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A faithful servant of his class
Peter Pinkney who is returning, after three years as president of transport union RMT, to his job as a railway signalman talks to Peter Lazenby

It’s been a tumultuous three years for Peter Pinkney, pictured. The railway signalman from Middlesbrough was elected president of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) in December 2012.

It took him from his Victorian signalbox at Stockton in the north-east — Britain’s oldest operating signalbox, and probably the world’s — and pitched him into a life of constant meetings, negotiations, decisions affecting 80,000 workers, and international travel.

It also put him alongside a man who was Britain’s most prominent trade union leader, RMT general secretary Bob Crow.
The partnership with Bob Crow was abruptly cut short when Bob died suddenly on March 11 last year.

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