Most trade unions are likely to end up inside one of just half a dozen emerging 'superunions' inside the next tive vears While the left has been slow to respond, the pace of change is already dizzying.
The last weeks have seen the AEU engineers and the EETPU what will be the AEEU from May s, wiule a special col ference of local white collar union NALGO de bated terms for joining manual counterparts NUPE and health workers in COHSE.
Sources in the CMB and TGWU general unions - rivals n many sectors - are openly ropping get-together hints while the TGWU is in ongoing talks with the National Union of Mineworkers.
A civil service amalgamation between the CSA and the NUCPS is currently on ice after CeSA members resected the roposition last October, bu compelling.
Media merger?
The same is true of a media union, to take in GPMU ters, entertainment workers in of mergers themselves) and NUJ journalIt's down to the left to ensure that the superunions become democratic, accountable and fighting working class organisations, rather than top-down marily designed to maintain subscriptions income.
In the more amorphous superunions, it could beappro-. pnate to push for strong industry-by-industry organisation, with the workers directly concerned setting the overall union's agenda for their sector However, socialists in the unions are weak and seriousiy divided. A key first step forward will be overcoming deeply-ingrained sectarianism within existins oroaa ierts wards, towards non-aligned rank and file members who actually want to fight.
The genuinely broad-based Socialist Movement Trade Union Committee - now growing in influence-has the potential to become the major focus of the labour movement left.
If it succeeds, it would be the first example of such an inter-union coordinating body free from sectarian control.
What will be the tuture role of the TUC? General secretary Norman Willis admits in a re cent release "The creation of a small number of large unions presents the TUC with a new opportunity to which it will have to rise.
Problem
It's an interesting turn of parase. opportanines are usually grasped or taken; it is the name of Willis' problem is