Lavish Roots workers summoning courage to transform lives

With support from more than 40 elected officials, over 200 Lavish Roots workers who prepare and serve meals for Meta employees are stepping up their organizing fight

BELLEVUE, WA (September 16, 2025) — Lavish Roots dining workers at Meta campuses in Bellevue, Redmond, and Seattle brought their campaign to join UNITE HERE Local 8 to Meta offices on Thursday, leafletting office workers at the company. These roughly 200 food service workers announced their organizing drive in July, calling on Meta and Lavish Roots to commit to remain neutral and respect workers’ rights to decide for themselves whether to support the union.

Since then, the union reports that Lavish Roots has launched an anti-union campaign. Despite this opposition, workers aren’t backing down from their determination to form their union and collectively bargain. Their reasons are clear; the workers want job security, respect, and wage parity with other tech food workers. Already unionized tech food service workers on Google, Microsoft, and even another Meta campus in the Seattle area earn higher wages and have access to free, quality health care benefits.  Yet workers at the Bellevue and Redmond locations must pay out of pocket for expensive, high-deductible health insurance that costs as much as $1,520 per month for family coverage.

Lavish Roots workers announcing they are organizing their union in July. Photo: UNITE HERE Local 8

While the company is opposed to the union, support for the workers is growing. UNITE HERE Local 8 reports a positive response from Meta office workers contacted during leafletting. And support from elected officials has poured in, with dozens of state legislators and local elected officials writing to Meta and Lavish Roots, urging the companies to remain neutral and respect the workers’ right to organize a union without fear, intimidation and employer interference.

“Many of the workers preparing and serving food and drink to Meta employees are our constituents and we support them as they organize for basic safety, stability, equality and respect,” wrote the 40 signatories. “We believe that unions are essential in ensuring that working people in the service industry have a path to sustaining themselves in a region that is faced with a rise in the cost of living and income inequality.”

This letter follows an August letter from Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal urging the companies to work collaboratively with UNITE HERE Local 8. For the workers, letters like Jayapal’s are encouraging demonstrations of support.

“This letter demonstrates that the concerns we face are not ours alone. It lends us the courage that we must summon every day to transform our lives,” said Abdul, a dishwasher.

Community members can support the workers by signing their petition to Lavish Roots and Meta, calling on management to respect workers’ right to organize.