Germany set for largest union in Europe

BREMEN, Germany -- German bank tellers, insurance clerks, postmen and journalists are set to form the biggest union in Europe.

The DAG white-collar trade union has overwhelmingly backed plans to merge with four other unions into a service sector mega-union.

Delegates at an extraordinary DAG congress voted with a 99 percent majority in favour of signing up to Verdi, which if created next year would have three million members and be bigger than Germany's powerful IG Metall industrial union.

The vote easily beat the 80 percent majority needed to found Verdi -- short for Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft or United Services Union -- at a congress scheduled for next spring.

It came after the largest of the five unions, the OeTV public sector workers union, last week only voted 65 percent in favour of Verdi, pushing leader Herbert Mai into resigning.

Despite the setback, Mai's successor Frank Bsirske has said he would fight for the Verdi project, encouraging DAG leader Roland Issen to express confidence that all five unions would merge as planned.

"Verdi -- that is all five of us," Issen said in a speech to the 180 delegates meeting in Bremen.

The other unions planning to join Verdi are banking and insurance union HBV, media union IG Medien and the DPG postal workers' union, which will also vote on the project at special conferences on Sunday and Monday.

Union leaders hatched the Verdi project to fight declining membership and boost their bargaining power by making a grab for new members working in the fast-growing "new economy" who are mostly non-unionised.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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