There's a turf battle going on between the Service Employees International Union and UNITE HERE, an amalgam of hotel, culinary, and textile workers.SEIU, the Borg Collective of unions, appears to be attempting to steal members from UNITE HERE, an amalgam of culinary, hotel, and garment workers. But as you'll read below, SEIU could be viewed as a victim too.
Ben Smith of Politico surveys the battlefield:
Two memos from labor movement enemies of SEIU President Andrew Stern offer unusual insight into a concerted, ad hominem campaign against one of the country's highest-profile labor leaders.
The campaign seeks to "plant" stories in the press on the theme that "Stern is behind it all" and to "engender SEIU internal dissent," according to one memo.
The two internal memos were drafted by aides to hotel and casino workers' leader John Wilhelm, who heads UNITE HERE. The garment workers' side of that union has sought to secede and, as "Workers United," affiliate with Stern's SEIU, prompting a bitter turf battle between Stern, Wilhelm and their respective allies.
They're a mark of the bitterness of this labor civil war, and and the vast resources being expended on it: One memo says that 20 UNITE HERE researchers are spending most of their time targeting SEIU, while another lays out a set of targets for organizers and other union staffers.
More...
The fight isn't one-sided: Stern's allies in the garment workers' faction also mailed a series of ad hominem attacks on local hotel workers' leaders, and the sides are skirmishing over the control locals. A spokeswoman for the hotel and casino workers' side, Pilar Weiss, said her side was only responding in kind.
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