NYT: Leader of Garment and Hotel Workers’ Union Resigns

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/nyregion/30unite.html?ref=nyregion

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: May 29, 2009
Bruce S. Raynor, the longtime labor leader for the nation’s apparel workers, announced on Friday that he was resigning as president of Unite Here, the joint union that garment workers created with hotel workers five years ago.

Mr. Raynor became the latest casualty in the burgeoning internal dispute between hotel and garment workers, whose vision of a powerful, united union has been undercut by infighting.

Mr. Raynor, who was hailed for leading the J. P. Stevens organizing drive in the 1970s, resigned on the day that opponents began a disciplinary hearing on whether he had betrayed the union and should be expelled.


Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times
Bruce S. Raynor, who quit as president of Unite Here, has been accused of violating his fiduciary responsibilities.


This year, Mr. Raynor called for the end of the merger of Unite, the apparel workers’ union, with HERE, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. But when the hotel workers’ side blocked the dissolution, Mr. Raynor backed an effort by apparel workers to disaffiliate from Unite Here and form a new union, leading to the charges that he had violated his fiduciary duties.

Mr. Raynor resigned a week after the hotel workers’ side changed the locks at union headquarters, at Seventh Avenue and 26th Street in the garment district, and days after retired garment workers protested outside the headquarters because the hotel workers had seized control of what had long been the garment workers’ building.

Mr. Raynor said his resignation had nothing to do with the effort to oust him. “This hearing is a bogus process,” he said. “It is unconstitutional. My intention was to stay as president to see us through a reasonable divorce after a merger that didn’t work. But things have deteriorated into paralysis, and I concluded I can do more to advance my goals by leaving Unite Here.”

FULL story at link.