February 27, 2004

(from UNITE's Vice President Warren Pepicelli)

Dear New England Joint Board Member: 

This new Web Site marks a new era in rapid communications for our Joint Board.  Obviously, nothing can take the place of face-to-face communication, or of direct telephone conversations.  Still, this Site offers a new way to post, read and download news, leaflets, meeting dates and times, and all sorts of general information for all to see. 

Knowledge is power, and this Site is one more way to spread knowledge and build power. You will see that a separate page is available for every Local – bt it is up to each Local to fill in its own page. (Our Joint Board staff will edit and lay out your page for display on the Web.) You can use your page to communicate within your Local or with the rest of us about your activities.

Right now, this Site is an infant, with a lot of growing to do.  We welcome your ideas and whatever time and effort you can give to develop this website into a tool you can use.  Like our union itself, it’s up to all of us to make our site the best it can be.

In Solidarity,
Warren Pepicelli, Manager

Dear New England Joint Board Member: 

On July 8-10, 2004, Delegates from UNITE and from the Hotel Employees / Restaurant Employees union (HERE) will meet in a special Convention to vote on merging our two unions into a single, more powerful organization.

Many of you have already gotten to know our brothers and sisters in HERE.  We marched and rode with them in demonstrations at the Aladdin Hotel and Al Phillips Laundry in Las Vegas, at Yale University in New Haven, in front of the H&M retail store in downtown Boston, and on the historic Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride to New York City.  Like UNITE, HERE is a fighting, organizing union.

The proposed merger will make us stronger in our contract negotiations with your employers, and in carrying the union message to thousands of New England workers struggling in no-benefit / no-justice / no-union jobs in the years to come. 

UNITE and HERE have a lot in common.  We are old unions that have shown we can change with the times.  Our membership is as diverse as America itself.  Like our 21^st-century economy, UNITE HERE will be primarily a service sector union – but we will still fight like hell to keep the U.S.A. a manufacturing powerhouse!

HERE’s New England membership is concentrated in and around Boston, New Haven and Rhode Island.  They represent workers in hotels, restaurants, casinos and universities.  UNITE is strong throughout the six New England states.  Some UNITE laundries serve HERE hotels and restaurants. We should have no trouble identifying targets for growth in New England casinos, distributions centers, laundries, hotels and factories.

Our Campaign for the Future aimed to make us a stronger union.  The UNITE HERE merger will be a great milestone in that struggle.

Yours truly,

Warren Pepicelli

Manager / Vice President