Détente between Unite Here and Service Employees International Union leaves unanswered questions

The leaders of two battling nationwide unions say they have reached a détente that will resolve their dispute, but it still is not clear which of them will represent area hotel and stadium workers.

"When I heard about the resolution, I thought a lightbulb would go on in my head and I'd know who was representing whom," said Patrick J. Eiding, who, as head of Philadelphia's labor movement, has had to do a delicate balancing act.

"But when I read this announcement, everything is as clear as mud," he said Tuesday.

The announcement by the unions sets the stage to resolve a nasty divorce in 2009, nearly five years after they joined forces.

One was called UNITE, one was called HERE, and for reasons that seemed symbiotic at the time, the merged union combined names - Unite Here - and divergent trades in a New York headquarters building.

The marriage didn't last five years and a breakaway group, formed primarily of the original Unite leaders, affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The breakaway group held their organizing convention in Philadelphia in March 2009, hosted by longtime local labor leader Lynne Fox.

The convention set in motion 15 months of war, with the workers and the unions' combined assets as the prize.

Under the terms of the détente, the breakaway group gets to keep the $4.5 billion Amalgamated Bank, the only U.S. bank owned by a labor union.

The bank came into the marriage with the UNITE union, which traditionally represented textile workers. Under the détente, the breakaway group will continue to represent textile and laundry workers, as well as some food-service workers.

The former hospitality workers' union will retain the headquarters building in New York and the joint name, Unite Here. It will continue to represent hotel and stadium workers.

Those are the broad terms, but how they will play out locally is far from clear.

The battle between the unions was particularly intense in Philadelphia. Workers at some hotels were loyal to one union, while those at other hotels favored the other. Both sides battled to represent Philadelphia School District cafeteria workers.

In a bid to win the loyalty of workers at South Philadelphia's ballparks, each union filed competing wage and hour lawsuits against their employer, Aramark Corp. Meanwhile, Aramark put union dues deducted from paychecks into escrow, saying it didn't know which union to pay.

On July 19, cooks, food-stand managers, vendors, bartenders, and waitresses from Citizens Bank Park filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board in Philadelphia.

This petition, from more than a third of the 1,500 workers, seeks to change unions from Fox's Joint Board to Unite Here.

The petition was filed before the détente, but whether it will be affected by it is unclear.

National litigation between the two unions is being withdrawn. Spokespeople from both sides say a process to resolve representation of disputed locals is being developed.

"We cannot be spending our time fighting one other over workers who are already represented when there are far too many people who want and need a voice on the job," said Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees International Union.

Key local leaders, including Fox and Unite Here local staffers Antony Dugdale and Warren Heyman, declined to comment.

One leader of a small union local group, Local 525, which represents food servers at the Convention Center, said she had heard nothing about her group's fate.

Over the last decade, her group of 110 workers has been affiliated with both unions and has also been independent. Local 525 president Shirley Slaughter said Tuesday that she was fed up with both national unions.

They "can keep the local number and call us kangaroos as long as we are done with them," Slaughter said.

Service Employees International Union

Membership: 2.2 million in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico

Industries represented: Health care, property services, and public services

Unite Here

Membership: 300,000 in the U.S. and Canada

Industries represented: Airports, food service, gaming, hospitality, laundry, and manufacturing

The Settlement

The unions agreed to:

Resolve jurisdictional issues involving worker representation

Set up a process to determine representation of remaining disputed workplace units

Resolve matters related to distribution of financial assets

SOURCES: SEIU and Unite Here

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