UNITE HERE meltdown has Twin Cities unions feuding
Friday, April 24, 2009 at 7:00 am
- 9 Comments
Jaye Rykunyk spent more than two decades building Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 17. She first joined the union in 1979 when she worked as a hostess at the Regency Plaza Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. She then became an organizer and eventually rose through the ranks to become the local’s top official.
But today, Local 17 officials view Rykunyk as their arch rival. They accuse her of trying to steal its members and endangering the future of the very union that she helped build.
“It’s unfortunate when someone like Jaye leaves and kind of stabs us in the back,” says Joy Anderson, a member of Local 17′s executive board and a banquet server at a downtown Minneapolis hotel. “People are mad about that and disappointed.”
The dispute is just one piece of a contentious, nationwide crumbling of the UNITE HERE labor alliance. Five years ago UNITE — formerly the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees — and HERE merged. At the time it looked like an ideal marriage. The two unions had worked cooperatively on a strike at Yale University and an organizing drive at the H&M clothing chain. HERE focused on a group of workers that seemed ripe for organizing drives but was short on cash. UNITE’s core industries had been ravaged by the North American Free Trade Agreement, but it had plenty of money. Among its holdings: Amalgamated Bank, with roughly $5 billion in assets at the time.
But the partnership has since gone horribly sour. At the heart of the battle is a clash between two of labor’s most charismatic figures, former national HERE leader John Wilhelm and former UNITE boss Bruce Raynor. The current uprising began in January when UNITE HERE’s top official in Michigan was ousted, and violent confrontations ensued between the two factions. The next month Raynor filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing his adversaries of violating the union’s constitution and seeking to seize control of the labor group’s finances. Wilhelm’s faction counter-sued. Then in March several regional boards, which oversee local unions, voted to disaffiliate themselves from UNITE HERE.
The ramifications of the nasty dispute have spilled out across the country. Despite her roots in HERE, Rykunyk was among the officials who sided with the Raynor faction. She argues that the UNITE HERE merger was an unmitigated failure and that the clashing cultures of the two organizations could not be reconciled.
“Anytime there is a divorce, it’s painful and it’s complicated,” says Rykunyk. “Emotions run high. I know my former colleagues have some very strong feelings and I hope that that will pass.”
Local 17 officials, however, balked at her alignment with what they call the “secessionist” movement.
“Jaye tried to bring us with her and we refused,” says Wade Luneberg, Secretary/Treasurer of Local 17. “We’re a hospitality local. The majority of their members are not hospitality workers. We didn’t think it made sense.”
The two parties have been warring ever since the breakup. Rykunyk insists that she’s not trying to destroy the union that she spent so many years helping to build.
“These struggles are nothing new,” she notes. “That’s part of the American labor movement. People have very divergent views. … It would be nice if we were all focused on doing the same thing at the same time, but that’s not the way democratic institutions work.”
SEIU figures in dispute
Further complicating matters is the role of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in the dispute. When UNITE HERE initially began to implode, SEIU president Andy Stern suggested that its workers be absorbed into his union. While UNITE HERE officially rebuffed the advance, Raynor jumped at the opportunity. The group of disaffected workers — which ranges from 40,000 to 150,000 depending on which side you ask — then formed a new SEIU-aligned union called Workers United.
Local 17 officials have directed most of their ire at the powerful, two-million-plus member SEIU, accusing it of meddling in matters that are outside its purview. In a letter sent to other Twin Cities labor officials and allies at social justice organizations, Luneberg’s rhetoric is heated.
“Rather than helping to build a strong more unified movement to fight for jobs that sustain our communities, the SEIU, by forcing a split in UNITE HERE, is undertaking one of the largest inter-union raids in American labor history,” the letter reads. “SEIU’s raid is unprecedented in both its tone and scale.”
Local SEIU officials adamantly deny that their union played any role in the UNITE HERE meltdown.
“Their message is that SEIU caused this, but the facts just betray them,” says Javier Morillo-Alicea, president of SEIU Local 26. “They decided to leave. We did not cause that. I just think it’s outrageous, it’s unfortunate and it’s just plain hysterical.”
Another complication is that Local 26 and Local 17 have traditionally been close allies in the labor movement. Both are considered activist unions and work primarily with low-wage workers, many of them immigrants. In addition, they work out of the same Minneapolis building, just one floor apart. “That is why this is particularly painful,” says Morillo-Alicea.
