Workers with two large national unions will gather in Chicago today in an attempt to mend the rift between their two groups.

An end to the dispute could have wide-ranging consequences for Chicago's service workers, many of whom demonstrated earlier this month outside The Congress Plaza Hotel and Convention Center to mark the sixth year of a strike against labor conditions there.

Today's efforts arise out of the soured merger between Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, dubbed UNITE HERE.  The combined union represents about 400,000 workers in hospitality, gaming and manufacturing,

Last month, UNITE HERE general president Bruce Raynor left to join Workers United, an affiliate of the 2-million-member Service Employees International Union.

Workers United has also signed up thousands of former UNITE HERE members. That, combined with Raynor's move, has resulted in squabbling between  UNITE HERE and SEIU over membership and political power.

The ongoing battle could undermine solidarity in the labor movement as legislators debate issues such as the Employee Free Choice Act, a federal bill that would make it easier for workers to organize for collective bargaining.

Today's meeting, comes three days before Unite Here's convention begins in Chicago. Members from both Workers United and UNITE HERE will renew calls to end the fight.

Earlier this month, Raynor, Workers United President Edgar Romney and SEIU President Andy Stern sent UNITE HERE president John Wilhelm an open letter asking that he submit to mediation to settle their differences.

"Enough is enough," they wrote. "This dispute needs to be resolved now. Our failure to do so means we will miss an important moment to advance the cause of working men and women."

Wilhelm, responding to earlier calls for arbitration, blamed SEIU for raiding its membership by trying to organize Unite Here workers under Workers United.

"No victim of a theft would ever agree to such a proposition," Wilhelm wrote. "No International Union would agree to put its future members, its jurisdiction, and assets in the hands of an arbitrator."