July 17, 2006

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Last month, members of UNITE HERE marched in LGBT Pride Parades in Toronto, San Francisco, Chicago and Honolulu. Danny Glover, national spokesman for the Hotel Workers Rising campaign, marched with hotel workers in the San Francisco Pride Parade and was a keynote speaker at the celebration following the parade. Our new LGBT website, SleepWithTheRightPeople.org, is online and has already been viewed by over 10,000 visitors. Along with information about union-friendly and boycotted hotels, the site features endorsements from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community leaders including Congressman Barney Frank, California State Assemblyman Mark Leno and AIDS Memorial Quilt Founder Cleve Jones.

I am proud of the support our union has received from the LGBT community. UNITE HERE Local 2, in San Francisco, has worked in partnership with the gay community for decades. In many more cities throughout the US and Canada, activists from our two movements are working together, building coalitions and winning important struggles for economic and social justice.

It makes sense for us to work together. LGBT travelers spend over $60 billion a year on business and recreational travel. The major hotel chains spend millions of dollars annually on advertising specifically targeting the "gay market."  Thousands of LGBT workers are employed by the hotel industry and the political leadership of the LGBT community has a long history of supporting organized labor dating back to the famed Coors Beer Boycott of the 1970s, when pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk forged a partnership with the Teamsters and drove Coors beer out of virtually every gay bar in North America.

I'm very proud that UNITE HERE was a part of the past month's LGBT Pride events and I want to take this opportunity to reach out to all of our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members with a strong message of solidarity and encouragement. It is important for LGBT workers to come out. It is good for them as individuals and it is good for our union.

In the months and years ahead, as we move forward in our efforts to raise working people above the poverty line, we must seize every opportunity to build coalitions with other progressive communities. Our partnership with the LGBT community has great value and I urge all of our members, regardless of sexual orientation, to help us strengthen and grow that partnership.

John Wilhelm