Richard Morrison and Jeremy Lott welcome special guests Greg Conko and Iain Murray to the program for Episode 70 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the big Senate showdown on healthcare legislation and a shocking expose of climate science skullduggery. We then move on a double dose of Midwestern scandal and the curious cult-like organizing practices of major labor unions.
UNITE-HERE
The row between the UNITE-HERE hospitality and textile union and Workers United — which broke away from UNITE-HERE earlier this year and joined the powerful and growing Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — has taken a bizarre and ugly turn.
According to The New York Times, several UNITE-HERE organizers have complained about a practice known as “pink sheeting,” in which union members are pressured to reveal private and potentially embarrassing personal information about themselves. Union organizers then allegedly use those workers’ stories to present as testimonials that illustrate the kind of hardships that the union has helped its members overcome.
More than a dozen organizers said in interviews that they had often been pressured to detail such personal anguish — sometimes under the threat of dismissal from their union positions — and that their supervisors later used the information to press them to comply with their orders.
“It’s extremely cultlike and extremely manipulative,” said Amelia Frank-Vitale, a Yale graduate and former hotel union organizer who said these practices drove her to see a therapist.
Several organizers grew incensed when they discovered that details of their history had been put into the union’s database so that supervisors could use that information to manipulate them.
UNITE-HERE President John Wilhelm denied that pink sheeting was common, and denounced “the organized campaign to condemn it” (as Times reporter Steven Greenhouse describes it) as an effort by SEIU to discredit UNITE-HERE. As I’ve noted here before, SEIU is not above bullying its own members, and SEIU President Andy Stern has motive to go after Wilhelm’s union.
Before UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees) and HERE (Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees) merged in 2004, Stern has made no secret of his desire for SEIU to absorb the two unions. He offered HERE’s Wilhelm and UNITE chief Bruce Raynor to join SEIU. They declined and merged their unions with each other, but did join the Change to Win coalition, which Stern helped found in 2005 when he took SEIU out of the AFL-CIO (the Wilhelm-led UNITE-HERE has since rejoined the AFL-CIO). As The Las Vegas Sun‘s Michael Mishak, who interviewed Stern in May 2009, notes:
To hear [Stern] tell it, two of the nation’s most progressive unions would not now be at war had they only listened to his advice five years ago. Back then, as Unite, the garment and apparel workers union, and Here, the hotel and casino workers union, considered merging, Stern suggested an alternative: join SEIU, which was surging forward as the country’s largest and fastest-growing union.
Unite President Bruce Raynor and Here leader John Wilhelm declined.
Instead they formed Unite Here, parent of the Culinary Union, promising to organize large numbers of workers nationally. The honeymoon was short-lived, and long-simmering tensions between the two leaders erupted into public view this year, with Raynor calling for a divorce and Wilhelm struggling to keep the merger intact
Yet whatever SEIU’s motives, the claims made against UNITE-HERE are serious enough to warrant further investigation. (Thanks to Vincent Vernuccio for the Times link.)
For more on SEIU, see here.
For more on UNITE-HERE, see here.
The civil war between the two factions that until recently made up the union UNITE-HERE heated up further this week. Yesterday, the leadership of the rump UNITE-HERE voted to suspend the union’s general president, Bruce Raynor, who led a dissident faction out of the union. Raynor’s group incorporated as a new union, Workers United, which is now affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), as a “conference” of SEIU. Today, UNITE-HERE followed up with a protest outside SEIU’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, at which UNITE-HERE claims it had 300 people. SEIU, for its part, is accusing UNITE-HERE of suppressing dissent and of trying “to raid Workers United and SEIU” for new members.
UNITE-HERE was the result of the 2004 merger between the Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees (UNITE), which was headed by Raynor, and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE), headed by John Wilhelm, who now heads the current version of UNITE-HERE. Before the split, Wilhelm headed the union’s hospitality division.
Earlier this year, Raynor accused Wilhelm of trying to take over what had been UNITE’s resources, which were greater than those of the former HERE, whose hospitality constituency showed greater possibility for unionizing large numbers of workers. This combination of more workers to organize (HERE) and greater resources (UNITE) created the alleged synergy that brought the two unions together in the first place. Now the fight has grown into a proxy war between the AFL-CIO, which UNITE-HERE has decided to rejoin, and SEIU President Andy Stern, who led his union out of the AFL-CIO in 2005 and formed his own labor coalition, Change to Win — of which UNITE-HERE was a member.
