RMT's ballot for strike action over pay has come back with a whopping mandate for action. On a turnout of about 50%, 2,271 (76%) voted for strike action and 705 (24%) voted against.

Now we should be set for the strikes that we need to force management to improve their offer. But the union's press release [1] suggests that the leadership may be preparing to back down rather than fight.

It rightly notes that the company dropped its insistence on linking pay with later running [2] after RMT began its ballot - an example of how even threatening to fight can force concessions. But Bob Crow's quotes in the press release suggest that the union leadership now sees the only problem with the offer as those "strings". The truth is that the offer itself is crap - a three-year deal with rises each year only a fraction above inflation.

LUL has said that it will give the pay rise to members of the unions that have accepted the offer [3]. This is a stunt to undermine the RMT - and the union must get the facts and arguments out to its members to ensure that LUL's attempt at bribery does not work.

This is a critical fight at a critical stage. LUL management - and Mayor Livingstone behind them - obviously want to take on and beat the unions in order to have a compliant workforce for the 2012 Olympics and beyond. Other than RMT, the unions have pathetically allowed them to do so - TSSA having accepted the rubbish offer months back, and ASLEF now asking their members to endorse it in a referendum.

RMT at least has been prepared to fight. But for most of last year, there was little information from the union and a strategy that relied on waiting patiently for LUL to give in. But the company has (predictably) not given in, so many members have been left confused about the issues and desperate for their pay rise. RMT now has to wake up to the fact that the employer is playing hardball and fight fire with fire.

We must name dates for industrial action right away. There are only two alternatives, both of them unacceptable. One, to hang around forlornly waiting for management to make concessions - members cannot stomach any more delay in resolving this dispute, and anyway, management are more likely to make concessions if they can see that the union is serious about fighting. Two, to cave in and accept the offer - but that would mean not only accepting rubbish rises for the next three years, but also inviting management to attack us at will.

We have come too far and done without our pay rise for too long - and there is too much at stake - to give in now. We need to get RMT activists out talking to all the members about why they need to strike, and genuinely listening to them and answering their concerns. We need to prioritise those areas where workers are not yet convinced. And the union has to make up lost ground with members who are disillusioned with the poor leadership of disputes over the last couple of years, especially amongst station and service control staff.

The more involvement and control rank-and-file members have over our own dispute, the better our chances of winning.