Workers Uniting is a union partnership with more than three million members in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland. ^[1] Workers Uniting is decentralized and operates as a loose umbrella unifying two unions, the North America-based United Steelworkers and the United Kingdom-based Unite the Union.

As of 2022, its website has not been substantially updated since 2011, the year of its founding congress. Its “Economy” page only contains a recommendation for a global response to the 2008 financial crisis. ^[2]

History

In 2008, the American United Steelworkers concluded an agreement with Unite the Union, the largest labor union in the United Kingdom and Ireland, to form Workers Uniting with an initial membership of 2.8 million. A new steering committee was established to coordinate the two unions which would operate mostly independently. ^[3]

Workers Uniting’s website proclaims that “the mega rich have succeeded in destroying social protections and undermining organized labour,” and that a global singular labor union is a viable way for labor to fight back. Workers Uniting was intended as a precursor to bridge United Steelworkers and Unite the Union before a full merger occurs, and eventually this union should merge with other unions around the world to “[champion] international working class solidarity, economically, politically and socially, on a global scale.” ^[4] Workers Uniting had early plans to open offices in Central America, the Middle East, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. ^[5]

Politics

Workers Uniting supports left-of-center economic and pro-labor policies, including government investments in infrastructure and “green jobs,” ^[6] protectionist trade policies, subsidies for manufacturing companies, ^[7] more government provision of health care in the United States, and protections for government-provided health care in the United Kingdom. ^[8]

Workers Uniting opposes “right-wing cuts in pensions and social services and attacks on workers’ fundamental right to organize and join unions” around the world. ^[9]

Workers Uniting has repeatedly called for erecting tariffs on steel to protect American and British manufacturing. However, in 2018, Workers Uniting opposed extending President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum against China to the European Union, Mexico, and Canada. The extensions divided the union between its American and non-American components. ^[10]

A “Rules Book” for a 2019 conference for Workers Uniting and Unite the Union states that one of the objectives of the union is “to have a strong political voice… so as to promote a socialist vision,” which includes “a collective society in which public services are directly provided on the basis of public need and not private greed.” ^[11]

Workers Uniting opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. ^[12] In 2016, Workers Uniting supported an initiative to renationalize the British steel industry. ^[13]

Colombia

In 2016, Workers Uniting formally incorporated Colombia-based FENSUAGRO, an agricultural trade union, into its ranks. Over the following four years, thirty FENSUAGRO were killed during altercations, causing Workers Uniting to reach out to the British ambassador to Colombia for support. ^[14]