It’s hard to say what will come next, other than the Wilhelm/UNITE-HERE/AFL-CIO vs. Raynor/Workers United/SEIU fight is unlikely to cool down any time soon — especially with control over the former UNITE-HERE’s assets at stake, and Stern’s propensity to never relent in pursuit of his goals. As union activist Steve Early writes in the left-wing online journal Counterpunch:
With family jewels up for grabs (in the form of UNITE-HERE’s $4.5 billion Amalgamated Bank), guess which Purple Knight stood ready to unite with either or both of the estranged partners, as long the bank was part of the deal.
That’s not not chump change anyone will let go of easily.
For more on SEIU, see here.
UNITE-HERE, the 450,000-member textile and hospitality union, is embroiled in a “civil war,” according to its president, who is now openly considering breaking up the union. UNITE-HERE was created as a result of a 2004 merger between the United Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE). The New York Times explains the logic behind the merger:
On paper, the marriage made sense, besides making for the catchy Unite Here name. Unite — the descendant of two illustrious New York unions, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union — had lots of money to organize workers, but few workers left to unionize because so many apparel jobs had moved overseas. At the same time, Here was starved for cash, but saw an ocean of hotel and restaurant workers to unionize.
The idea was that once the unions merged, Unite’s ample treasury — it owns Amalgamated Bank, the only union-owned bank in the nation — would underwrite a surge in organizing.
But now the marriage is on the rocks. The merged union, comprising two disparate industries, maintained a dual leadership structure — Bruce Raynor, who headed UNITE before the merger, became General President, while former HERE chief John Wilhelm became president of UNITE-HERE’s hospitality division.
Now Raynor is accusing Wilhelm of wasting what were UNITE’s resources and trying to take over the union. He and some of his allies filed a federal suit accusing Wilhelm of violating the union’s constitution and going beyond their authority. Wilhelm says that he has respected constitutional procedure, and in turn accuses Raynor of a power grab. The rhetoric is getting heated.
“We’re not going to allow them to hijack the resources that were put aside by generations of ladies’ and men’s garment workers,” Mr. Raynor said. “We’ll do whatever we have to do to show that we can’t be held captive by a bunch of thugs.”
Mr. Wilhelm said the executive board and committee had followed the union’s constitution.
“The notion that the merger should be disbanded because Bruce Raynor can’t be a dictator is a proposition that may make sense for Bruce Raynor, but it doesn’t make sense for the workers in our industries,” Mr. Wilhelm said.
According to the Times, the UNITE/Raynor and HERE/Wilhelm factions cannot even agree on whether the union should split into its previous component parts. But someone else sure does seem to think the breakup should take place:
On Jan. 30, Andy Stern, president of the powerful Service Employees International Union, wrote to Mr. Raynor and Mr. Wilhelm saying their merger had failed and suggesting that Unite Here or either of its original halves merge into his union.
But Mr. Stern’s own union has been riven by dispute. He has ousted the leaders of a local representing 150,000 health care workers in California, and they responded by founding a rival union that is trying to get many of those 150,000 workers to secede from the service employees and join them.
You’d think Stern would have enough on his plate.
Among the accusations and insults volleying back and forth between Raynor and Wilhelm, it’s hard to assess who has the stronger case, but one thing seems certain: Competing egos like these cannot be easily assuaged. This may drag on for a while.
As a side note, I couldn’t help but notice this quote:
“It’s terrible to have these civil wars going on right now in what are among the most dynamic unions in the country,” said Joshua B. Freeman, a labor historian at City University Graduate Center in New York. “It’s a terrible waste of energy and undercuts tremendous possibilities.”
Is there any other area of the social sciences where one can expect to hear such blatant advocacy?
For more on UNITE-HERE, see here.
For more on SEIU, see here.
Update: UNITE-HERE Executive Vice President Edgar Romney today announced that he and several other union officials have filed a resolution with the union’s General Executive Board to dissolve the 2004 merger and for a disaffiliated UNITE “[t]o explore a relationship with SEIU.”
Update 2: John Wilhelm, president of UNITE-HERE’s hospitality industry division, announced on Monday night that, “the General Executive Board of UNITE HERE voted by a substantial 62% to 38% margin to remain unified.” Now it’s time to watch for Raynor’s next move.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
Twitter 
Facebook 
CEI.org 
WorkPlaceChoice.org 
GlobalWarming.org 
CEI On Demand Video 
Liberty Week Podcast 