For the last three decades global wealth and political power has been consolidated in the hands of multinational companies and the richest one percent. 

With this wealth and power they have secured a world economic and political system to defend and perpetuate their position of dominance.

The degree to which the mega rich have succeeded in destroying social protections and undermining organised labour varies from country to country, but there has been a constant erosion of workers' rights and living standards in every county.

The tie up between the USW and Unite is recognition of the fact that of all the industrially developed nations it is in the US and the UK where the forces of international capitalism have been most successful in their endeavour to tilt the economic and political landscape in their favour.

The creation of Workers Uniting, as a separate entity in which the two organisations, Unite and the USW, are partnered, is a precursor to full merger. This structure is also designed as an invitation to other trade unions throughout the world to take part in the creation of a global union without the necessity to alter their own internal representative structures.

The long term vision is to create one union to protect workers against exploitation world wide.  The arguments that suggest the impossibility of this outcome are the same that have been proffered in opposition to every trade union merger in history.  The organisation will be too cumbersome; it couldn’t represent the cultural differences of national groups of workers nor recognise the diverse political and legal frameworks that different groups operate within.

The answer is in the structure that will allow the organisation to deal with local issues locally. Increasingly though political and economic conditions are homogenising because of the power and influence of multinationals, even the European model of social partnership is under attack.

The most convincing argument in favour of creating the global union is the fact that without it groups of workers in individual countries will be doomed to scrabbling over the crumbs from the giants’ table.