Merger green light

Two unions with a professional and managerial membership are to ballot their members on merger this month.

Conferences of the 75,000-member Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists and the 30,000-strong Engineers and Managers Association have agreed to start balloting on 18 June with the result due in mid-July. If successful the unions will form "the largest union representing professional engineers in the UK," according to IPMS. It will be called Prospect.

EMA general secretary Tony Cooper said it would be "a merger of equals with different cultures but similar philosophies". He said both unions had strong density of membership in the organisations where they were represented and both had "sound financial assets".