Members of Connect – the union for professionals in communications voted by a margin of some 7:1 this month to back a merger with Prospect. The merger of Connect and Prospect will create the UK’s largest union for managerial and professional people across both the private and public sectors and will bring us closer to realising our shared vision of creating a union for professionals across diverse sectors of the UK economy. Our ambition is for our members to see their union membership not only as their insurance policy against the worst happening to them, but as an essential and portable tool as they progress in their careers. We currently represent around 19,000 managerial and professional members across the telecoms and ICT sectors and will form the communications sector of Prospect from January 2010. Prospect already has over 100,000 members in a wide range of professional occupations and this merger gives us both a real opportunity to make our mark, with the expertise and skills of our membership across strategically vital areas of the national economy shaping the policy agenda as the UK emerges from recession.
We believe that this merger promises an exciting future for Connect, for Prospect, and for our respective members. More significantly in the wider political context, we also believe that this marks a positive development for the trade union movement and for the role of unions in public policy debate. Connect is well respected for our positive and relationship building approach – in terms of engaging with policy makers, in dealing with employers and for our innovative work with our industry. We are always focused on providing the professional union services that our members have rightly come to expect, and now by working jointly with Prospect, we can promise renewed energy in getting the best deal for our members at work and throughout their careers. We look forward to building on our strong track record in being a career union for professionals and for making sure that the voice of professional, highly skilled workers is heard by government.
There is no doubt that there are economic and political challenges ahead. Looking beyond what some see as the ‘traditional’ trade union agenda, we will be working hard to shape debate across the political spectrum to secure a high skills economy, the most important element in our drive to help our members not just in ‘getting even’ but in ‘getting on’ at work. For Connect, the key ambition of the coming years will be the realisation of the Digital Britain project, with the UK getting the high-tech communications infrastructure that it needs for us to emerge in a more competitive state than ever from the recession. There are wider issues too, as we build on positive signs of renewed government interest in an active industrial strategy and, most importantly of all, as unions join with policy makers in building the UK’s low carbon, highly skilled economic future.
We value our relationships with policy makers, and we attach great importance to our ability to shape the political agenda to support our members and our industry. Working with Prospect will allow us to continue to influence policy, both in the ‘traditional’ trade union areas of employment policy, protection at work, health and safety and our core priorities in equalities as well as continuing to act as a trusted source of information on telecoms, ICT, technology and the whole range of occupations including the civil service, electricity supply, energy, defence, the heritage and environmental sectors that Prospect represents. This merger promises a bright future for the members of Prospect and Connect, and allows us to continue to shape a positive agenda for the British trade union movement.
For more information about Connect click here www.connectuk.org or call 020 8971 6000