UNITE HERE Local 26

Organizing Apprentice

Based in Boston, MA

UNITE HERE Local 26 is a dynamic, militant, rank and file led union organizing workers in the hospitality industry. Local 26 has mobilized thousands of hospitality workers in open-ended strikes in 2018 and 2024 to win record-setting $33/hour minimum wages for housekeepers, cooks and dishwashers. Growing from 5,000 to 13,000 members in the last 15 years, Local 26 has secured life-changing first contracts in which hospitality workers who bravely decide to organize a union have doubled their wages and won health coverage for the first time.

None of this is possible without deeply committed individuals who face their fears and make the choice to stand up and fight. Whether you are a room cleaner, a bartender, or an activist looking to get involved in the labor movement, you can learn to personally lead hundreds of coworkers into struggle with training on intensive relationship building, corporate strategy, and long-term leadership development. Our union’s decades-long organizing culture teaches how to build solidarity across a multilingual workforce, how to inspire those with the most to lose to risk it all anyways, and how to use strategy to drive fights to conclusive victory. You can hear from a few of the people who were part of these fights here: https://www.instagram.com/reels/C-l0HXvO7fB/.

An Organizing Apprentice gains immediate, practical experience on interpersonal organizing, transformational relationship building, worker committee recruitment, and campaign development. Organizing apprentices apply these skills, combined with their personality and creativity, to on the ground campaigns, developing their unique voice as a worker organizer. With close one-on-one mentorship from experienced organizers who have led and won other strikes and organizing drives, apprentices are deeply integrated into the local’s culture and receive long lasting investment to become the next generation of labor leaders.

To Apply:
Email us at: local26recruit@gmail.com with your résumé and a few sentences about why you want to organize.