ALPA, ILWU Pitch in with Aid for Pacific Disaster Victims
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Members of the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) and International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) didn’t wait until Thanksgiving or some other holiday to show their generosity. Like union members across the nation who offer support and aid to their communities all year round, pilots at Hawaiian Airlines—ALPA members—contributed $15,000 to the Red Cross for recent tsunami and typhoon victims in American Samoa, Indonesia and the Philippines. And last month in Los Angeles, ILWU members donated their time and labor to load 15 containers of supplies for the tsunami victims. Click here to read more.
Overall, the Red Cross-sponsored Kokua for the Pacific fundraiser in Honolulu raised $155,000. (Kokua is a Hawaiian word that means offering generous help.) Says Capt. Eric Sampson, chairman of ALPA’s Hawaiian pilot group:
Our pilots and many of our fellow employees have friends and family who live and work in these areas. We feel a definite connection with them. ALPA members were among the first Hawaiian Airlines employees to come forward and donate their time as volunteers when the tsunami hit Samoa and Typhoon Ketsana devastated Manila. Now we want to extend our support for those affected families by making a financial contribution.
ILWU Members Pitch in to Help Samoan Tsunami Survivors
After the recent tsunami in Samoa and American Samoa, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) helped provide aid in a big way. When members of the Samoan community in Southern California asked union workers if they would help send a massive shipment of tsunami relief supplies to the two islands, the workers did what union members do best: They came together to help those in need. The Sept. 29 tsunami killed more than 200 people. Thousands of Samoans are homeless and hundreds are injured.
The ILWU members volunteered to donate their time to load 15 containers of supplies for the tsunami victims. Union officials, led by ILWU President Robert McEllrath, worked with industry leaders to secure donated containers and to get the shipping company to waive the $45,000 fee that is ordinarily charged for such a load. The ship left for the islands Oct. 14.
