About Workers Uniting

Workers Uniting is the name of the new international union created by Unite - the biggest union in the UK and Republic of Ireland and the United Steelworkers (USW), North America's largest private sector union.

Workers Uniting draws on the energies of more than three million active and retired workers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland who work in virtually every sector of the global economy, including manufacturing, service, mining and transportation.

The global union’s founding Constitution calls on its combined membership to “build global union activism, recognizing that uniting as workers across international boundaries is the only way to challenge the injustices of globalization.”

Consistent with this calling, Workers Uniting will “match our words with action and resources, utilizing our collective expertise and knowledge through collective bargaining, organizing, global political action and international solidarity.”

Our unions are actively engaged in joint efforts to advance global union activism, including:

•  Common political strategies to fight right-wing cuts in pensions and social services and attacks on workers’ fundamental right to organize and join unions, and to rebuild our economies through investment in manufacturing industry, infrastructure and green jobs.
• Joint collective bargaining efforts with common employers in our industries.
• International solidarity projects to defend the rights of trade unionists in Bangladesh, Colombia, Liberia and Mexico.
• Participation by rank and file delegations of activists in each other’s education, rapid response, health and safety, civil rights and women’s conferences
• Exposure to the political processes in each other’s countries, including Democratic Party primaries and Labour Party conference The founding Congress of Workers Uniting was held in London in November 2011.

Workers Uniting is governed by a Steering Committee with equal membership from each participating union. Both participating unions have pledged to have Workers Uniting “challenge exploitation anywhere in the global economy, since it is fundamentally unjust and is destructive of decent living standards everywhere.”