Which gets us to what’s really distinctive about UNITE HERE: It generally wins a level of worker allegiance that leads workers to join, and pay dues, even when they don’t have to. Las Vegas, where the local now claims roughly 60,000 members, has been ground zero for such successes. There, Taylor and his presidential predecessor, John Wilhelm, pioneered practices of involving workers in organizing, mobilizing, and bargaining at levels that are uncommon in most unions. That involvement has tended to pay off, literally, in the contracts the union has won.
