The civil war within Unite Here, the union representing hotel, restaurant, apparel and laundry workers, has reached the secession stage. þþA splinter group claiming to represent 150,000 of Unite Here’s 400,000 members announced Monday that its delegates had voted to break away and merge into the Service Employees International Union.þþThe move, at a weekend meeting in Philadelphia, bolsters the growth ambitions of the 1.8-million-member services employees, the dominant service-sector union.þþUnite Here was formed in 2004 when Unite, representing apparel and laundry workers, merged with the larger Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, or HERE. The conjoined union’s president, Bruce S. Raynor, who previously led Unite, has maintained over the last year that the merger has failed. Mr. Raynor and other former Unite officials have argued for divorce, on the ground that the unification has not realized its goal of increased organizing.þþOfficials from the hotel workers’ side have opposed any split, saying Mr. Raynor wants to end the merger largely because he has been outvoted on a variety of issues by the union’s board. þþJohn W. Wilhelm, who is president of Unite Here’s hotel and restaurant division and whose allies control the board, denounced the weekend move, saying Unite Here’s constitution did not allow for secession. The two sides are already battling in court over that question.þþTensions were made all the worse Monday because the breakaway group and the service employees announced that they would seek to unionize food service and hotel workers, who have fallen under the jurisdiction of Mr. Wilhelm’s division. þþEdgar Romney, a onetime Unite official who is the newly elected president of the secessionist group, Workers United, defended that strategy. “Our cultural background has always been to organize low-wage workers, no matter what the industry,” said Mr. Romney, Unite Here’s secretary-treasurer.þþMr. Romney also said nearly 40,000 former members of the hotel workers were part of the secession move, but Mr. Wilhelm said those workers had been “kidnapped” against their wishes by anti-HERE officials of their regional councils.þþMr. Wilhelm condemned the services employees’ president, Andy Stern, calling him Czar Stern and saying his “attempt to adopt the Raynor splinter group is a transparent ploy to justify his hostile takeover of Unite Here’s jurisdiction.”þþMr. Stern said, “This affiliation is about applying what was done for sweatshop workers and for janitors for other low-wage workers in the new economy.”þþOne thing the two sides did agree on was that Unite Here would continue to own Amalgamated Bank, the nation’s only labor-owned bank.þþ
Source: NY Times
