The trade union bringing the railways to a standstill has made millions of pounds investing in hedge funds, oil companies and drugs giants, according to delayed financial filings.
Coffers at the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers union (RMT) swelled by £6.1m after investing in the types of companies that union leaders have denounced in the past.
Mick Lynch, the RMT’s general secretary, total pay packet was £124,271 for the year, though he agreed to cut his salary to £84,000.
It came as a Freedom of Information request revealed that 250 signallers and track engineers, who are represented by the RMT union, earn at least £100,000 a year.
The figures, which were first reported by the Daily Mail, also showed that a further 650 Network Rail workers earned more than £80,000, while a quarter of track maintenance staff are on £60,000-plus.
Investments within the RMT’s portfolio include BP, NatWest and AstraZeneca, filings reveal. The union also handed a six-figure sum to Man Group, the listed hedge fund manager, to invest on its behalf.
It put money into a fund run by Ruffer, the investment management firm co-founded by Robert Shirley, the late 14th Earl Ferrers then Viscount Tamworth, who was deputy leader of the House of Lords under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
The RMT has previously attacked “greedy multinationals” such as French cleaning company Atalian Servest for paying out large dividends to investors.
Mick Lynch, the RMT’s general secretary, has criticised train operators over “a culture of massive dividend payments and corporate greed”.
