[Marxism] Civil war in UNITE HERE

[J Rothermel]

http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/31/civil-war-in-unite-here

 


  Civil war in UNITE HERE


   

Ruby Wolf looks at the background to the battle that's breaking up a 
union widely seen as progressive.

 

March 31, 2009

 

THE CIVIL war in the UNITE HERE union has opened up a new front, with 
the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) giving support to a 
breakaway faction.

 

The split is the result of a power struggle between John Wilhelm, who 
was president of the former Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees (HERE) 
union, and Bruce Raynor, of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and 
Textile Employees (UNITE). Wilhelm and Raynor are leading factions 
struggling not only for control of UNITE HERE's 400,000 members, but 
also over the union's Amalgamated Bank, which had $4.7 billion in assets 
last year.

 

UNITE HERE, one of the larger and more liberal unions in the labor 
movement, is coming undone. The key differences are the rival leaders' 
competing notions of top-down union "reform," as well as which faction 
will wield power under the union's constitution.

 

In 2004, Raynor and Wilhelm agreed to merge their two unions, aiming to 
create a more powerful force. Raynor's UNITE had a lot of money at its 
disposal, yet a dwindling membership as a result of job losses in its 
core garment industry. For its part, Wilhelm's HERE had 300,000 members, 
but was short on funds.

 

The two unions did have some common ground in battles with three 
employers--Aramark, Sodhexo and Cintas, which are dominant players in 
uniform, laundry and food service industries. A joint union ought to be 
a much-needed weapon to take on these employers, who employ both uniform 
laundry workers represented by the old UNITE and food services employees 
organized by HERE.

 

Thus, the unions merged, allowing HERE to gain access to UNITE's much 
larger financial resources, while UNITE got the jurisdiction to organize.

 

During the 2004 founding constitutional convention of UNITE HERE, the 
merger was finalized with a peculiar structure. Essentially, the union 
was supposed to be run by the two presidents, Raynor and Wilhelm, giving 
unchecked decision-making power to both.

 

So despite being a single entity, the old organizational structures of 
UNITE and HERE remained intact. Raynor's loyal staff continued to run 
UNITE's old joint boards that oversee locals across the country, while 
Wilhelm's allies remained in charge of the former HERE locals.

 

Thus, if the two co-presidents disagreed, there was always the potential 
that the union would divide along the lines of the merger. And that's 
what has taken place.

 

Raynor has accused the HERE side of being too liberal with the union's 
money and argues that the union is not gaining enough members.

"Since 2005, UNITE HERE has spent more than $61 million on organizing in 
HERE's hotel and gaming sectors with little to show for it," Raynor 
wrote in a letter to union members. "The total membership of our union 
is stagnant, and only about 32,000 workers have been organized in those 
robust sectors. In contrast, only $10 million has been spent on 
campaigns in UNITE's traditional manufacturing, distribution and retail 
sectors, yet we have organized 7,000 new members in those struggling 
industries."

 

For his part, Wilhelm argues that locals need more money in order to 
help them grow. He accuses Raynor's organizers of agreeing to 
substandard contracts in order to entice employers into accepting 
unionization.

 

"President Raynor...openly admits that he believes his powers should be 
used unilaterally to trade away the contractual rights of our affiliates 
and their members to obtain voluntary recognition at non-union shops 
(i.e. "growth") from major corporations," Wilhelm wrote in his own memo 
to union members. "President Raynor has frequently stated that the 
union's greatest enemy is 'standards.' By 'standards,' he means 
contractual standards regarding our members' wages, benefits and working 
conditions--standards the union has fought hard to establish over many 
years."

 

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THE DISAGREEMENTS between the two presidents came to a breaking point 
during UNITE HERE's national settlement with Aramark. A national boycott 
and strike campaign organized by the union pushed the company to the 
bargaining table. Wilhelm hoped to sign an agreement that would allow 
thousands of employees in a couple of major cities to sign union cards.

