UNITE HERE

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**UNITE HERE**

UNITE HERE
Founded	2004
Members	440,000
Country	North America
Affiliation	Change to Win Coalition
Key people	Bruce S. Raynor, president
Office location	New York, New York
Website	www.unitehere.org

UNITE HERE is a result of a 2004 merger of two North American labor unions: the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE) and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE). The union represents approximately 440,000 active members in the United States and Canada, predominantly in the hotel, food service, apparel and textile manufacturing, laundry, warehouse and casino gaming industries.

The general president of UNITE HERE is Bruce S. Raynor, formerly the president of UNITE. John W. Wilhelm, the former president of HERE serves as president of the hospitality division.

In 2005, UNITE HERE withdrew from the AFL-CIO and joined the Change to Win Coalition, along with several other unions, including the Teamsters, SEIU and the UFCW. UNITE HERE Vice-President Edgar Romney was elected the first secretary-treasurer of the new labor federation.

1 Hotel Bargaining
2 Political Contributions
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Hotel Bargaining

UNITE HERE has fought for substantial wage increases for workers in the traditionally low-paid hotel and tourism sector. UNITE HERE also supports making it easier for workers to join unions through voluntary card check recognition agreements with employers, where the employer agrees not to oppose its employees joining the union and agrees to recognize and bargain with the union after a majority of its employees sign union membership cards, rather than requiring a more costly and time consuming election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.

In 2006, major UNITE HERE hotel contracts in Toronto, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Honolulu and Chicago will expire, raising the possibility of a multi-city strike to support the union's collective bargaining objectives. Under the leadership of Mike Casey, UNITE HERE is also currently engaged in a dispute with various hotels in the San Francisco Bay Area. The San Francisco workers have been without a contract since 2004 and could also participate in any broader work stoppage.

Prominent celebrities such as actor Danny Glover, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and former U.S. Senator and Democratic Party Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards have endorsed UNITE HERE's 2006 contract campaign.

[edit] Political Contributions

UNITE HERE is listed as having donated $10,000 to Republican representative Richard Pombo's (CA-11) 2006 re-election campaign.[1], even though Pombo generally votes against what union activists consider "pro-labor" legislation [2]. However, he chairs both the House Resources Committee and the Office of Native American & Insular Affairs subcommittee which are responsible for regulating Indian Tribal gaming [3], and "UNITE HERE represents more than 90,000 workers in the gaming industry in the United States...[and]...the fastest growing segment of the gaming industry can be found on Native American tribal lands". [4]