HERE, UNITE Workers' Unions to Merge

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, called HERE, and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, known as UNITE, are scheduled to announce the merger Thursday, several union sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

UNITE officials would not comment on the merger Wednesday night. A spokesman for HERE was not available.

The partnership pairs two similar unions that represent a large number of minority and immigrant workers in the growing service sector. It also spells opportunity: UNITE's organizing focus on laundry and retail distribution workers fits nicely with HERE's hotels and restaurants and their need for linens and uniforms.

Unions are struggling for new members in a difficult organizing environment. Membership is at an all-time low, with just 12.9 percent of the work force belonging to a union last year. That's down from 13.3 percent in 2002, according to the Labor Department (news - web sites)'s Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the private sector alone, only 8.2 percent of workers were union members last year.

Unions are finding that to survive, they must join forces and combine resources. The Association of Flight Attendants, which lost more than 10,000 members in the past two years, in December joined the Communications Workers of America.

The new union will be headed by UNITE President Bruce Raynor, a dynamic labor leader viewed as a possible successor to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Sources said HERE President John Wilhelm, also considered a possibility to replace Sweeney in 2005, will be president of the union's large hospitality division.

Both men are part of a faction of union leaders unhappy with labor's organizing efforts under Sweeney's leadership. These leaders have formed a coalition to push for unions to spend more money on winning new members and to realign the labor movement into broadly defined sectors.

UNITE's membership has been hammered the exodus of garment and textile jobs overseas, and it has been aggressively trying to reverse the decline by focusing on low-wage workers in laundry and retail distribution. UNITE broke ranks with the labor movement to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards (news - web sites) of North Carolina over Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) of Massachusetts.

HERE has found success in staking out new territory at Las Vegas hotels, raising the living standards of the low-wage work force.