Word: unionizers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Think of mergers and you typically imagine captains of industry egged on by big bankers. But this week's most significant consolidation is happening on the other side of the working world: between labor unions. The United Steelworkers (USW), America's largest private-sector union, is joining up with Unite, Britain's largest national union, to form the world's first transatlantic union. The deal, set to be inked on Wednesday at the Steelworkers' International Convention in Las Vegas, will create the grandiosely named Workers Uniting: The Global Union. Says USW President Leo W. Gerard: "We're creating...
...rationale for the ocean-spanning super union is obvious and ubiquitous: globalization. Most of the companies that labor deals with are globe-straddling multinationals, yet unions remain national organizations. That's widely considered one reason why organized labor has endured decades of decline in overall membership and in clout. Thomas A. Kochan, co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is convinced the Steelworkers and Unite will make the merger work, he says, "but it will take time; it's uncharted territory." He points out that since t he USW already...
...what can it do now that it's joining up even more international workers. The power to negotiate individual bargaining contracts will remain with USW and Unite, mainly because of differing national and internal laws and regulations. But Gerard says there's a host of issues common to both unions that will keep the collective leadership busy. In sectors including steel, paper and oil, for example, both unions deal with some of the same companies. The merged union will be better able to ensure that a company can't reject defined benefits in one country that it's already agreed...
...some respects, the USW and Unite are marching to echoes of drumbeats past. Trade unionism has from its earliest days considered itself a global movement, albeit one organized at national levels. Certainly, a number of unions - including the Steelworkers - have formed alliances with foreign counterparts. And there are already several world-spanning labor bodies, including the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Metalworkers' Federation. For that reason, Richard Hyman, a professor of industrial relations at the London School of Economics, is skeptical the merger will work or is necessary. While unions need to better coordinate efforts on a global...
...State of the Union address, Theodore Roosevelt, dismayed that there were no laws to "hamper an unscrupulous man of unlimited means from buying his own way into office," proposed "a very radical measure" he hoped might make elections more fair and transparent. (To his great embarrassment, Roosevelt himself had been hit with accusations that he promised a French ambassadorship to a senator from New York in exchange for $200,000 in big business campaign donations.) "The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided ... an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organization and machinery...