Transatlantic agreement creates first ‘global union’

In July 2008, Unite, the UK’s largest trade union, and the US-based United Steelworkers union announced the establishment of a new global union body. The new organisation will represent some three million members in the UK, Ireland, North America and the Caribbean. The move is a response to the challenges of globalisation, and is intended to enable the coordination of collective bargaining in multinational companies and joint political campaigning.

On 2 July 2008, Unite, the UK’s largest trade union, and the United Steelworkers (USW), North America’s largest private sector union, finalised an agreement creating a new international organisation which they describe as ‘the world’s first global union’. The agreement was signed at USW’s constitutional convention in Las Vegas and represents the culmination of discussions that have been underway for some years (UK0706039I). The new organisation, known as Workers Uniting, will represent some three million members in the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada and the Caribbean, covering workers from ‘virtually every sector of the global economy, including manufacturing, services, mining and transportation’.

Rationale and objectives

Leaders of the two founding organisations presented the initiative as a response to ‘the destructive effects of globalisation on our members’ wages and conditions’. The agreement is intended to lead to the coordination of collective bargaining in multinational companies with operations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and to joint political campaigning. Regarding the latter objective, Unite is the largest affiliate of the UK’s Labour Party, while USW is a major contributor to and supporter of the Democratic Party in the US and the New Democratic Party of Canada.

Joint General Secretary of Unite Derek Simpson outlined in a statement:

The political and economic power of multinational companies is formidable. They are able to play one nation’s workers off against another to maximise profits. They do the same with governments, hence the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us. With this agreement, we can finally begin the process of closing that gap.

Tony Woodley, also Joint General Secretary of Unite, commented: ‘This agreement will enable us to use our considerable resources to organise workers from new and growing sectors at home and in developing counties. There will be no more no-go areas for trade unions.’

The USW President, Leo W. Gerard, stated:

This union is crucial for challenging the growing power of global capital. Globalisation has given financiers licence to exploit workers in developing countries at the expense of our members in the developed world. Only global solidarity among workers can overcome this sort of global exploitation wherever it occurs.

According to a spokesperson for the new organisation:

The tie up between USW and Unite is recognition of the fact that, of all the industrially developed nations, it is in the US and the UK where the forces of international capitalism have been most successful in their endeavour to tilt the economic and political landscape in their favour.

However, the move is seen as laying the foundations for a bigger and more geographically diverse international union. The two founding trade unions hope to attract the participation of trade unions from different parts of the world, and report that they are already in talks with other unions about joining the new organisation.

Organisational structure

The new organisation’s staff will be headed by an executive director who will oversee a budget of ‘several million dollars’. The staff will include research, international affairs and communications specialists.

Workers Uniting is described as a separate entity in which the two founding organisations are partners, and as a precursor to a full merger. It will be ‘a fully functional and registered trade union organisation in the UK, US, Ireland and Canada, with the ability to fully represent all of the members of its founding unions’. The organisation will be governed by a steering committee with equal membership from each participating union. This structure is designed to accommodate the participation of other trade unions without having to alter their own internal representative structures.

Cooperation to date

During the development of proposals for the new organisation, Unite and USW report that they have been ‘actively engaged in joint efforts to advance global union activism’. These endeavours have included discussions about the strategies that each trade union has adopted to defend their countries’ manufacturing base, joint collective bargaining approaches in the paper, chemical and titanium industries, and the participation of activists from Unite and USW in each other’s education courses and conferences. Joint international projects have included efforts to protect the rights and safety of trade unionists in Colombia and Mexico. The new organisation has explained that it is creating a ‘global labour rights network’ that will have staff on the ground in Central America, eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and other regions.

Mark Hall, IRRU, University of Warwick, UK