Workers Uniting–The First Global Union

by Stuart Elliott

Last week in Las Vegas, the United Steelworkers and the UK-based Unite the Union agreed to form the Workers Uniting, the first global union.

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 who work in virtually every sector of the global economy, including manufacturing, service, mining and transportation.

Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times wrote on the merger here. and James Parks discussed it on the AFL-CIO blog, but it hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves.

Here is part of the press release for the merger.

“This union is crucial for challenging the growing power of global capital,” said USW President Leo W. Gerard. “Globalization has given financiers license 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.”

“In addition to empowering the interests of our unions’ members,” said Derek Simpson, General Secretary of Unite’s Amicus section, “our mission is to advance the interests of millions of workers throughout the world who are being shamefully exploited.”

Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers, blogged on the merger of his union with the UK’s “Unite the Union.”

Today, in Las Vegas, a town where jackpots are sought and fortunes are lost,   Derek Simpson, general secretary of the UK-based international union, Unite the Union (Amicus Section) and I together staked everything on a worthy cause — working men and women world wide.

We signed an agreement at the USW convention in the Paris-Bally’s Conference Center joining our two great unions, creating the first global one. It is called Workers Uniting, the Global Union because we foresee industrial unions from other continents joining us to face off unregulated multinational corporations that exploit labor worldwide.

Workers Uniting is labor’s response to corporate globalization – corporations that have no particular national loyalty, or allegiance to dedicated workers or adherence to anything other than the almighty dollar or pound sterling.

There’s a video of Gerard and Derek Simpson of Unite the Union.

This is not just a paper alliance, but a real merger. According to the press release announcing the agreement.

Workers Uniting will be a fully functional and registered labor organization in the UK, U.S., 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.

Both participating unions have pledged to have Workers Uniting “challenge exploitation anywhere in the global economy, since it is fundamentally unjust and is destructive of decent living standards everywhere.” Toward this end, the new union, in conjunction with the National Labor Committee, is creating a Global Labor Rights Network that will have allied staff on the ground in Central America, the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and other regions.

Jeffrey Hirsch writing on the Workplace Prof Blog comments,

Workers Uniting is the most formal coordinating effort to date, but I feel certain that it won’t be the last. What we’re witnessing right now is exciting for the labor geeks among us. I expect to see many different attempts by unions to maintain relevance and achieve gains for workers in a global labor market. Some attempts will fail; others will succeed. I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing how it all develops.

With this merger and the recently announced strategic alliance of the USW, with the CWA, UAW, and IFPTE, the USW’s Leo Gerard emerges as one of the important and creative labor leaders of the day.