Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Profiles: Andy Misiluti

For Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, AFL-CIO is spotlighting various Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States. Today's profile is Andy Misiluti of the Laborers (LIUNA).

Andy Misiluti, an 18-year member of Laborers Local 242, is a Pacific Islander who moved from American Samoa to Washington state in 2000 and built a remarkable career with Skanska USA. Starting as a laborer in 2007, he advanced from carpenter tender to concrete nozzleman and then to general foreman at Boeing Renton. Today he’s a LIUNA trainer, mentoring others. “Being a laborer gave me purpose, stability, and a path to become someone I never thought I could be,” he said.

Kenneth Quinnell Sun, 05/10/2026 - 10:41

Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: UNITE HERE

This is the next post in our series that will take a deeper look at each of our affiliates. The series will run weekly until we’ve covered all 65 of our affiliates. Next up is UNITE HERE.

Name of Union: UNITE HERE

Mission: UNITE HERE believes that one job should be enough. Too often, workers are forced to hold down two or three jobs just to get by, but being a union member changes people’s lives. Over the years, UNITE HERE has fought to win good union contracts with competitive wages and necessary benefits for its members in the hospitality industry across the United States and Canada. It is also growing: In recent years, UNITE HERE has been the fastest-growing private sector union in the United States.

Current Leadership of Union: UNITE HERE is governed by five elected general officers, an elected Canadian director, an elected executive committee, and an elected general executive board with representation from across the union. Gwen Mills is the president of UNITE HERE and the first woman to lead the union in its 130-year history. Nia Winston is secretary-treasurer and the first Black person to serve in that role.

Current Number of Members: 300,000

Members Work As: Hotel housekeepers; bellmen; porters; front desk agents; concierges; banquet servers; airport concessions workers; airline catering workers; cocktail and food servers; cooks; pastry chefs; dishwashers; bartenders; baristas; casino slot attendants; laundry and textile workers; graduate workers; postdoctoral researchers; service attendants, food specialists and chefs aboard Amtrak trains; and more.

Industries Represented: The hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation and airport industries.

History: UNITE HERE is the product of many unions coming together, and its roots date back more than 130 years. In 1891, waiters and bartenders were tired of working 15 to 16 hours every day serving food and drinks, with barely a moment to eat a meal themselves. They came together to form what would later become the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE).

A few years later, immigrant women led the way to form the first garment workers’ union in North America, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU). The ILGWU is one predecessor to the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile workers (UNITE). In the early days of industrialization, many immigrants toiled in dangerous sweatshops for meager wages. Such conditions led to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, which killed 146 workers in New York City. The fire was a turning point in the union and in the labor movement, as workers—led by young immigrant women—fought to win safe workplaces and union rights that continue to benefit workers today. Together, the union’s ancestors laid the groundwork to make textile, garment, laundry and hospitality jobs good, safe, family-sustaining jobs. 

In the 1960s, New York’s HERE locals marched in support of lunch counter sit-ins to end segregation in the South. Forty years later, UNITE HERE helped lead the labor movement to reverse its position on immigrant labor and advocate for immigration reform, organizing the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride in 2003 to counter anti-immigrant bigotry and xenophobia in the wake of 9/11.

Soon after, in 2004, UNITE and HERE joined to form UNITE HERE: workers in the hospitality and garment industries fighting together for a different and more just life, both inside and outside the workplace.

In modern times, UNITE HERE has held the line on strikes at the Las Vegas Frontier Hotel & Casino and in Atlantic City. The union also led in 2024, when more than 10,000 hotel workers were on strike at hotels nationwide. It has built political power to engage entirely new generations and demographics of voters and supported members through tragedies like the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the Great Recession, the 2017 shooting on the Las Vegas Strip and the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 100 years ago, the union’s immigrant founders led the historic Bread and Roses strike. Today—as they lead campaigns that take on some of the world’s most powerful billionaires and institutions—immigrant workers, Black workers and other people of color have been at the center of UNITE HERE’s efforts to end poverty and change lives.

Current Campaigns/Community Efforts: UNITE HERE consistently works toward building power for its members in their workplaces and their communities. It accomplishes this through implementing ambitious ground-up organizing campaigns; fighting for great union contracts for all of its members; and strengthening a political program that supports long-term, grassroots organizing and leadership development. Check out current projects of UNITE HERE and campaigns led by UNITE HERE locals. Find socially responsible union hotels at FairHotel.org.

Learn More: Website, Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok

Kenneth Quinnell Mon, 05/11/2026 - 14:14