Unite, the United Kingdom’s biggest union, and the United Steelworkers, the largest private sector union in the United States and Canada, signed an agreement on July 2 creating the “first global union”.
Workers Uniting will represent 3 million working people from every industrial sector in Britain, Ireland, the US, Canada and the Caribbean, said a release. It will be “a fully functional and registered trade union organization in the UK, US, Ireland and Canada.”
The agreement was in response to the challenges of globalisation, the release added. “In particular, the casualisation of employment and reductions in pay and conditions for millions of working people in North America and Europe.”
The new union’s staff will be headed by an executive director who will oversee an initial budget of several million dollars. The staff will include: research, international affairs, and communications specialists.
For more: www.workersuniting.org.