Julie Schnell, president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, is equally forceful in denying any responsibility for UNITE HERE’s problems. “It is rather disturbing and shocking that those accusations are being made,” she says. “Rather than taking the opportunity to have a discussion directly with SEIU, it appears that they have taken the opportunity to make accusations.”
UNITE HERE officials, however, argue that SEIU has fomented the split by providing funding and support for the fledgling Workers United. In fact, Rykunyk is working out of the offices of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota as she seeks to build the union. Among the alleged tactics utilized by Workers United in wooing workers: sending misleading fliers to their homes promoting the new union and recruiting workers at their job sites.
Martin Goff, organizing director for Local 17, says Workers United is also promising workers lower dues in its campaign to solicit members. “That’s the kind of dirty little game they’re playing,” he says. “It just disgusts.”
Rykunyk, however, denies that Workers United is engaging in any such tactics to recruit workers. “We are not going into their shops soliciting their workers,” she says. “That just is not true.”
Sorting through the rabble of accusations is extremely difficult. But what’s clear is that the contentious dispute is doing little to further the supposed missions of labor unions: improving the lives of workers. At a time when organized labor believes that it has the most friendly administration in decades in the White House, and when the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is supposed to be the chief priority, the infighting has become a burdensome distraction.
“Nobody’s going to come out of this stronger,” says Bernie Hesse, an organizer with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 and a veteran labor activist. “UNITE’s going to get damaged and HERE’s going to get damaged. The only group that’s going to benefit is the employers.”
There doesn’t appear to be any end in sight to the dispute. Other unions have stepped in to try and mediate a settlement, but with little success. Litigation continues to wind its way through the federal courts and could drag on for months. UNITE HERE officials continue to insist that the merged union will eventually live up to its name.
“We believe that the merger has worked very well, thank you very much,” Luneberg says.
9 Comments
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[...] here The Minnesota Independent reports on heated infighting that involves UNITE HERE union coalition and the SEIU. The national dissension [...]
Comment posted April 24, 2009 @ 11:37 am
I know how much folks like to bash Stern & SEIU in certain circles, but the idea that this whole thing was some grand conspiracy by the Service Employees is just ridiculous. Anyone who knows what has been happening in UNITE HERE over the last several years knows that the merger was flawed and failed – and that the marraige would not last (different culture, different strategies and tactics and too many irreconcilable differences). Was it really that surprising that the UNITE folks would want to go thier seperate way?
What I think this is really all about is that some on the HERE side just don’t want to see the UNITE members walk away with all of the assets they had brought into the merger. Fair is fair… the building, the bank and the money belonged to the members of UNITE who paid thier dues while working in the textile mills and garment shops to pool the reources that funded thier union’s operations to benefit those workers and thier families. HERE was bankrupt before the merger because of thier history of corruption and mismanagement (and like it or not, this is an uncontested fact and it was the primary motive for HERE wanting the merger in the first place). Now John Wilhelm thinks HERE should be able to keep what never belonged to him because 150,000 members have chosen to walk away? Is this what Wilhelm’s idea of democracy is? Tyrnany of the majority is not democracy, and attempting to pillage the legacy and treasury of generations of garment workers is an inexcusable act that only heightens the hypocrisy of those who claim this whole fight is about union “democracy”.
Its time to end this pointless and destructive feud. Sit at the table, sign the divorce settlement and get back to work building a labor movement that actually works for working people.
Comment posted April 24, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Regarding the comment by ‘Rank and File’
Congratulations for hitting all the UNITE/SEIU talking points in one concise statement. Your union may not care about workers, and you may not know how to organize, but your PR work and press prowess are second to none!
Communications specialists of the world unite!
Comment posted April 24, 2009 @ 6:23 pm
Indianapolis hotel workers are currently engaged in a struggle of historic proportions. The Employee Free Choice Act is not just being fought for in the Senate and House Chambers in Washington, but in the streets of Indy, where huge majorities of hotel workers at the Westin, Hyatt, and Sheraton hotels are demanding that the corporations respect their right to a fair process. The passage of EFCA would give these workers the union. Here is a video about their struggle:
http://gallery.mac.com/lynfilm#100093/RaisingIndianapolis_WEB&bgcolor=black
Comment posted April 25, 2009 @ 8:51 am
Sorry Tony, but I think you might need to lay off the Kool Aid (I do not work for SEIU and I didn’t get whatever “talking points” memo you seem to believe I was working from).
