MSF finds way through merger muddle

Manufacturing, science and finance union MSF has begun to get its merger with the AEEU engineering union back on track after agreeing changes to the planned constitution.

The MSF delegate conference in May demanded that the draft instrument of amalgamation (which lays out the constitution of the new union) be revised to ensure that the annual conference of the new union would be supreme, and could not be circumvented by the national executive. It instructed the union's national executive to bring the revised instrument back to an MSF annual conference before proceeding with merger plans.

The national executive last month made what it sees are the required changes. The revised instrument of amalgamation will now be sent out to the membership who will be asked to indicate in a "consultative poll" whether the union should now pursue the amalgamation on the basis of it

If the answer is "yes", as is expected by the executive, it will hold a recall conference, probably in November. This will be followed by a full merger ballot, in the hope that amalgamation will be agreed in time for the new union to be established in January 2001, as planned.