A union activist behind the rail strikes anticipated to cripple Britain at Christmas as soon as defended drug-dealing, petty crime and dole- fiddling, declaring he and his buddies weren’t ashamed of ‘making an attempt to get sufficient cash collectively to take care of our households’.
Eddie Dempsey, the assistant common secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), described his childhood on a council property in South London, the place he stated the dearth of ‘respectable work’ meant ‘most of us’ turned to petty crime.
Mr Dempsey, 40, who has been {accused} of being an apologist for Vladimir Putin, advised a gathering of Left-wing Brexiteers three years in the past: ‘Most of us turned to promoting medication or no matter we may do, fiddling the dole, making an attempt to get sufficient cash collectively to take care of our households. I ain’t ashamed of it.’
He added: ‘It’s one thing that a number of us have needed to do.’
The remarks emerged as households throughout Britain had been braced for every week of strike hell – with rail staff persevering with their walkouts as a part of the worst industrial unrest for many years.
Eddie Dempsey, the assistant common secretary of the RMT described his childhood on a council property in South London, the place he stated the dearth of ‘respectable work’ meant ‘most of us’ turned to petty crime
A calendar displaying strikes days in December, as extra practice strikes are anticipated on January 3,4,6 and seven
Whereas RMT chief Mick Lynch referred to as for an pressing assembly with Rishi Sunak to debate the long-running dispute over pay, jobs and circumstances, Community Rail warned that companies shall be restricted, overcrowded or cancelled till not less than January 8. RMT members will strike for 11 days over the vacation season, with the primary two 48-hour strikes on Tuesday and Friday.
As well as, an extra time ban for practice working employees, from December 18 till January 2, will end in hundreds extra cancellations.
Mr Dempsey, who’s paid £108,549 a yr, was {accused} of being a Putin apologist after posing with a pro-Russian separatist commander throughout a go to to the Donbas area of jap Ukraine in March 2015.
Throughout his go to, a yr after Putin invaded the area, Mr Dempsey was pictured with Aleksey Mozgovoy, a frontrunner of the pro-Russian Ghost Brigade of rebels within the then self-proclaimed Luhansk Folks’s Republic. Luhansk and neighbouring Donetsk had been annexed by Putin in September after sham referendums. Mozgovoy was assassinated after assembly Mr Dempsey, who praised him as a ‘charismatic’ Kremlin-backed rebel and described the West’s actions within the area as a ‘US-orchestrated coup’.
In his 2019 speech, Mr Dempsey stated the union motion had provided him a ladder out of that world, saying: ‘It wasn’t till I joined the railway, simply after my son was born, and I received my RMT membership card that issues modified. For the primary time I had dignity,’ he stated.
Mr Lynch wrote to the Prime Minister to say {that a} assembly between the 2 males was now one of the best prospect of constructing any progress. Arguing that No 10 was ‘directing the mandate for the rail corporations and has torpedoed the talks’, Mr Lynch stated: ‘There isn’t a motive why this dispute couldn’t be settled in the identical method that RMT has resolved disputes in Scotland and Wales.’
A Authorities spokesman stated: ‘It’s very disappointing that, regardless of an improved deal providing job safety and a good pay rise, the RMT continues to carry Christmas hostage with extra damaging strikes.’
