Bob Crowe: Death Of A Dinosaur?

By AM Monday, March 17, 2014

Share Tweet Share Share Email

Guest writer Mark Hayes with an obituary on his friend and comrade, the trade union leader Bob Crowe who died last week. 


So Bob Crow, trade unionist and leader of the RMT has died at the relatively young age of 52. This is tragic news indeed for his immediate family, friends and comrades. Sad news also for the members of the RMT for whom he fought so diligently and successfully. I used to chat with Bob every summer at RMT HQ when the hosted the Cuba Solidarity social event in London. He was a charming man, not at all like his public image. He was affable and entertaining, with a great sense of humour (essential really if you are a Millwall fan). He used to wander around in shorts and a Panama hat, smoking a huge Cuban cigar, shaking hands, conversing and relaxing with old friends and new acquaintances alike – he was the most convivial and congenial host. Only when the evening drew to a close did Bob’s mood change, when he gave his concluding speech. A point I shall return to shortly.

Of course Crow was vilified when he was alive, by politicians and even some fellow trade unionists, but particularly in the pages of the press. He was derided as a belligerent bully, an anachronistic Neanderthal and a throw-back to the bad-old-days of trade union militancy. In fact a miasma of misinformation was manufactured by the British media, designed to discredit Crow and cast him as the pantomime villain, the epitome of unreasonable intransigence. He was also criticised because he distanced himself and his union from New Labour and its post-modern infatuation with identity politics.

Labour’s supine capitulation to capital was not Bob Crow’s preferred brand of politics. So in many ways, despite his passion and pugnacious commitment, Crow was an isolated figure politically speaking. Even in terms of the broader trade union movement in Britain his ideological perspective and modus operandi were marginalised. In this context, therefore, it has been somewhat surprising to hear warm words of deference toward Bob from some of his most implacable political opponents. Boris Johnson and Ed Miliband spring to mind, but there were others. According to this view Crow was occasionally misguided, but was nevertheless a man who “fought for his members”. Indeed he did, and you may believe that this kind of ameliorative language is only appropriate given the sudden death of a middle aged man with a family. Yet there is more to it than this. Listen very carefully and behind the rhetoric you can detect the tone of relief at his passing. Crow is dead, and after a few anodyne observations, maybe even a perfunctory anecdote, then history can leave the dinosaur behind. Or at least that’s what they hope.

The fact is that the ruling class in Britain (socio-economic and political) absolutely detested Bob Crow. It was not just that Crow was accomplished at his job and secured substantive improvements in wages, terms and conditions for RMT members. Most of the capitalist class can accommodate collective bargaining. The reason for the vitriol and the visceral disgust was that Bob Crow, the trade union leader, was also an unreconstructed communist and a class warrior, obstinately and unapologetically proud of his class heritage. It was this that came to the fore every summer when he made his speech, as a righteous indignation on behalf of his people turned into a menacing rage. Crow could be an angry man. He was enraged that it was his class that is paying the price for economic failure and the collapse of the financial system, for the greed of the wealthy and the mistakes of the powerful. When Crow thundered forth every June, demanding social justice, it was clear that fighting for his class was in the marrow of his bones, and the fact is that those very people now who utter polite pleasantries about Crow would be heading straight into the dustbin of history if he had his way.

And here we come to the essence of what Bob Crow was about. Crow could see, with the purest clarity, that in relation to his political adversaries it was far better to be feared than loved. In the context of an on-going class war it was not only a moral imperative, attack was quite simply the most effective strategy. It was this aspect of his leadership that we should focus on, foster and develop. The British working class – those ordinary men and women who are portrayed as the “salt of the earth” when they fight its nation’s wars, and the “scum of the earth” when they demand a welfare state and a living wage – that class needs to rediscover its capacity to strike fear in the hearts of the Establishment. They have done so in the past, from the Levellers and the Luddites to the Cato Street Conspirators and the Chartists, from Red Clydeside and the General Strike to the NUM. There is a noble history of resistance in Britain that has always refused to bend the knee to wealth and privilege. This was Crow’s tradition and his heritage, working class and proud. So take the war to the enemy - it’s what Bob would have wanted.