Union merger in balance

The future of Ver.di, the new union to be created by a merger of five

existing unions, was hanging in the balance as Labour Research went to

press. The executive of the German public services and transport union,

(tm)TV, was meeting on 27 September to decide whether it wanted to continue

with the project, which would create Germany's largest union.

There has been growing criticism within the 1.6 million-strong (tm)TV that

its concerns will not be sufficiently represented in the new union.

However, in the other four unions, who together also have a total of 1.6

million members, there are fears that (tm)TV is trying to dominate it.