The USW’s top international officers, executive board and 3,500 elected local union leaders from North America’s steel, paper, rubber and tire, mining, oil and service sector workplaces will sign a document finalizing a 15-month process in the first step towards a global union, a process that started at the USW’s Canadian Policy Conference in Ottawa in April 2007.
The formal signing of the agreement with Derek Simpson, general secretary of the UK-based international union Unite (Amicus Section) will be on Wednesday, July 2 at around 11:45 a.m. PDT (2:45 p.m., EDT; 7:45 p.m., BST in the UK). The signing and remarks by USW International President Leo W. Gerard and Simpson will be transmitted via live webcast linked on the union’s website, usw.org.
Also speaking to the convention will be Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti on Tuesday, July 1 at 3:15 p.m. Federal New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton will speak at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday and US Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama will speak via satellite on Wednesday, July 2 at 2:30 p.m.
“This is an exciting convention from a global perspective,” said USW Canadian National Director Ken Neumann, who is also a vice president of the International USW. “For Canadians, this new global union is the right response to the global economy and its impact on working people everywhere.”
The name and structure of the new global union will be announced to convention delegates and will represent more than three million active and retired workers from the US, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland. Further information will be available after the agreement is signed on the USW’s international website, usw.org and Britain’s Unite (Amicus and T&GWU sections) at amicustheunion.org.
The USW represents 1.2 million active and retired workers in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Aruba. There are more than 280,000 members in Canada alone.
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CONTACTS: Pat Van Horne, 416.347.0217; Gary Hubbard, 202.256.8125
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