Did the transatlantic union merger mean anything?

September 8, 2010 5:14 PM

Two years ago the American United Steelworkers and the British UNITE merged to form what was then referred to as a transcontinental "super union". I can find all sorts of articles before and just after this occurrence, but very little follow up. This isn't particularly surprising: Labor news in the U.S. barely gets any coverage. But does anyone know how the merger turned out?

Have they engaged in any substantial coordinated actions? Have they done anything that they couldn't have done as allied, but still separate unions? Has it borne any policy fruit? Or is it simply too soon to tell? I realize this is a bit obscure, but I'd be very interested to hear some answers.

posted by LeonBernstein to Work & Money (1 answer total)

They do a lot of work together to support Mexican workers, and more recently (last month) Bangladeshi garment workers. So in that way it worked out fine.
posted by shinybaum at 5:20 PM on September 8, 2010