National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers

RMT

Full name	National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers
Founded	1990
Members	83,854 (2015)
Affiliation	TUC, ICTU, STUC, ITF, WFTU TUCG, NSSN, TUSC
Key people	Mick Cash, General Secretary Sean Hoyle, President
Office location	London, England
Country	United Kingdom
Website	Rmt.org.uk

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (commonly known as the RMT) is a British trade union covering the transport sector.

The RMT is one of Britain's fastest growing trade unions. The RMT membership rose under and following the leadership of Bob Crow, with membership increasing from 57,000 in 2002 to over 80,000 members in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Crown Dependencies today.

The RMT was formed in 1990 through a merger of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and the National Union of Seamen (NUS) to create a single transport industry trade union.

The predecessor unions to the National Union of Railwaymen and the National Union of Seamen were founding members of the original Labour Representation Committee and after its creation the RMT became a prominent voice on the left of the Labour Party. In 2003 some Scottish branches of the RMT voted to donate some of their funds to the Scottish Socialist Party in protest against the policies of Tony Blair and New Labour, such as not renationalising the railways. This led the Labour Party to disaffiliate from the union in early 2004 for breaching Party rules.

The RMT announced in 2009 that it would be standing a slate of candidates in the 2009 European Parliament elections under the banner of No to EU – Yes to Democracy, a broad left-wing alter-globalisation coalition which aims to offer an alternative to the "anti-foreigner" and pro-business policies of the UK Independence Party. The RMT then became a founding member of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, a left wing political party which has contested the 2010 and 2015 general elections.

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