Thursday 3 July 2008

Unite unites

Unite - Britain's biggest union and well represented amongst railway engineering functions - is merging with the US-based United Steelworkers union (USW) to form Workers Uniting.

Unite was itself only formed last year when the Transport and General Workers Union merged with Amicus.

The new union will have three million members and will synchronise negotiations with multinational companies.

The merger agreement is to be signed in Las Vegas.

A choice of venue calculated to remind management that future negotiations will be played for much higher stakes.