The 250,000 strong US hospitality hotel, restaurant and textile employees union - Unite Here - has rejoined the US union federation the AFL-CIO, four years after it walked out with other US others unions to form a rival coalition - Change To Win.
The return of Unite Here to the main US union federation is a result of internal rows and accusations of raids on Unite Here membership and is a blow to the Change to Win unions lead by SEIU.
In 2004, Unite, the US textile and clothing workers' union, merged with Here, the hotel and restaurant workers' union.
The merger combined the financial power of Unite - which had shrunk to 100,000 members because of the decline of the U.S. textile industry - with the larger membership and growth potential of Here, who organised hospitality, hotel and casino workers.
A year later, the merged union left the AFL-CIO along with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Carpenters (UBC) and the Laborers' International Union (LIUNA). They in turn were later joined by the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and a new coalition Change To Win was created.
Change to Win's main focus has been organising new members - and placing significant finances and resources in organising - much more than than the AFL-CIO had previously done.
However, Change to Win has now fallen short of its own targets, with limited victories in organising new members.
SEIU has also been accused of raiding Unite Here's membership. In March this year SEIU created "Workers United" as a home for the Unite Here membership. (This organisation has no relationship with the global union created by Unite in the UK and Ireland and the Steelworkers in the USA known as Workers Uniting.)
The SEIU organises food workers, hospitality workers, labourers, janitors and health care workers.
After initial membership increases in the "low wage - high turnover" sectors, its is alledged that SEIU signed up its members to “partnerships” with companies which restricted their rights to operate freely as trade unionists and promising employers an easy ride in return for co-operating with unionisation.
Similar allegations caused rifts in the SEIU's membership in California, with a breakaway union now challenging SEIU. It has also transpired that the Carpenters union has not paid its subscriptions to Change To Win.
At the recent TUC meeting in Liverpool, Debbie Anderson, international officer of Unite Here, told a fringe meeting that the SEIU’s philosophy was to turn the labour movement into a “corporate friendly, top-down body with little or no membership involvement and on a path that has done great damage to the labour movement”.
Ms Anderson told the meeting that the hostility deployed in campaign tactics to raid Unite-Here members were “astonishing”. She accused SEIU of using funds raised by Unite Here to contact its own members in a negative campaign to persuade them to switch unions. Leaflets were sent to members’ home addresses and cold-calling telephone campaigns were deployed in industrial sectors where SEIU had no members.
One leaflet, sent to Unite Here’s hospitiality sector members, was in the form of a “Do Not Disturb” sign hung on a bedroom door to insinuate that Unite Here was not interested in getting a fair deal for its members.
Other tactics have included smear campaigns, personal home visits, website attacks and the hiring of union-busting consultants alledged Ms. Anderson.
At the TUC meeting Paul Kenny of the GMB said that his union had been approached by SEIU several years ago with an offer of a “blank cheque” to help the union out of its then financial problems. The offer was turned down because the conditions would have given the SEIU the effective right to take over the GMB.
According to reports the UFCW and LIUNA are now in negotiations with new AFL-CIO leader Rich Trumka to follow Unite Here. Trumka has proclaimed his oppostition to the SEIU's growth-at-all-costs and business friendly model. Trumka told the recent AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh that any union who raided an AFL-CIO affiliate "will find 1,000 organisers coming to the rescue of that union.”
The internal divisions in the US union movement may distract attention and resources from influencing the Obama administration. Recently, President Obama sent strong signals to the US union movement that it was not prepared to deal with a split union movement, especially when trying to get through the Employee Free Choice Act.
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