USW and Unite merge to form global trade union

The US-based United Steelworkers and the UK's Unite trade union July 2 signed an agreement in Las Vegas to create a merged union named Workers Uniting, which claims to be the world's first global union, said a joint statement issued July 2.

"This union is crucial for challenging the growing power of global capital," said USW president Leo Gerard. "Globalization has given financiers license to exploit workers in developing countries at the expense of our members in the developed world," he added. "Only global solidarity among workers can overcome this sort of global exploitation wherever it occurs."

Echoing Gerard, Derek Simpson, general secretary of Unite's Amicus section said: "In addition to empowering the interests of our unions' members our mission is to advance the interests of millions of workers throughout the world who are being shamefully exploited."

Workers Uniting will be a fully functional and registered labor organization in the UK, US, Ireland and Canada, with the ability to fully represent all of the members of its founding unions.

It will be governed by a steering committee with equal membership from each participating union.

The new union's staff will be headed by an executive director who will oversee an initial budget of several million dollars, and a staff that includes research, international affairs and communications specialists.

Workers Uniting will draw on the energies of the two unions' more than three million active and retired workers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, noted the statement, "who work in virtually every sector of the global economy, including manufacturing, service, mining and transportation."

Merger discussions between the two had taken place over the past year with both unions actively engaged in joint efforts to advance global activism, it said.

Created: July 3, 2008

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