Union Profile

UNITE HERE was formed when the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE) merged in 2004 with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE). In 2005, UNITE HERE withdrew from the AFL-CIO and joined the Change to Win coalition.

Members Pay for UNITE HERE’s Lying and Spying
UNITE HERE is a leader in “alternative” organizing methods that avoid traditional elections in which every employee is afforded a personal, private vote. The union’s president, Bruce Raynor, has actually said “there’s no reason to subject the workers to a vote.” The anti-worker and anti-business tactics employed by UNITE HERE’s officials often run afoul of the law – not to mention common decency.

In July 2006, the Placer County Supreme Court ordered UNITE HERE to pay $17.3 million in compensatory damages to a group of Northern California doctors and hospitals. This money will come from the mandatory dues of union members. Earlier that month, a jury found UNITE HERE guilty of acting with “fraud, malice, and oppression” when it sent misleading and defamatory postcards to residents of communities served by Sutter Health, which runs a number of Bay Area medical centers. The postcards accused Sutter facilities of using linens that were insufficiently cleaned by an outside commercial laundry service, which at the time was in a labor dispute with UNITE HERE.  

The mass mailing -- primarily targeted at women of childbearing age -- elicited a number of calls from anxious patients. After the court’s decision, a Sutter Health board member said UNITE HERE was “recklessly frightening patients and the public through outrageous and false allegations.”

In late August of 2006, U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell ordered UNITE to pay nine targeted employees of Cintas Corporation $2,500 each, plus attorneys' fees and other costs.  At that time, the court had not yet determined if it would award punitive damages and compensation to other employees at Cintas -- approximately 2,000 people -- at future proceedings. Again, this fine would come from members’ paychecks.

In late 2003 and early 2004, UNITE representatives had illegally obtained the Cintas  employees’ contact information by using license plate numbers to access their DMV records, and had used the information to make unannounced, uninvited visits to their homes, mail them union material, and contact their family members. The court found the union guilty of unlawfully accessing confidential personal information.

In 2006, UNITE HERE teamed up with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to pressure hotel and convention center proprietors in Hartford, Connecticut to sign a “labor peace agreement” which included a provision excluding every organizing process except card check.  The unions’ incessant picketing in favor of the agreement caused the cancellation of more than a dozen convention center events and (according to a petition delivered to Mayor Eddie Perez) cost local workers thousands of dollars in salary and tips. One non-union convention center employee protested a joint SEIU-UNITE HERE press conference in late July 2006, telling union organizers: "You're basically strangling our income. Why would we want to join a union that wants to choke us into submission to let you in? You're not the union I want."

Criminal Timeline
HERE has had an extensive history of corruption and involvement with organized crime. In 1986, the President's Commission on Organized Crime concluded: "During the Commission's investigation it became clear that legitimate trade unionists are aware of the mob ties to [HERE International Union] and await government action to oust the mob from the union." By 1995, the government had filed a racketeering lawsuit and installed a federal monitor to oversee the International office of the union. In 2001 The Nation, a reliable union supporter, noted that the monitor, who had expelled 18 union officials and five other individuals, issued a report which painted:

[A] sordid picture of financial abuse, cronyism, use of union funds for officers' personal expenses, ghost payrolling, undemocratic procedures, minimal training of staff, inadequate auditing, nepotism, questionable charitable contributions, dubious consultant payments and much more under [former International president Edward] Hanley.

The Nation added that Hanley's successor and UNITE HERE's current president for hospitality industries, John Wilhelm, "remains an ardent defender of Hanley." He has a lot to defend. In 1986, the President's Commission on Organized Crime noted that "the reign of Hanley has been surrounded by allegations of organized crime's influence in the choice of international union organizers, operation of benefit funds, and conduct of union affairs."

Excerpts from that report show that HERE's pattern of corruption and ties to organized crime extended back decades:

• "Criminal infiltration, which has consistently plagued HEREIU, was exposed at the union's 1936 national convention, where Harry Koenig of Local 16 in New York City was murdered. Subsequent investigation by the Special Commission on Crime, headed by Thomas Dewey, revealed a flourishing restaurant racketeering business in New York City. In 1937 three officials of the national were convicted of crimes, Local 16 was suspended, and those members associated at the time with criminal activities were expelled."
• "In 1958 the McClellan Committee revealed that organized crime had infiltrated the Chicago restaurant industry through its control of three union locals."
• "The [Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in April 1983] found that the union's assets have been used to enrich the top officers of HEREIU's hierarchy. Base salaries augmented by expense accounts and 'allowances,' lifetime employment contracts, and increased expenditures of tangible items have resulted in expenditures for HEREIU officers skyrocketing from $229,051 in fiscal year 1973 to $1,689,370 in fiscal year 1983. Former HEREIU general secretary-treasurer John Gibson was found guilty in May 1980 of misusing the union's airplane and of conspiring to embezzle union funds. ... The list of employees and organizers hired after [Edward] Hanley became HEREIU president includes organized crime associates and numerous patronage jobs."

More Info On HERE
The Union Democracy Review summed up a portion of a federal monitor's report on corruption in the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union:

Here are some, and only some, of the abuses listed by the monitor: maintenance of a ghost local whose appointed trustee was paid $48,000 per year although the local had fewer than 20 members, most of them restaurant owners; allowances of $4,000 to Executive Board members, administrative aides and assistants for attending board meetings and conventions, totaling $478,000 in one year; ... a luxury condominium maintained by union staff in Georgetown for General President Hanley even though "he never spent more than 25 days per year in Washington, DC"; a motor home costing $100,000 for the president's personal use; over 100 organizers on the international payroll, many working without supervision; a General Executive Board that acts as a rubber stamp; "arbitrary and capricious" trusteeships; purchase of a $2.5 million aircraft costing $422,000 per year to operate; and on and on.

Membership Total Membership:   455,346		Financial Information Total Assets:   $ 227,631,565 Total Receipts:   $ 98,223,259
Source: Department of Labor, Office of Labor Management Standards LM filings

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Representational Activities ( 47.5%)	$ 34,694,936
Political Activities & Lobbying ( 2.4%)	$ 1,749,725
Contributions, Gifts & Grants ( 2.1%)	$ 1,551,718
General Overhead ( 14.8%)	$ 10,788,506
Union Administration ( 9.2%)	$ 6,749,886
Strike Benefits ( 1.0%)	$ 736,755
Total Compensation ( 28.5%)	$ 20,857,565
Per Capita Tax ( 4.8%)	$ 3,524,146

Local	Members
UNITHE Local 1 (Chicago, IL)	13,508
UNITHE Joint Board (New York City, NY)	4,624
UNITHE Local (Union City, NJ)	4,038
UNITHE Local 102 (Union City, NJ)	1,434
UNITHE Local 50 (Lakewood, CA)	1,148
UNITHE Local 688 (Bay City, MI)	503
UNITHE Local 190 (Union City, NJ)	299
UNITHE Local 117 (New York, NY)	200
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