US unions resolve dispute :)

Having blogged here in the past about correspondence from US Union UNITE HERE concerning their problems with UNISON’s sister union, the SEIU, I am pleased to be able to link to the announcement that the inter-union hostilities in the US are at an end.

It does seem that the recent change in the leadership of the SEIU may have brought that important trade union back on track. Trade unions need to be democratic and to be controlled by their members if we are to have effective collective organisation to defend our interests as workers.

Since UNISON is rightly working with the SEIU on the Three Companies Project, it is good to see that this dispute is at an end.

News from across the pond

Since we, as a Union, are quite deliberately - and in my view rightly - working with colleagues from the American SEIU in the Three Companies Project it is right that we should keep abreast of what is going on in relation to their former leader Andy Stern, and his successor, Mary Kay Henry.

I would welcome updates from UNISON colleagues involved with the Three Companies Project to share with NEC colleagues. The genesis of this project did not reflect the very best of our Union's lay democracy, but it's achievements could be very significant.

A hat tip to Debbie Anderson at UNITE HERE for the links to US media coverage of the SEIU.

News from the US

Such is the wonder of the internet that, lying in my sick bed, I can get news from half way round the world about workers reclaiming trade unionism for the principle that the workers should lead, rather than be led.

The new National Union of Healthcare Workers in the US (to which my attention was drawn recently by a UNISON colleague to whom, in deference to his career prospects, I shall anonymise my hat tip) broke away from our sister union the Service Employees International Union in a dispute (at least in part) about trade union democracy.

US trade unionists have to vote periodically for which trade union will represent them in contract negotiations with the employer, and it would appear that the NUHW have just won a small but significant victory in such an election.

UNISON is rightly trying to learn what positive things we can from the SEIU approach to organising – let’s hope we are not trying to learn about union democracy at the same time…