Restaurant workers and service employees were among the workers hit hardest by the WTC disaster. The unions representing both groups have established relief funds. Here is some information about the situation these workers and their families face, and how you can help:

Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Relief Fund

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees international union is urgently soliciting contributions for its relief fund for victims of the New York disaster. At least 48 members of HERE Local 100 have been lost. They were working at the Windows on the World Restaurant at the top of World Trade Center Building One on the morning of Sept. 11.

Eight hundred members of HERE Local 6 blessedly escaped from the Marriott Hotel at the base of the World Trade Center before it was destroyed. Those 800 workers, along with the surviving 220 members from the Windows on the World who were not at work that day, as well as thousands of other hotel and restaurant workers in New York, have lost their jobs, many permanently.

Their union is working hard to raise money for the families of the victims, and for workers whose jobs no longer exist. The fund is being structured as a tax-exempt fund under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The name and address of the fund is: HERE New York Assistance Fund, c/o HERE Local 100, 321 West 44th St., fifth floor, NYC 10036. For more information, please call (212) 541-4226, ext. 242.

The SEIU Sept. 11 Relief Fund

Thousands of janitors, security officers, and other workers in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were among the thousands struck by tragedy on Sept. 11.Thousands more are out of work because of damage to buildings where they work.

SEIU – the union many of those workers belonged to – has established a relief fund to provide immediate assistance to the workers and their families. To make an online tax-deductible donation to the SEIU Sept. 11 Relief Fund, please visit the SEIU Action Center. By mail, send contributions made payable to: SEIU Sept. 11 Relief Fund c/o SEIU, 1313 L Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005

All contributions to the fund will be used to provide relief to the workers and families of workers who were affected by this tragedy. Reports on the fund’s activities will be available through SEIU local unions and online at www.seiu.org. Donations to the fund are not used for administrative costs of the Relief Fund.