Mick Lynch (trade unionist)

Michael Lynch (born January 1962) is a British-Irish trade unionist who served as the General Secretary of the RMT from May 2021 until his retirement in March 2025. During the high-profile rail strikes of 2022–23, Lynch became a spokesperson and symbol for the wider trade union movement.

Lynch was born in West London in January 1962, the youngest of five children, growing up in a Catholic-dominated Paddington council estate. His mother was Northern Irish cleaner Ellen "Nellie" Morris and his father Irish labourer and postman Jackie Lynch. His parents immigrated during the Second World War, with his mother hailing from an area close to Crossmaglen and his father coming from Cork. He grew up in the Paddington area of London, in what he described as "rented rooms that would now be called slums". He was raised in an Irish Catholic family, but is now a lapsed Catholic.. Lynch was educated at the London Oratory School.

Lynch left school at the age of 16 and qualified as an electrician, then worked in construction before being blacklisted for joining a union. In 1993, unable to find any more work in construction, he began working for Eurostar and became active in the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). Two decades after being illegally blacklisted, he received a settlement for it.