§ Mr. BatisteTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what information he has as to how many union mergers have taken place in the years since 1980, and as to what the sizes of the unions merged were.
§ Mr. NichollsThere were 115 mergers involving a total of 2.7 million union members in the period 1980 to 1988; annual data are given in the table. Separate statistics on the sizes of individual unions involved in these mergers are not readily available.
Year Number of mergers Number of members involved 1980 13 113,235 1981 4 8,617 1982 12 1,455,207 1983 9 65,320 1984 18 142,302 1985 11 73,526 1986 32 50,530 1987 5 125,200 1988 11 673,300 Total 115 2,707,237