AFL-CIO Calls on Unions, U.S. to Assist Haitians

by James Parks, Jan 14, 2010

The AFL-CIO is calling for the United States and the entire international community, including the global union movement, to “do our utmost to aid our Haitian sisters and brothers in their moment of extraordinary need.”

You can help Haitian workers in distress by donating to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center‘s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign. Click here to make a donation and here to learn more about how the center is working to help Haitian workers. (More donation options below.)

In a joint statement, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker called on Congress to grant humanitarian relief in the form of temporary protected status to Haitians who are in the United States.

It would be inhumane to send people back to a country utterly incapable of taking care of its own population. 

Read the entire statetment here.

The Solidarity Center is sending a delegation of Haitian labor activists living in the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince to assess the situation. The center also is working with unions in the Dominican Republic to establish a donation center with nonperishable goods that will be shipped to their Haitian trade union counterparts. 

The three AFL-CIO leaders urged the union family to provide in-kind assistance to the relief effort. Unions have been called to support and assist the Haitians as we wrote about here, and we will update union actions as we hear about them. Most recently:

• Members of the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department unions are crewing ships, including the USNS Comfort that will provide aid.
• The South Florida AFL-CIO is collecting donations of water, nonperishable food items, cleaning supplies and over-the-counter medications to ship to Haiti. The collections are being accepted at the Longshoremen (ILA) Local 1416 union hall at 816 N.W. 2nd Ave. in Miami. The labor council has secured a ship and is looking for volunteers to load containers of the donated goods for shipment. Volunteers should call 305-593-8886. You can send monetary donations made out to Catholic Charities or Operation Helping Hands and send or drop them off at the South Florida AFL-CIO, 2500 N.W. 97th Ave., Suite 201, Miami, FL 33172.

 To learn about what some other unions are doing to provide aid to Haiti, click here.

 Donations also may be made to:

•  Partners in Health: www.pih.org/inforesources/news/Haiti_Earthquake.html or send your contribution to Partners In Health, P.O. Box 845578, Boston, MA 02284-5578.
• Doctors Without Borders: www.doctorswithoutborders.org or call toll free at 1-888-392-0392. USA Headquarters 333 7th Ave., 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10001-5004. 
• American Red Cross International Response Fund: www.redcross.org/org or call toll free at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions also can be mailed to American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013 or to your local American Red Cross chapter (specify if you want to make sure your donation will benefit Haiti).
• RN Response Network: www.NationalNursesUnited.org.
• United Way Worldwide Disaster Fund: https://volunteer.united-e-way.org/uwwwdisaster/donate/ or mail checks with the fund reference to United Way Worldwide, P.O. Box 630568, Baltimore, MD 21263-0568.

Those interested in providing volunteer assistance should contact the Center for International Disaster Information, at http://www.cidi.org/.

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