Donate to UNITE HERE’s local hospitality worker relief fund

The following urgent message is from UNITE HERE Local 8:

SEATTLE (March 30, 2020) — As frontline workers in the hospitality, food service and transportation industries, nearly 5,500 UNITE HERE Local 8 members in Washington and Oregon and the families they support are among those most affected by the coronavirus. Thousands of union members are laid off in the face of decreased travel, cancelled meetings and hotel bookings, university closures, and suspended sporting events. While the affected industries and corporations will rebound, this will be catastrophic for workers facing a totally unexpected loss of their livelihoods.

To support workers in need, we are raising resources for a hardship fund. Please click here to donate today to support UNITE HERE Local 8 members facing layoffs and hour reductions.

UNITE HERE is mobilizing to support their members through this crisis. The union is reaching out to employers to collaborate on relief efforts and are discussing extensions to paid sick leave and paid time off, additional health insurance coverage, and safety policies. They are lobbying at the city, state, and national levels for policies that will protect their members. They are working around the clock to support workers with unemployment claims and material assistance.

But this will not be enough.

The money raised for this UNITE HERE Local 8 hardship fund will be used to support hospitality workers who have nowhere else to go. This hardship fund is intended to help workers with critical bills such as rent, mortgage or utility payments. Your donation will help keep workers housed and feed their families when they need it the most.

UNITE HERE Local 8 knows how to fight. And they know how to win. And they know when they can’t go it alone. Their members, who are majority women, immigrants and people of color, will need more support so they can weather this storm.

Please DONATE today to help hospitality workers feed their families and pay their bills. Your contribution to the UNITE HERE Education and Support Fund will support their members’ needs in upcoming weeks and months.

Thank you for your generous support. We are in this together. ¡Si se puede!

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you would like to avoid the fees that are due with online donations and you prefer to send a check, please write it out to “UH Education and Support Fund.” Put Local 8 in the memo line. Mail it to UNITE HERE, ATTN: Finance Department, 275 7th Ave 16th floor, New York, NY 10001. Your contribution to the UNITE HERE Education and Support Fund, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is tax deductible.