Trade Union Career and Politics
In 1990 the National Union of Railwaymen merged with the National Union of Seamen to form the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), and the following year Crow became London Underground representative on the National Executive. In 1991 he became assistant general secretary and on 14 February 2002 Crow was elected by the membership to succeed Jimmy Knapp as General Secretary. He received 12,051 votes in the election — nearly twice as many as the other two candidates put together (Phil Bialyk received 4,512 votes and Ray Spry-Shute received 1,997). Six weeks earlier on 1 January 2002, Crow was attacked outside his home by two men wielding an iron bar. He speculated that he was the victim of hired employer muscle.
As of 2009, Bob Crow's basic salary at RMT was £94,747; a 12% increase from the previous year. His entire pay package with bonuses and pensions was £133,138; on top of this he claimed £9,989 in expenses and £2,376 in travel costs. Despite his six-figure pay package, more than five times the average salary, Bob Crow lives in a subsidised council house whose rent is about £150 per week lower than the market rent.
Read more about this topic: Bob Crow
Famous quotes containing the words trade union, trade, union, career and/or politics:
“No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)