Unions With 500,000 Members to Merge

A union representing hotel and restaurant employees will merge with a union of textile, laundry and retail industry workers to create a single labor organization with more than 500,000 members.

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, called HERE, and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, known as UNITE, are scheduled to announce the merger today, several union sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Both unions have large contingents of members in Southern California.

UNITE officials would not comment on the merger Wednesday night. No spokesman for HERE was available.

But John W. Wilhelm, president of the hotel workers union, told the New York Times: “We think it makes sense to have like-minded unions join together to be bigger and stronger.”

The partnership pairs two similar unions that have been aggressive in organizing minority and immigrant workers in the growing service sector.

Unions are struggling for new members amid a difficult organizing environment. Membership is at an all-time low, with just 12.9% of the U.S. workforce belonging to a union last year.

The new union will be headed by UNITE President Bruce Raynor, a dynamic leader viewed as a possible successor to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. HERE’s Wilhelm, also considered a possible Sweeney successor, will be president of the union’s hospitality division, sources said.

Both men are part of a faction of union leaders unhappy with labor’s organizing efforts under Sweeney. They’ve formed a coalition to push unions to spend more on winning new members and realigning the movement into broadly defined sectors.

UNITE has been hammered by the exodus of factory jobs overseas, and it has been aggressively trying to reverse the decline by focusing on laundry and retail-distribution workers. HERE has found success staking out new territory at Las Vegas hotels.