DEMOCRACY'S SABOTEURS:

Labor's time has come, but trouble stirs within: With a labor-friendly administration in Washington, labor's long-sought legislative goals are finally in reach. But union divisions threaten to derail that agenda. (Evelyn Larrubia, February 22, 2009, LA Times)

As political institutions, labor unions are no strangers to controversy. But the current level of conflict is unusual, Ganz and others said, as is the public forum that it has been taking.

The leaders of Unite Here and representatives of its affiliates recently filed a series of lawsuits against each other, laced with complaints of fraud and theft, making public what had been an internal clash over power and organizing methods at the garment, hotel and laundry workers union.

The laundry and garment representatives, led by Unite Here General President Bruce Raynor, accuse hotel worker representatives of failing to increase membership and squandering the savings they brought into the union through a 2004 merger. Citing irreconcilable differences, Raynor wants a divorce.

"We tried to resolve it quietly," he said, "but we couldn't."

The hotel representatives, led by Unite Here's hospitality president, John Wilhelm, accuse their rivals of sabotaging democracy by conducting mass firings of union officials at locals in Detroit and Phoenix and by filing a lawsuit after the union's executive board voted against a breakup.

The dispute comes on the heels of last month's public skirmishes between the giant Service Employees International Union and its 150,000-member Oakland-based local, United Healthcare Workers-West. SEIU removed UHW leaders after they had refused to give up their home health aides to a new local.

The ousted officers, led by former UHW President Sal Rosselli, formed National Union of Healthcare Workers and began a massive campaign to court UHW members. More than a hundred SEIU staffers from around the country have descended on California to keep the UHW members and take over running the local. The fight made national news.

By at least one measure, the two fights are connected: SEIU President Andrew Stern has invited one or both sides of Unite Here to be absorbed into his 2-million-member international union.

"It's ugly," acknowledged Lowell Turner, a professor of comparative labor at Cornell University.