 

While both presidents were in negotiations with management, Raynor 
reportedly made a backroom deal with the company. The deal settled a 
national contract that allowed markedly fewer employees to sign cards 
than Wilhelm had wanted. And rather than concentrating new union members 
in key cities, the deal brings union recognition to shops scattered all 
across the country.

 

The situation deteriorated into an all-out war in the beginning of 
September when Raynor changed the bylaws of the Amalgamated Bank, giving 
more control to the bank directors. The move essentially gave control of 
the bank--a creation of one of UNITE's predecessor unions--back to Raynor.

 

Members from both sides then began to struggle for control of union 
locals and resources. In January, former UNITE staff forcibly removed 
the elected leadership from UNITE HERE Local 24 in Detroit from their 
offices, declaring that the local would be put under trusteeship. The 
Local 24 executive board then convinced most of its members to sign 
petitions to have the local disaffiliate from the joint board that 
oversees them. Similar struggles of control of locals have arisen in 
Phoenix.

 

In February, Raynor attempted to introduce resolutions that would have 
allowed UNITE to secede from the union at the general executive board 
meeting in Washington, D.C. However, the resolutions were voted down, 
with the majority of the executive board loyal to the HERE side.

 

The UNITE faction then filed a federal lawsuit against Wilhelm and his 
loyalists, arguing that the constitution of UNITE HERE should be 
declared null and void because the 2004 merger failed in its stated goal 
of unionizing large numbers of unorganized workers.

 

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IT SEEMS unlikely, however, that Raynor will be able to secede from 
UNITE HERE through the courts or through the union's constitutional 
process. The UNITE faction on the general executive board had little 
prospect of gaining a majority of the board in advance of the UNITE HERE 
national convention, set to take place in June.

 

Thus, Raynor has resorted to forcing his way out of UNITE HERE with the 
support of SEIU President Andy Stern, who, ironically, was a guest 
speaker at the UNITE HERE merger conference.

 

The UNITE officials, with support from SEIU staff, have mobilized to 
disaffiliate joint boards from UNITE HERE. On March 21, they held a 
convention of a new union, Workers United, at which 450 delegates 
claimed to represent 150,000 workers. The new union, led by Edgar 
Romney, a former UNITE official, will be a satellite of SEIU, which will 
finance much of Workers United operations. The convention voted to raise 
the possibility of direct affiliation to SEIU in the future.

 

Raynor's claim that 150,000 members have already defected from the 
national union is shaky, given that his skeleton staff may not have been 
capable of successfully disaffiliating this many members in such short time.

 

Wilhelm alleges that UNITE's maneuvers are undemocratic, arguing that 
UNITE officials had circulated petitions to members about leaving the 
union, rather than holding a vote--and that some locals had no petition 
or votes at all.

 

A formal split between the merged unions is still far from certain. A 
number of locals under the old UNITE joint boards have disaffiliated 
from them in order to group with locals loyal to HERE.

 

What is certain is that friendly relations between Wilhelm and Stern 
have been severed. UNITE HERE and SEIU were the main leaders in the 2005 
split in the AFL-CIO that led to the establishment of the Change to Win 
federation. Now, however, with the SEIU's intervention in UNITE HERE, 
Wilhelm is trying to negotiate re-affiliating his union with the 
AFL-CIO. Yet at the same time, pressure from the White House has 
compelled Change to Win and the AFL-CIO to reunify as well.

 

The power struggle between two sections of the UNITE HERE bureaucracy 
comes at critical time for the labor movement. Corporate America is 
gearing up to destroy the Employee Free Choice Act that would make it 
easier to join a union, and employers are out to make workers pay for 
the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

 

Neither faction battling for control of UNITE HERE--or other union 
leaders, for that matter--have offered a strategy capable of meeting 
that challenge. In the end, the revitalization of the unions will depend 
on workers themselves acting together in struggle.

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