I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,---

"Name dispute mars new union's launch" - or so says David Hencke on his Guardian website entry posted 3.45pm on Tuesday April 24, 2007.

Having had continuous union membership under the banner of DATA, AUEW-TASS, MSF & AMICUS, I must confess to not being too exercised by the name we might choose to sail under next.

As a "test of lay member democracy" the comrades could, and still can, choose a better field of combat.

Two strategic priorities loom large.

The Joint Executive Council, assisted by a Rules Commission, are charged with producing a Rule book for the new union by May 1st 2008.

The Merger Exploration Committee to be set up with the USW, will "meet regularly over the next twelve months and suggest a framework for a formal merger between Amicus-T&G and the USW to create a truly International Union for the 21st Century."
.

Elsewhere I have said

"Unless the members who worked so hard for change avoid complacency or fracture we could see either right wing electoral success, or a vacuum filled by bureaucracy.

It may well be that, most of the time -- "The majority of our members are not interested in process, in committees and in standing orders" --- but instead look to outcomes. The job of activists who habitually look inside the black box is to anticipate output problems and alter either the input or the system."

If we are serious, we need to pass on a constitution which makes lay member democracy not just possible but unassailable.