The leaders of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, known as UNITE, and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, or HERE, said it wasn't the California grocery strike and lockout that brought the two together. But they said that long- running dispute underscored why they needed to take a page from corporate giants that have grown more powerful and in some cases more defiant as their industries consolidated.

"What the grocery strike speaks to is that you had giant national companies doing battle, the stage was national and global," said UNITE's president, Bruce Raynor. "You need to have strong unions that are capable of fighting - the coming battles between workers and employers wanting to lower their living standards." Executives with UNITE and HERE said a marriage would vastly expand their resources and reach, enhancing their capability to organize their core targets of women and immigrant workers, people usually employed in low-wage industries. The newly formed union would have a total active membership of about 440,000, from textile workers in the Southeast to bellhops in Santa Monica.

The merger plans reflect an ongoing consolidation in organized labor, which is trying to restructure amid the relentless shifting of manufacturing jobs to overseas and pressures from employers at the bargaining table. The merged union also hopes the combination will make it more effective at organizing workers in service industries, which have been growing but have been difficult to unionize, partly because of high employee turnover.

full article at <http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-labor27feb27,1,6174086.story?coll=la-home-business>

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