Bruce Raynor Elected President of Workers United, SEIU

NEW YORK, June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a special meeting today, the
General Executive Board of Workers United, an affiliate of SEIU, voted
unanimously to make Bruce Raynor the new president of their union.

"Already, our young union with a long history has been exceeding expectations
and defying the odds. Bruce Raynor is a big part of that history, and we
welcome him with great enthusiasm. By renewing the partnership we have built
over years of leadership at our predecessor unions, we are poised to do even
more and take working people farther," says Edgar Romney, the founding
President of Workers United who will now serve the union as Secretary
Treasurer.

Since its founding, Workers United has led a national campaign to save the
Hart Schaffner and Marx men's clothing company, helped keep the world famous
Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia open, and is fighting for textile workers
who have been locked out of their Wisconsin factory. Workers United has also
organized hundreds of workers in laundries, hotels, food service and
manufacturing shops.

"I am so proud to be leading this union which is full of members I know and
love, with leaders I have had the honor to have served with in the past, and a
top notch staff," said President Raynor. "I am also excited to have an
opportunity to get back to work as an organizer in the industries and
geographies I know best. I have always thought that union presidents should
be their top organizers, and that is the job I am here to do."

"I've known Bruce since the late 1970s and I can't tell you how many times we
stood in the rain or the heat - shoulder-to-shoulder on the front lines -
fighting for working people," said James Adams, a Workers United member and
volunteer organizer who works in a manufacturing plant in Calhoun, Georgia.
"We worked closely on the Pillowtex campaign and many other manufacturing and
laundry campaigns across Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and
Florida. He was right there working alongside us organizing back then, and
I'm very happy he'll be back with us once again."

President Raynor and the entire Workers United team are building a bright
future for the new union, with a commitment to putting workers first through
new organizing campaigns and strong representation. President Raynor and the
leadership of Workers United will also continue to advocate for a settlement
to resolve the open questions left by the dissolution of the merger of UNITE
and HERE.

"Even though this is a time for looking forward, we can't ignore the past,"
explained President Raynor. "In order for all of our unions to move on, we
need to settle our disagreements once and for all. This dispute is damaging
for our members and the entire labor movement. That is why I want to
reiterate my commitment to negotiating an end to the UNITE HERE merger up to
and including binding arbitration."
Workers United, SEIU is a union of 150,000 people in the US and Canada who
work in the laundry, food service, hospitality, gaming, apparel, textile,
manufacturing and distribution industries.

SOURCE Workers United

Amanda Cooper, +1-917-224-6904, amanda.cooper@workersunitedunion.org, or Eric
Sharfstein, +1-917-208-6980, eric.sharfstein@workersunitedunion.org, both of
Workers United