RMT leader Eddie Dempsey: It’s hard not to feel disenfranchised right now

It has been a year since Eddie Dempsey took the wheel at the RMT union. Elected unopposed, he is now one of the UK’s most powerful trade union leaders, heading an organisation with more than 83,000 members across rail, shipping, offshore, buses and road freight – one which, when it strikes, can bring the country to a halt.

Like his predecessor Mick Lynch, Dempsey is quite happy to flex that muscle. “We’ve got a very strong tradition of militancy in Scotland,” he says – something members are “proud” of. “Before you get a chance to make a political intervention,” says Dempsey, “you have to be industrially strong.”

There’s no question that RMT seeks to make such an impact. The union is on the campaign trail right now, pressing for a law change in Scotland it says would better protect frontline workers. Its Action Against Assaults drive seeks “concrete measures that take workplace violence on public transport seriously”. 

If successful, it will end lone working and see attacks on transport staff made a specific offence, giving the workforce the same enhanced protections extended to shopworkers under a law passed by Holyrood in 2021. 

Dempsey is confident that there’s a case for it and presents the stats that he says backs it up. He cites an RMT survey of female public transport workers in Scotland that found seven in 10 had experienced workplace violence in the past year – mostly verbal assault, followed by threats of physical violence. More than 20 per cent said they had been sexually harassed over a 12-month period. And almost six in 10 of those who had suffered violence said they were working alone at the time.

Such a law change won’t be a “panacea”, says Dempsey, “but we really think it will help.” Women members, he says, find the environment they’re working in “more feral and dangerous”. “A lot of these incidents go unreported,” he says. “The main reason is that they have no confidence that their complaints would be taken seriously.”

I don’t know what people mean when they say ‘left wing’ any more

Dempsey, from New Cross in south London, has a good idea what that’s like – he worked as station staff and a train driver before becoming a full-time union official, serving under firebrand Lynch as RMT’s senior assistant general secretary before moving up on Lynch’s retirement.

Edinburgh-born James Connolly, Ireland’s Marxist republican revolutionary, is amongst his influences – Dempsey was president of the London chapter of the James Connolly Association and is a vocal critic of the contemporary left. 

“I don’t know what people mean when they say ‘left wing’ any more,” he says. “Are you talking about being socially progressive, are you talking about people interested in environmental stuff, what are you talking about? I’m interested in class politics.”

Wedge issues have taken over as debate has moved onto social media, he says – Dempsey himself quit social media eight years ago – and now, thanks to algorithms, “everything is a wedge issue”.

“Everyone is being pitted against each other, and I don’t think it’s healthy at all,” he says. “If you look at polling, the number one issues for everybody are class issues. Housing and living standards are the big issues. Health, education, no matter where you look these are the most important things to people. Even on the question of immigration, which is divisive, most people are alright with immigration as long as it’s done well, don’t let social media fool you.”

Dempsey has called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to step down and for the Labour Party to start “organising society in the interests of working people, rather than doffing the cap to the money markets, spivs and speculators”. “The fragmenting of the labour movement”, with “trade unions not working together as well as they did”, is part of what’s wrong with the political landscape, he says. “We are a long way away from seeing any kind of cohesion in terms of traditional class politics or politics geared towards material class interests overall. 

“We have to try and build some unity. That’s going to take time.”

You look at the state of the political class... it’s hard not to feel disenfranchised

RMT decoupled from Labour in 2004, breaking an association that had stood for more than 100 years. The row was very much one of the devolution era, with a number of Scottish branches opting to affiliate with the Scottish Socialist Party under Tommy Sheridan. The union’s then-leader, Bob Crow, said members in Scotland had taken a “democratic decision” and, faced with an ultimatum from Labour – stick with us or you’re out – RMT stood firm. Lennoxtown’s Ian McCartney, who was then Labour's chairman, suggested Crow was at it and had long wanted to cut ties but lacked “the guts to tell his members”.

With the Scottish Parliament election ahead, RMT aims to push its priorities onto manifestos. And it will be encouraging members to vote, Dempsey says – depending on who is saying the right things. “We are quite transactional at this point,” he says. “We back people that back us.”

That encouragement will come against a background of widespread disaffection. Turnout at the general election plummeted to a record low; as voter participation in Scottish Parliament elections is historically lower than that for UK contests, and with a public dissatisfied with party leaders, it may well be that much of the electorate decides to stay at home.

“I personally know how people feel. I can feel like that myself sometimes,” Dempsey says. “You look at the state of the political class at the moment and you hear some of the stuff that goes on, it’s hard not to be cynical and it’s hard not to feel disenfranchised.”

But, he says, there is much to play for, from CalMac conditions to ScotRail staffing and the future for offshore workers – not to mention the just transition, upon which thousands of livelihoods depend.

When asked if RMT members in Aberdeen feel the just transition is happening, Dempsey answers with an unequivocal “no”. “They’re not persuaded by the concept of a just transition, they think it’s a myth and they see no material results of policy statements, commitments and all the rest of it. Where is it? Where is this great just transition?” he asks.

if there’s going to be a just transition, we have to legislate for it

There’s a chance, he says, that state-owned Labour power vehicle GB Energy could help. But ultimately, he says, you have to legislate for workers’ rights. “The bottom line of this is very simple: if there’s going to be a just transition, we have to legislate for it. 

“A lot of the jobs in the green sector are going to be really, I think, on a low-cost, deskilled basis, almost looking at the gig economy model. If you don’t want it to happen, you have to do that by legislating” for permanent posts and comparable rates of pay, he goes on. “If you’re waiting for the market and private companies to do that for you, what do you think they are going to do? They are going to try and get a flexible, disposable workforce that suits their purposes.”

The Scottish Government has drawn criticism for raising wages for nationalised ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper, with a two-year pay rise worth 3.6 per cent in the first year and three per cent in the second, plus inflation protection which could push it up further. With massive pressure on budgets, the affordability of public sector pay policy has been questioned.

“I don’t know what people mean when they say these things,” Dempsey says of such criticism, citing 40 years of falling living standards. “We have sold off and destroyed most of our industry. Our economy is wired to serve the City of London,” he goes on. Look at Motherwell, he suggests. “Where are people employed in Motherwell? The local football team are ‘the Steelmen’ – there’s not a drop of steel left.

“If the Scottish Government wants to make headway in terms of making better settlements in pay, then I congratulate them for that because people need to live,” he goes on. “It’s doing the right thing, if you ask me.”