Study analyses the communication style of RMT leader Mick Lynch
A Glasgow Caledonian researcher has analysed the media interviews and speeches of RMT leader Mick Lynch for a prestigious academic journal.
Dr Kate Boyle, lecturer in Human Resources Management, studied 136 public texts and appearances of the Secretary-General of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers.
Dr Boyle examined the rhetorical techniques used by Lynch to explain the validity of collective action.
The study, published by Work, Employment and Society, the leading 4* journal of the British Sociological Association, draws on full interviews, speeches, select committees and writings, from May 2021 to November 2023, the end of the RMT's long-running dispute with train companies.
The article states: "The study demonstrates how a leader's rhetoric is an additional and specific power resource which unions can utilise to persuade universal audiences of the validity of collective action and the legitimacy of union voice.
"Lynch's communicative unionism signifies his significant impact in securing the RMT dispute, and the wider union movement he advocated for, increased purchase and weight.
"Lynch helped to increase the union's societal power... [and] solidified the necessary role of trade unions in society."