Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union

Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU), the leading trade union in the manufacturing sector of the United Kingdom until 2001, when it combined with two other British unions. The Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) originated in 1992 through the merger of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) with the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication and Plumbing Union (EETPU).

The AEU was larger and older than the EETPU, though both had originated as unions of skilled craftsmen and only later opened their ranks to all employees within their respective industries. The AEU’s forerunner was the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, a powerful craft union formed in 1851 through a merger with nine other unions. The AEU began to organize on industrial lines in the 1920s as crafts gave way to mass production. Despite a 40 percent membership decline in the 1980s, the AEU remained the second largest union of metalworkers in Europe into the 1990s. The EETPU was, like the AEU, also a product of mergers, having formed in 1968 through the coupling of the Plumbing Trades Union (founded in 1865) with the Electrical Trades Union (founded in 1889).

The merger of the AEU with the EETPU in 1992 created a union of about one million members, the AEEU. It was formed to meet the changing needs of British industry in the early 1990s. In 2001 the AEEU merged with the Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) union to form Amicus. Six years later Amicus merged with the Transport and General Workers, Union (T&G) to form Unite, which became the largest trade union in the United Kingdom, with close to 1.5 million members.