Consolidation via absorptions and amalgamations has been a common response to situations of crisis for unions across the developed world.
While the case for consolidation is intuitively strong, as a strategy to rebuild or maintain the power of organised labour it has generally been a failure – at least as it has been practiced up to now.
The transformative potential of a consolidation will only be realised where a plan is adopted to learn the lessons and avoid the failures of the past.