Vol. 73/No. 15      April 20, 2009

Some 450 delegates attended the founding convention of Workers United in Philadelphia March 21. Officials reported that 15 joint boards of UNITE HERE, representing 150,000 members, had voted two weeks before to start a new union. Members of Workers United come from most parts of the United States, Puerto Rico, and four provinces in Canada, they said.

Prior to the split, UNITE HERE reported a membership of about 450,000.

Two days after the Philadelphia convention, Workers United president Edgar Romney announced the union had affiliated to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

UNITE HERE was formed in 2004 by a merger of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. The following year UNITE HERE, together with SEIU, United Food and Commercial Workers, and other unions, left the AFL-CIO to form a new labor federation, Change to Win.

John Wilhelm, president of UNITE HERE’s hotel and restaurant division, condemned the recent split, saying it violates the union’s constitution. Both sides have gone to court over that issue.

Wilhelm said that SEIU president Andrew Stern “has seized upon the inherent weakness of the splinter group as his opportunity to reach into UNITE HERE’s hotel, gaming and food service jurisdictions.”

Wilhelm also charged that “Stern plans to take the Amalgamated Bank in the bargain.”

Amalgamated Bank is the only union-owned bank in the country, with assets of some $5 billion. Originally established by a predecessor of the UNITE garment union, it became the joint property of both UNITE and HERE when they merged.

Leading up to the split, some 75,000 workers signed petitions for disaffiliation that were circulated in some UNITE HERE shops, according to Workers United officials. A flyer distributed along with the petitions in New York garment shops was signed by the board of directors and officers of the New York New Jersey Regional Joint Board of UNITE HERE. It accused officials from the HERE wing of the union of “trying to silence the voices of 150,000 workers. Just like the boss.” It said they “want to sell off everything and in the words of one of them, spend it down until it’s gone, that’s a plan that will bankrupt the union. Just like the boss.”

The split marks the further fracturing of the labor movement as the officials’ class-collaborationist strategy has failed to protect workers from the deepening capitalist economic crisis. Only 12.4 percent of workers were in unions in 2008; among manufacturing workers it was 11 percent. In 1983, 20 percent of the workforce was union.

Seeking to recover their dues base, union officials have promoted mergers of unions representing workers in very different occupations, which have only weakened the industrial character and potential power of the unions. Their infighting has more and more degenerated into raiding operations against unions seen as rivals for dues-paying members.

Just days before the Workers United split, the AFL-CIO and SEIU announced the formation of a Gaming Workers Council made up of casino unions. UNITE HERE, which organizes many casino workers, was not invited to participate, D. Taylor, the Culinary Workers union secretary treasurer, told the Las Vegas Sun.

In mid-March the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rejected the formation of a new union by 14,000 workers in California who belonged to United Healthcare Workers-West, an affiliate of the SEIU. The NLRB ruled that the SEIU contract with the employer, Catholic Healthcare West, prevents the formation of a new union.

The SEIU had earlier placed United Healthcare Workers-West in trusteeship. Sal Roselli, former president of that local, charged that the SEIU agreed to inferior conditions in contracts in order to convince employers to accept unionization. The SEIU officials accused Roselli of financial misdealings. Roselli now heads the new union trying to win recognition, which is called the National Union of Healthcare Workers.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home