A new super union with over one million members covering engineering, science and finance was formed on Monday when two of the UK's largest unions announced the results of their merger ballot.

The union of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) and the Manufacturing Science and Finance Union (MSF) creates the UK's second biggest union after Unison, the public services union.

The as yet unnamed union will be the largest affiliated to the Labour party with about 110 members in parliament.

It will have an annual income of more than �60m, assets of over �100m and a campaign budget of over �1m to recruit new members.

The company has members in most FTSE-100 companies but its key goal will to increase overall representation.

About 80% of the members who voted were in favour of the merger creating the 1.2m strong organisation and members of the two unions are now being consulted on a name for the new organisation.

Mergers abroad

Last year the AEEU floated the idea of a pan-European merger between itself and the German industrial giant IG Metall.

"Just as companies merge across the borders, unions have to as well and over the next 10 years you could achieve a pan-European trade union merger," Sir Ken Jackson, general secretary of the AEEU, told BBC News Online.

The AEEU and IG Metal are among the most compatible UK and German unions and have reciprocal representation arrangements for their members when working abroad.

The MSF last year also approached Unifi, the banking and insurance union, and there has been speculation it could be included in the AEEU-MSF merger at a later date.