Nearly two million union
members will be asked to name the new
super-union to be formed from combining the
T&G and Amicus.
After union leaders failed to agree on a
fresh identity for the organisation, the union’s
members, who are expected to back the merger,
will be asked to vote for one of three names:
OneUnion, Union@work or AmicusT&G.
Amicus prefers
OneUnion. The T&G put forward Union@work.
The third option is one that both can live with,
but if it is chosen it will keep alive the
Amicus name, which few in the union had been
keen on.
Amicus employed a consultancy, at a cost of
£10,000, to advise on a new name for the
super-union, although then it threw out all of
its suggestions as inappropriate. Two of its
list of 200 rejected names were Voice and
Accommodate, as it pursued a theme of
partnership. Also discarded from the final list
were Spectrum and United. The name that Amicus
finally selected was suggested by Derek Simpson,
its general secretary.
The T&G did not employ a consultancy and
said that the move to let the members decide was
both “more democratic and a lot cheaper than a
consultancy”.
The T&G has to win the approval of one
more conference of delegates, scheduled for
December 19, before it can put the merger plans
to a vote of its 800,000 members, which it hopes
to do in January. If the T&G succeeds in
overcoming its final hurdle, Amicus will ballot
its 1.1 million members next month.
Providing that there is not a surprise vote
against merger by the members, the new
superunion will come into existence in May.
Plans for it have alarmed the Labour Party
because of its political muscle and employers
because of its plans for greater cohesion of
large numbers of union members in an industry.
It plans large industrial groupings within
its structure and to spend £15 million a year on
recruiting new union members.
Originally, the T&G and Amicus held
three-way merger talks with the GMB, but the GMB
pulled out this year after its regional
officials felt that their autonomy would be
undermined.
However, it is thought that the super-union
will try to bring in other unions with the
promise of greater resources and industrial and
political power. Such moves would reshape the
union landscape and would also marginalise the
TUC, the umbrella body that traditionally has
brought all the unions together.
Some in the union movement also fear that
large unions can become more remote from their
members’ needs and industries as they become
larger and more general.
Birth of a mega-union
Amicus has 1.1 million members
Formed in 2002 from merger of AEEU and MSF
T&G has 806,000 members
Formed in 1922
2005: Amicus, T&G and GMB begin merger
talks
June 2006: GMB pulls out, the other two
negotiate on a new structure and rulebook
Autumn 2006: both unions’ executives agree
on the merger
December 19: T&G delegates to vote on
the move
January 2007: both unions’ members to vote
on merger
May 2007: new super-union to come into
existence, with the two unions running in tandom
November 2008: new structure to begin after
rationalisations across shared functions
Source: Amicus and
T&G
