Despite a more favorable administration with the election or President Obama, organized labor is struggling to maintain peace from within. Many national labor unions are fighting internally, including unions in Los Angeles. LA's Unite Here, a coalition created in 2004, is learning that the two unions who merged to form it have very different agendas. Now, the Unite side has voted to demerge and join forces with the Service Employees International Union instead. The result has been a bitter fight between Unite and HERE over assets, workers, and rights. The destabilization of labor groups could have severe impacts on LA's once powerful labor movement.
See "Labor at the brink", Harold Meyerson, Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2009