UNITE HERE pushes back against SEIU

THE WAR between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE HERE is set to escalate following UNITE HERE's convention in Chicago. Some 700 delegates affirmed the union's intent to defend its core organizing jurisdictions in the hotel, gaming and food service industries against raids by the SEIU, and UNITE HERE got the explicit support of several major labor leaders in this inter-union conflict.

UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm accuses SEIU of "criminal" behavior for allegedly transferring $23 million in union funds to Workers United, a breakaway faction now affiliated with the SEIU.

Moreover, he said, SEIU and Workers United have managed to tie up more than $300 million of UNITE HERE's money in investments that make it impossible for the union to use the funds for its operations, leaving only about $4 million available to run a union that claims a membership of about 400,000.

Much of the disputed amount is invested in UNITE HERE's Amalgamated Bank, a major prize in this fight. As David Moberg noted:

Despite its professed lack of interest, SEIU may be trying to bolster its finances by acquiring Amalgamated Bank through a merger. The union's net assets fell from $76 million to $34 million between 2004 and 2008. SEIU is heavily in debt (which includes a loan from Amalgamated Bank last fall) partly to finance 2008 political activity, but also for its new Washington, D.C. headquarters.

In a telephone press conference following the convention, Wilhelm described the SEIU/Workers United efforts to take money and members away from UNITE HERE as "shock and awe." Now, he said, "we're expecting shock and awe II"--aggressive moves by SEIU to try and decertify UNITE HERE as the bargaining agent for hotel and gaming workers in such union strongholds as Atlantic City.

During the three-day convention, Wilhelm repeatedly blasted the SEIU as a "bosses' union," accusing SEIU President Andrew Stern of trying to move into UNITE HERE's turf by offering employers lower wages and fewer benefits. At Wilhelm's urging, the convention overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to arbitrate the dispute. Wilhelm likened the offer to a plea by a burglar, once caught, offering to ask a third party to decide which stolen goods could be kept. "There's no way to resolve this until the SEIU returns the money that they've stolen or sequestered," he told reporters.

THE UNITE HERE convention marks the end of the five-year merger that brought together the old hotel workers' union HERE with UNITE, itself the product of an earlier merger of garment workers' unions. The merger installed UNITE leader Bruce Raynor as president and Wilhelm as co-president responsible for hotel and hospitality industries.

But the two unions never really blended. Raynor accused Wilhelm of spending too much to organize and moving too slowly, while Wilhelm replied that Raynor was following the SEIU's Stern in offering sweetheart deals to employers in exchange for expedited organizing.

Earlier this year, the battle broke into the open, with the old UNITE faction organizing disputed votes of 20 of 22 multi-local joint boards to split and form Workers United. The new union claims 150,000 members, but a leaked internal memo acknowledged that only about 103,000 pay dues. Shortly after it formed in March, Workers United merged with SEIU.

Raynor initially stayed behind in UNITE HERE, resigning just weeks ago to take a position with the breakaway union. Meanwhile since Workers United claimed the right to organize hotel, restaurant and gaming workers, the clash between the SEIU and UNITE HERE became inevitable.

In fact, SEIU raids on UNITE HERE are already well underway. One convention delegate, Lois Lester, a member of UNITE HERE Local 355 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where she works as a bartender, said that the SEIU is working furiously to decertify her local.

"If they can get enough people to sign union cards, they can delay our contract negotiations, and we haven't had a contract since October 2008," she said. "They are practically stalking our members--some signed their cards just to get rid of them. One woman who signed then asked for her card back, but they wouldn't give it to them."

The vehicle for the Florida raid is Service Workers United, a national union "local" originally created as a joint affiliate of SEIU and UNITE HERE. "They are promising people lower union dues," Lester said, adding that management gives SEIU supporters time off to campaign for the decertification effort.

To counter these raids, Wilhelm has lined up the support of several major unions, both from the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win federation that UNITE HERE helped found alongside SEIU just four years ago. In guest appearances at the convention, several union leaders joined Wilhelm in denouncing Stern, including Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Laborers' President Terrance O'Sullivan and International Union of Operating Engineers President Vincent Giblin, who pledged that "every resource" of his union would be made available to UNITE HERE if members had to strike.

Several other union leaders signed a statement of support for UNITE HERE, including Teamsters President James Hoffa, United Food and Commercial Workers President Joseph Hansen and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. If these officials back those words with action, the SEIU could find itself squaring off against almost the entire labor movement. The SEIU-UNITE HERE battle has left Change to Win in shambles; most of its members are likely to move back into the AFL-CIO fold at the federation's convention later this year.

THIS ANTI-Stern lineup of top labor officials is highly significant. While no champions of union militancy and democracy themselves, these union leaders finally have been forced to come forward with the same criticisms of Stern made by union reformers and labor activists for several years--that the SEIU's efforts to organize workers through collaboration with management can only undermine unions already in deep crisis. And Wilhelm's withering attacks on the SEIU's heavy-handed and bureaucratic methods vindicated the arguments of union democracy within and outside the SEIU.

But broad labor support for UNITE HERE is unlikely to be sufficient to counter the SEIU, which represents more than 2 million workers. Only greater rank-and-file activism by UNITE HERE members will allow the union to withstand the raids.

Thus, the UNITE HERE convention focused largely on rewriting the union's constitution to encourage greater rank-and-file activism and union democracy. Under the constitution approved by delegates, union locals and joint boards will get greater autonomy from the international union. Executive board positions will now be elected by region, to ensure closer ties to union members. A newly created position will promote diversity in the union's leadership.

In the press conference, Wilhelm said that the increased stress on members' volunteer organizing was crucial for the future of UNITE HERE, calling it "one way of overcoming the ridiculous resource advantage SEIU has over us."

Glen Banfield, a member of UNITE HERE Local 54 in Atlantic City, agreed that more membership involvement was important not only in stopping the SEIU, but also in taking on management. "It lets the employer know that you can't just push an agreement past four or five people," he said, pointing out that Local 54's bargaining committee for upcoming contract negotiations will include 1,000 members.

"What we do here is put the workers in control," he said. "In the SEIU, the leaders control everything."

By stressing union democracy to push back against the SEIU, UNITE HERE is following a similar path as the new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), created by the formers leaders and members of the SEIU's big West Coast health care union that was put in trusteeship by Stern earlier this year. Like NUHW President Sal Rosselli, Wilhelm has explicitly, and vehemently, rejected the SEIU strategy of putting labor-management collaboration over negotiating good wages and working conditions and union democracy.

Where Stern has created mega-locals of 100,000 or more members that are unaccountable to the rank and file, Wilhelm has put new stress on democracy and members' rights--arguments that can--and should be--taken up across the labor movement.

Of course, it's bad news that labor is caught up in internal struggle in the midst of a long economic crisis and escalating attacks on workers. But the debate generated by the SEIU attack on UNITE HERE is long overdue. Union members and supporters everywhere should join in the discussion about what kind of organizing we need to revive organized labor--and step up the effort to build fighting, democratic unions.