes on the tube. Whatever disruption they caused, the strikes have undoubtedly been beneficial for RMT members who, as the former London mayor Ken Livingstone said, became the only working-class people in the capital to still have well-paid jobs.

Under Bob's leadership, membership of the RMT grew from 60,000 to 80,000. These days most unions struggle to retain their membership in an increasingly fragmented world of work. Few dream of increasing it.

Most people who knew Bob, or knew the way he worked, had respect for him. Along with undoubted dedication and belief, he had an incredible attention to detail. He could talk you through every small step of a dispute with total recall and no recourse to notes. Where he did perhaps fall down was in not projecting that professionalism sufficiently, leaving him too open to the accusations of his detractors of being a firebrand.

The last time I interviewed Bob we went to see his beloved Millwall. Bob was in many ways the archetypal Millwall fan: "nobody likes us, we don't care", with the look of someone up for a bit of a brawl. "If a trade union ain't gonna fight, there is no point in joining," he said.

Bob was campaigning for the family of Ian Tomlinson, the newspaper vendor who died in the G20 summit protests in the City of London after being struck by a police officer. During the match he spoke about improving pay and conditions on the Underground and the railways, social justice and how annoying the opposition that day, Leyton Orient, were – a team with no promotion hopes of their own who would not give in without a fight.

Then as we left, a London taxi driver shouted: "Hey Bob, when are you going to have another strike, us cabbies are starving".

Christine Buckley is the editor of the Journalist, the magazine of the National Union of Journalists, and was industrial editor of the Times from 2000–09

More on this story

More on this story

  • RMT union elects Bob Crow’s former deputy Mick Cash as leader

  • Bob Crow funeral: thousands line streets to pay respects to RMT leader

  • Bob Crow funeral: trade unionists pay tribute to RMT leader

  • Bob Crow funeral: trade unionists pay tribute - in pictures

  • Bob Crow: a look back at the RMT union leader's life – video

  • Bob Crow, RMT leader, dies of suspected heart attack at 52

  • Bob Crow obituary

  • Now we see what was really at stake in the miners' strike

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