New Year greets new international union
BECTU has become a founding member of a new international union body launched on 1 January 2000.
Union Network International (UNI), which opened for business on New Year's Day, covers more than 15 million union members in industries ranging from e-commerce to publishing, media, and professional workers.
The new body was created by a merger between four existing international union organisations representing workers in graphical, media, telecommunications, and white collar industries.
BECTU has become a member of UNI's Media and Entertainment section, one of 12 separate sections in the new organisation's structure. The industrial sections were established to acknowledge the distinct characteristics of the various industries covered by UNI's affiliates.
However, the new international body plans to organise campaigns and recruitment drives across the separate industries in order to keep up with expanding global employers.
UNI is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, but plans to move to new premises in in Nyon, Switzerland, in October 2000. Bureaux have been set up in every continent, and in Europe an office of more than 20 secretariat staff is planned to open in Brussels.
Before UNI's creation, BECTU belonged to the Media and Entertainment International (MEI), which has joined the new organisation.
UNI's General Secretary, Philip Jennings, said: "We are moving into a knowledge economy where success depends on skills - both for companies and workers.
"Our members will be working as freelancers, teleworkers, agency staff, sub-contractors, and pan-continental work travellers."
On 7 January 2000 UNI is due to unveil a new website which will become a central point for the delivery and exchange of information between its 800 affiliated unions around the world.