Working People on the Front Lines of Hurricane Harvey Response

Whenever a natural disaster strikes, working people are the first responders, stepping in to save lives and reduce the harm done. After the devastation of a storm like Hurricane Harvey, we are also the recovery and clean-up crews who are around long after the media has moved on to the next story. Here are some of the ways that union members are helping out in the face of one of the most historic storms to ever hit Texas and the surrounding states.

• Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA): Raising money to help affected families.
• AFGE: Search and rescue, staffing national and regional response centers, supplementing emergency response communications, providing food and water, providing tarps and generators, water-borne rescue, distributing medical equipment and supplies, evacuating hospitals, evaluating damage to infrastructure, rescue missions using drones, providing information on storm surges and water heights, providing forcasts, assisting zoos and farms with animals, protecting superfund sites, testing flood waters for contaminants, restoring safe drinking water and wastewater facilities, and others.
• American Federation of Musicians (AFM): Raising money to help affected families.
• AFSCME: Rescuing and keeping people alive, providing emergency medical services, restoring essential services, protecting property, evacuating hospitals, evacuating inmates from prison facilities, delivering clean water and raising money.
• AFT: Providing teachers with lesson plans and assistance in teaching children about the storm and its effects, raising money to help affected families, standing in solidarity with undocumented immigrants that are being targeted for enforcement actions while reacting to the storm and inspecting schools so that children can return when it is safe to do so.
• Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA): Raising money to help affected families.
• American Postal Workers Union (APWU): Raising money to help affected families.
• Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU): Raising money to help affected families.
• Communications Workers of America (CWA): Raising money to help affected families.
• Fire Fighters (IAFF): Conducting block-by-block search and rescue missions in flooded areas.
• Machinists (IAM): Raising money to help affected families.
• Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE): Raising money to help affected families.
• Electrical Workers (IBEW): Utility crews restoring power, serving as essential personnel at oil refineries in the path of the storm, rescue efforts.
• Longshoremen (ILA): Raising money to help affected families.
• Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA): Raising money to help affected families.
• National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC): Raising money to help affected families.
• National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA): Routing and maintaining the safety of humanitarian flights bringing in supplies for relief efforts, working with rescue helicopters and working to restore normally scheduled traffic, along with military, rescue, and recovery flights from FEMA, the Coast Guard, police, and first responder helicopter and fixed wing aircraft.
• National Nurses United (NNU): Providing medical assistance.
• Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU): Raising money to help affected families.
• Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS): Soliciting blood donations and raising money.
• SAG-AFTRA: Raising money to help affected families.
• International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART): Raising money to help affected families.
• Transport Workers (TWU): Raising money to help affected families.
• Plumbers and Pipe Fitters (UA): Raising money to help affected families.
• United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW): Raising money to help affected families.
• United Steelworkers (USW): Raising money to help affected families.

These are just some of the ways union members are stepping up to help in response to Hurricane Harvey. We will update as more reports come in. You can donate directly to the Texas Workers Relief Fund today.