UK-US Trade Unions
Britain's biggest trade union is to form a new international super-union with an American counterpart, it was announced Wednesday.

Unite, which has more than two million members itself, said it would merge with the US-based United Steelworkers union to create a new body called Workers Uniting.

Joint general secretary of Unite, Derek Simpson, said such moves were necessary to respond to the increasing number of multinational companies.

"The political and economic power of multinational companies is formidable," Simpson said. "They are able to play one nation's workers off against another to maximize profits," he said.

"With this agreement we can finally begin the process of closing that gap," he said, urging other unions, from Poland to Australia, to join Workers Uniting.

Unite's other joint secretary Tony Woodley, said the agreement will 'enable us to use our considerable resources to organize workers from new and growing sectors at home and in developing counties. There will be no more no go areas for trade unions'.

Working Uniting, which has taken over a year to negotiate, will represent some three million working people from every industrial sector in Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada and the Caribbean.

Unite itself is the product of a merger between two of the UK's biggest unions, the Transport and General Workers Union and Amicus, which merged two years ago as a trade union for the 21st century.