THE TRADE union leader Bob Crow, who died unexpectedly in March, may appear to some to be an unlikely hero of Catholic Social Teaching. But in an article to coincide with the Feast of St Joseph the Worker on 1 May, the former Labour MP John Battle argues that the work of the former leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) Union – famous for his hard negotiating skills and willingness to call strikes – was part of a trade-union tradition lauded by both John Paul II, who said unions were “the mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice” and Leo XIII, who first recognised their role in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. An article for the Jesuit-run online journal Thinking Faith, entitled “St Joseph the Worker and Bob Crow”, says Crow’s ca