Amicus was the United Kingdom's second-largest trade union, and the largest private sector union, formed by the merger of Manufacturing Science and Finance, the AEEU (Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union) agreed in 2001, and two smaller unions, UNIFI and the GPMU. Amicus also organises in both parts of Ireland and is affiliated to the UK Trades Union Congress, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Scottish Trades Union Congress.

On 1 May 2007 it merged with the TGWU to form Unite, which is the biggest trade union in the UK.

Industry representation

Amicus organises workers in almost every industry, predominantly in the private sector. At the 2005 TUC Congress it was reported that Amicus had 1,200,000 members of whom 266,986 were female and 933,014 male.

Political affiliations

Amicus is affiliated to the Labour Party in Britain, and the Irish Labour Party (Ireland). The Amicus UK Parliamentary Group includes about 120 MPs.

Foundation

When the merger to form Amicus was agreed, the General Secretary of MSF was Roger Lyons, and Sir Ken Jackson led the AEEU. When the merger came into force they both became Joint General Secretaries of Amicus. Jackson was forced to hold an election, and was replaced by Derek Simpson. In May 2003, Simpson became General Secretary in his own right following the departure of Lyons. 'Amicus' was chosen for the name of this new union for its Latin meaning: friend, comrade (m).

Further mergers

In late 2004 two other major unions joined Amicus - UNIFI (the union for the finance industry) and the Graphical, Paper and Media Union.

During 2005 discussions started between the TGWU, Amicus and the GMB about the possibility of merging the three unions into one organisation with potentially 2.5 million members covering almost every segment of the economy. On 14 June 2006 the GMB Conference voted not to continue with discussions although the other two unions pursued merger talks. A recall conference of the TGWU held on 18 December 2006 supported the merger (Amicus did not hold a recall conference), and a ballot of both unions' membership during February and early March 2007, also approved the merger. The result of the ballot was announced on 8 March 2007: 70.1% of Amicus members and 86.4% of T&G members voted to support the merger, from a turnout of 27%. The press release announced that the resulting union had the working title "New Union" and the name would be decided by a ballot of the membership. 1 However, on 2 April, The Times reported that the name Unite had been chosen.

In early April 2007, the BBC announced that Amicus was to begin discussions with North American union, United Steelworkers, about a possible merger. If successful, it would create an international "super union" with more than 3 million members, more able to pressure multinational companies and their managers. 2 This project eventually became Workers Uniting, a proposed union resulting from the merger of the United Steelworkers and Amicus' successor Unite.