Carmen Padron, a commercial laundry worker in Pomona, said a rival union tried to persuade her to abandon her longtime local. "They should be organizing workers who don't have a union, not harassing us," Padron said.
George Ibarra, a hotel worker in Texas, said an organizing drive in San Antonio collapsed when a competing union swooped in and made a deal with management. "That was completely underhanded," Ibarra said.
The two incidents are among numerous episodes in a vicious civil war that is roiling the U.S. labor movement and diverting attention from its core goals -- better contracts for workers, new organizing drives and a far-reaching political agenda in Washington.
Occurring mostly below the public radar, the ferocious battle ripped apart the union known as Unite Here, with tens of thousands of workers nationwide, and assumed a tumultuous center stage in labor circles. Each side in the schism has accused the other of trying to raid its ranks and steal members.
The dispute has cost organized labor millions of dollars to fight and dealt pleased employers an upper hand as union shops battle each other. A broad swath of contested terrain ranges from commercial laundries in California to school cafeterias in Philadelphia.
The war has featured a blitzkrieg of leafleting, prerecorded phone calls, direct mailers, home visits and, according to court papers, "coercive interrogation techniques" used to strong-arm members. Both sides have alleged threats, harassment, lockouts, misappropriated funds and back-room deals with employers.
"It's shameful," said Bruce Raynor, a major protagonist and president of Workers United, the dissident faction that broke away this year from Unite Here. "Companies are taking advantage of it, and workers are absolutely being hurt by it. It turns my stomach."
The infighting rages as a slumping economy batters working families and union allies control the White House and Congress, creating labor's most propitious political moment in decades.
"We keep hearing from the Obama administration that it's easier to listen to one voice," said Harley Shaiken, a labor specialist at UC Berkeley.
Unite Here's Local 11 in Los Angeles has been at the front lines of the fight, dispatching organizers to Pennsylvania, Texas and Arizona to ward off what it calls incursions from Workers United.
