Radicalized through student activism and the civil rights movement, Raynor began his work in the labor movement in 1973 in the education department of the former Textile Workers Union of America. He was involved in a multi-year campaign to organize the Southern textile company J.P. Stevens, which was dramatized in the 1979 film Norma Rae. This was a comprehensive campaign that was innovative in its use of community- and church-based organizing. Based in Atlanta, he went on to organize tens of thousands of workers in the South, including nearly 1,000 Lichtenberg Curtain and Drapery workers in Georgia, 500 shirt workers in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, 3,200 Tultex workers in Martinsville, Virginia, and the giant Cannon Mills complex in Kannapolis, North Carolina. He eventually became the elected leader of 50,000 Southern clothing and textile workers. Raynor has collective bargaining relationships with companies including Levi Strauss & Co., Liz Claiborne, T.J. Maxx/Marshall's, the Hartmarx Group, Xerox, Delaware North, Hilton, Starwood, and national food service and laundry industry employers such as Aramark, Compass and Sodexo. Raynor is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations where he gave up a biochemistry scholarship to pursue a career in the labor movement. In 2009, Raynor resigned as president of UNITE HERE and became president of Workers United. Representing 150,000 workers, some of whom had voted to leave UNITE HERE, this new union included the majority of former UNITE members, some former members of HERE, and a number of workers who had been organized since the merger. Many of these members returned to UNITE HERE after a drawn out dispute with SEIU was settled. Workers United affiliated with SEIU and Raynor was elected to the additional position of Executive Vice President of SEIU. After two years of service, Raynor resigned from his positions at Workers United and its parent union, SEIU. In April 2011, Raynor resigned as chairman of Amalgamated Bank, though he remained on the bank's board and retained chairmanship of the Amalgamated Life Insurance Company.
Family
Raynor's father worked as a truck driver and laborer; he died of a heart attack at age 48. Raynor's mother worked in retail. Raynor's older brother, Harris Raynor, also graduated from Cornell and is the southern regional director of Workers United and an international vice president of SEIU. Raynor is twice divorced and lives in Nyack, New York, with his wife Joan. They have five children.
