Hundreds of hotel and casino workers rally outside Trump Tower, proclaim: “We won’t go back!”
The workers’ union, UNITE HERE, runs the largest labor-led canvassing program in the country and is poised to take action again in 2024
NEW YORK—Nearly 1,000 union members and their supporters— including Queens Congresswoman Grace Meng—rallied Wednesday in front of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. They made clear that they are ready to do whatever it takes to defeat Donald Trump, on the grounds that Trump’s poor business- and political track records make him the wrong choice in the 2024 Presidential Election.
UNITE HERE runs the largest labor-led canvassing program in the country, which inspires working people to vote and makes the decisive difference in close elections on both the federal and state levels. In 2020, the union ran the country’s largest union door-to-door canvassing operation, organizing over 1,700 hospitality workers to knock the doors of three million voters in key battleground states to oust Trump who, as President, enacted over policies that threatened workers, immigrants, people of color, women, and countless others. This victory set up the Biden/Harris administration: the most pro-labor administration of our lifetime.
Some UNITE HERE members previously worked at hotels or casinos owned by Trump in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, where they found his business practices untenable and counter to his image as a successful business owner.
“Trump and his supporters would like people to believe that he’ll be a good president because he’s been a good businessman, but that’s just not true,” said Donna DeCaprio, President of UNITE HERE Local 54 in Atlantic City. “I’ve been working in Atlantic City for 37 years, and over that that period, Trump owned five casinos. Trump bragged that the city was a “cash cow” for him, but his Atlantic City casino companies refused to pay bills and Trump businesses claimed bankruptcy four times while he owned and operated casinos in Atlantic City, hurting small businesses and their employees. We don’t need that kind of person running the country.”
As President, Trump’s policies endangered lives, such as when he threatened to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of individuals from countries affected by natural disasters, armed conflicts, or other extraordinary conditions and enacted a ban on individuals, including refugees, from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the country.
“In 2001, I was one of a quarter-million Salvadorans who received Temporary Protected Status (TPS) following a catastrophic earthquake in our country. In 2018, when Donald Trump said he would end TPS for El Salvador, I had been working hard, paying taxes, and contributing to my community for over 17 years,” said Hugo Rodriguez, an executive board member of UNITE HERE Local 100 New York/Jersey and cook at Peter Luger Steakhouse in Great Neck, NY “With my union, I fought back, and we worked to change the leadership of the country. Democrats need to do more to fix our broken immigration system, but Trump has said he will deport millions of people right away and throw kids into detention centers again… we can’t go back to that.”
Rally attendees included UNITE HERE members from key battleground states including Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina, who are preparing to begin their 2024 ground program in the coming weeks/months. They are in New York City this week together with other UNITE HERE members and leaders for the union’s constitutional convention.
“As we look forward to the 2024 election, this is a critical time for our country and our union,” said UNITE HERE President Gwen Mills, “Now is the time in in which we ask: will we keep going forward, or will we go back? Four more years of a Biden/Harris administration will allow us to continue growing our union and fighting to secure the rights of all working people. Today, we’re here to say that another Trump presidency will be a step in the wrong direction, and that’s simply not acceptable: we won’t go back.”
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UNITE HERE is the hospitality workers’ union in the U.S. and Canada, representing nearly 270,000 workers in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries.