Dear Editor,
On July 25, 2013, an article entitled “Hotel Labor Union Asks Community to Boycott Local HIV/AIDS Fundraiser” was published in the Long Beach Post. We are dismayed by the misinformation being spread about our union and the struggle at the Hilton Long Beach. Unite Here has never asked anyone to boycott the Long Beach AIDS Foundation but instead we ask members of the community to honor the worker-called boycott of the Hilton Long Beach.
The organizers of the Red High Heel Party and the leadership of the Long Beach AIDS Foundation have asked what privately organized fundraisers have to do with the boycott at the Hilton Long Beach. By scheduling this fundraiser at this hotel, Garry Bowie and Tom Crowe have sided with the management of the Hilton Long Beach. Supporters of this foundation believe that is the wrong side to take. Beyond this, many would be devastated to learn that in order to raise money to help provide access to affordable health care, thousands of dollars will be spent at a hotel that is denying affordable care to its workers everyday.
We are sorry to hear that both Tom Crowe and Garry Bowie have accepted the mistruths communicated to them by the management of the Hilton Long Beach. The truth is that the workers at the Hilton Long Beach support the boycott and have done so since they called for it in September 2009. More than 80 percent of workers signed a petition for the boycott until the hotel management agrees to honor their rights to work with dignity and respect. We should not let this fundraiser divide our communities and break the worker-called boycott at this hotel. That would only benefit the hotel.
The attacks against Erinn Carter are unwarranted. Professionally, Ms. Carter has spent her adult life working both for workers and the LGBT movement. Prior to her coming to Unite HERE, she worked at one of the largest LGBT political organizations in California fighting for legislation to protect LGBT children. She is unfortunately intimately aware of HIV and AIDS both as a black woman and as a person who lost her uncle to HIV related illness in 1990.
We at Unite HERE are proud of the strong relationship that we have built with the LGBT community throughout the United States and Canada. We were the first union to stand for full federal equality for LGBT people. We have been a strong public voice to defend marriage equality in California and other states. In our union, we understand the urgency of HIV and AIDS because our members include the men, women, LGBT, immigrants, and workers that are impacted by this epidemic.
What all of us know through our fights for visibility, respect, and dignity, is that our voices, when singular, are destined to become drowned out by the drums of corporate profits, stigmas, and stereotypes. But when our communities come together, as workers, mothers, fathers, families, and friends, our singular shouts become a chorus for change.
Sincerely,
Cleve Jones
Director of Unite HERE’s “Sleep with the Right People” campaign