UNITE HERE in SF & The NUP

The battle of UNITEHERE hotel workers versus their employers in San Francisco is an important issue for all working people and the future of the labor movement.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/23/BAGOL9F6MP1.DTL

The union is demanding a meager pay raise to compensate for skyrocketing health care costs.

More important for the labor movement as a whole, though, is the demand for a 2 year contract. Why is this important? Becuase a 2 year contract will put the San Fran workers on the same 'bargaining schedule' as the hotel workers in most other major cities. So 2 years from now UNITEHERE can bargain across cities, can bargain as an industry. It is a consolidation of bargaining power for working people.

This consolidation of power throughout an entire industry is one of the key tenants of an inter-AFL-CIO reform effort headed up by UNITEHERE's Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm, SEIU's Andy Stern and several others. The idea is to reform the AFL-CIO from 70 small unions into 15 large unions organized by industry. And instead of organizning and bargaining worksite by worksite, the union could organize and bargain by industry.

The San Francisco hotel battle is an important one for the NUP.

The "NUP" has pros and cons ... but at least someone in the AFL-CIO leadership is thinking of change. Businesses are always changing tactics ... the AFL-CIO has hd the same structure and strategy since the 1940's.

For more information on the "NUP" see the following links or just do a google search:

http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2003/10/a.html

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Mar2004/johnson0304.html