Union shocker: UNITE-HERE boss faces ax in labor war

One of the country's biggest labor leaders is about to be expelled from his own union.

At an internal hearing to be held at Chicago's Drake Hotel Friday, officials of UNITE-HERE will review charges that their president, Bruce Raynor, improperly organized a breakaway faction to join a rival labor group, the Service Employees International Union.

Raynor is also accused of conspiring to siphon millions of dollars of UNITE-HERE's assets, including those of the union-owned Amalgamated Bank, for the benefit of SEIU.

American labor has rarely seen such a massive raid by one union against another, or such a public power struggle within a major union.

You'd have to go back to 1942 for anything of comparable scale. That was when the legendary John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers expelled his second-in-command for forming the independent United Steel Workers Union.

As this contemporary dispute has continued to snowball, it has bitterly divided many longtime labor activists.

The 500,000-member UNITE-HERE was formed five years ago in a friendly merger of textile and hotel workers. Two weeks ago, its executive committee suspended Raynor and accused him of working against the interests of his members.

Early last Friday morning, John Wilhelm, Raynor's co-president and head of the hospitality division, deployed a phalanx of private security guards to seize control of two floors of the union's executive offices on Seventh Ave., where Raynor is based.

The raid was necessary, Wilhelm says, because Raynor's followers had removed hundreds of important files from the headquarters over the past few weeks and were scrubbing vital information from the building's computers.

Then on Tuesday, lawyers for Raynor requested an emergency hearing with Manhattan Federal Court Judge George Daniels, who is overseeing several suits connected to the UNITE-HERE split. Daniels rejected Raynor's request.

Raynor did not respond to calls for comment. Neither did Edgar Romney, the former UNITE-HERE vice president who - with Raynor's blessing - led about one-third of UNITE-HERE's members in breakaway action in March.

The Romney faction then founded a new organization, Workers United, and promptly affiliated with Stern's SEIU.

In their raid, Wilhelm's people found several documents they say show Raynor was subverting his union.

One May 11 memo, for instance, provides Raynor detailed updates from the Workers United breakaway group about its plans and finances.

That memo notes with alarm that Workers United is incurring deficits of more than $300,000 a month and that those losses are expected to grow.

"The $1 million loan we received from SEIU will help absorb some of the shock, but only for approximately three months," the memo adds. It urges a new appeal to SEIU for up to $1.3 million a month in subsidies through suspending any dues payments to the national union.

SEIU spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette confirmed that her union had loaned $1 million to Workers United and is considering additional aid.

"What our members need most right now is to see (these) issues resolved through binding arbitration so we can all move forward and get back to the business of challenging hostile employers and winning better wages and benefits for our members," she said.

Veteran labor watchdogs like Herman Benson of the Association for Union Democracy have been stunned by the ferocity of the fight between Stern, Wilhelm and Raynor.

"SEIU is bankrolling a secession inside another union," Benson said. "That's just not done. As for Raynor, he set up his own dual union, which is considered one of the biggest crimes by organized labor. No wonder they want to throw him out."