I have been active in the labor movement for the last two decades and unlike Wilhelm or Raynor, I actually came from the rank-and-file (and not as an Ivy-League educated “salt” either) so I dont think I need any lectures about who cares for workers and who doesn’t. In fact, I’m rather tired of hearing all of the highly educated white men pontificate about what “workers” want and what is best for “the workers”I have good friends on all sides in this dispute, as well as friends and family members that are members of all three of these unions. I don’t think anyones’ hands are totally clean here, but I also think the demonizing and personal attacks accomplish nothing and damage the good people and the good work that you can find in all of these unions. Sweeping generalisations and false accusations may be all you can manage when the facts are inconvenient, but they are not at all persuasive.
This is not a Wilhelm-led holy war for the sacred principle of “union democracy” (as much as the HERE PR machine is trying to make it seem that way)… it is a power struggle and a fight over dividing the assets of a failed merger that has already effectively been ended through secession.
Do you really believe that neither Andy Stern or Bruce Raynor “care about workers”? Really? You may disagree with them on many points of principle, politics or strategy (as I do) but to claim they “don’t care about workers” demonstrates your ignorance and partisanship. To argue that these unions “don’t know how to organize” is also a laughable claim
Comment posted April 25, 2009 @ 9:46 am
There are certainly fair criticisms that can be made of Stern and SEIU, but not knowing how to organize just isn’t one of them. You do realize, that for all of its faults, this is the one union in the country that has more than doubled in size while most of the rest of the labor movement has continued to lose numbers and power? This growth (contrary to the beliefs and arguments of the anti-SEIU community) was not solely through mergers and affiliations or back-rrom deals cut with bosses, but includes hundreds of thousands of workers organzied through real committe-based campaigns who have fought and struck for recognition and good contracts. These fights have achieved real progress for those workers.
SEIU is not Any Stern, and it is not monolithic either. It still includes some of the most democratic and militant local unions in the nation and in many places it has achieved the highest standards of wages, benefits and shop-floor rights for workers in thier core industries (there are tens of thousands of SEIU janitors and nursing home workers who make double the national average wage for workers in thier occupation, with full paid health insurance and pension benefits, that would offer a different pesrspective on thier union if any of the commentators would actually bother to talk to an actual worker, rather than just preaching to everyone else about what they believe workers want and need).
Either way, the UNITE/HERE nightmare still isn’t about Stern or SEIU.
Comment posted April 25, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Rank & File states things pretty well. People who work in factories and other workplaces don’t need, “highly educated white men pontificate about what “workers” want and what is best for “the workers.” History shows that has never worked. Usually the college recruites play at being revolutionaries for a few years and then go on to law school or graduate school when they realize that organizing is hard, grueling work.
Sadly, HERE organizing style just doesn’t work – no one has 5 – 10 years to build committees or to prove how committed they are. It’s crazy – even if it did work there’s no money to fund that any longer. The leadership of UNITE HERE (both sides) wasted millions of our dues dollars in places like Indianapolis and there’s nothing to show for it. Being fanatical and not practical about what works does nothing to build a worker’s movement or change the plight of working families.
The revolution won’t happen inside the staff of labor unions, for real change to happen members have to lead.
Comment posted April 26, 2009 @ 3:47 pm
With over 90% of the U.S. workforce not in unions, it is truly pathetic that unions like SEIU try to expand by raiding other unions. This doe not help the labor movement!
Comment posted May 1, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
This isn’t about an SEIU “raid” (despite the steady barrage of propaganda from HERE’s PR operatives that alleges such a grand conspiracy)… this is about HERE’s refusal to accept UNITE’s decision to end a merger that almost everyone in the labor movement knew had failed. The UNITE HERE merger was supposed to be one of “equal” partners. This just isn’t how things turned out. SEIU only became involved after the HERE leadership refused to respect the decision of UNITE’s leaders and members to break away (after an overwhelming majority of those 150,000 workers signed petitions and voted to disaffiliate from UH). It was the threat of raids and attempts by HERE to take property and assets that belonged to UNITE locals and joint boards that led the new Workers United to team up with a bigger union for support & protection. Wilhelm and the bosses at HERE know this as well as I do. At this point, WU/SEIU have an offer on the table for peace (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0509/A_35_millionplus_offer_in_labor_dispute.html) and Wilhelm is finally exposing himself as a shakedown artist.
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