Two Unions in Marriage Now Face Divorce Talks | nytimes.com

With the economy in crisis and a new labor-friendly president in the White House, this should be a time when labor unions pull together. But one of the nation’s best-known unions, Unite Here, which represents nearly 400,000 apparel, hotel, restaurant and casino workers, is doing anything but that. “This union is engaged in a civil war,” said Bruce Raynor, president of Unite Here. The hostilities have grown so serious that violent confrontations erupted last month when one faction ousted the union’s top official in Michigan.