How September 11 Changed One Local Union Forever

It started out, Bill Granfield recalls, as “a really beautiful late summer morning”—the kind of clear day on which, from the Windows on the World’s perch in the clouds atop the World Trade Center’s north tower, the grand sweep of New York City would sparkle and shimmer far below.

But before this morning, September 11, was over, life would change forever for Granfield and the men and women of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 100.

Hailing from two dozen different countries, union members from Local 100 comprised the hard-working, mostly immigrant staff (the bartenders, cooks, cashiers, waiters, kitchen cleaners, and caterers) of the prestigious and world-famous Windows on the World restaurant.

Today, 43 of them are missing and feared perished, 400 more who worked at Windows or other restaurants in the Trade Center complex are without jobs, and HERE Local 100 is working overtime to help the families left behind prepare for the future without their loved ones.

“Everything is different—forget the old rules” is the motto that Granfield, president of Local 100, and his fellow union members have been following since the terrorist attacks leveled the Trade Center and the restaurant that once was its crowning jewel.

In the hours immediately after the Trade Center’s collapse, Local 100 mounted a citywide search, from hospital to hospital, for its members who were working at Windows at the moment the hijacked airlines struck.

“Our thought was to go out as a team and find them,” says Granfield.

But as the days quickly passed, it became painfully clear that few who had been near or above the 80th floor where the jet crashed made it down to the ground alive. Escaping from the Windows restaurant, high up on the 106th and 107th floors, would be miraculous.

A week after the Trade Center disaster, emotions swept through the remaining ranks of Local 100 when more than 450 members and their families gathered together for the first time since September 11.

While still grieving the missing, workers found comfort again and again when they turned around in the crowd to discover and then tearfully hug coworkers who had been feared dead.

HERE International President John Wilhelm came to pledge the union’s support for emergency aid and help in finding new jobs for the hosnow out-of-work Windows employees.

Also attending and promising assistance was David Emil, owner of Windows. At Local 100’s invitation, Emil had set up a temporary office at the union’s midtown-Manhattan headquarters to start reconstructing payroll and personnel files that were destroyed along with the towers so that final wages could be paid.

Since September 11, Granfield has attended eleven wakes, funerals, and memorial services, including a moving tribute held for Local 100’s missing and dead at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. “If we can stick together as a union, we’ll make it,” says Granfield.

Sticking together is exactly what Local 100 is doing as, family by family, it continues to help with unemployment and insurance paperwork, immigration and child-custody snafus, placement in new jobs, and getting the emergency food and housing aid many have needed to get through these tough times.

Looking toward the future, HERE is working with the Working for America Institute to create a new culinary training program for displaced workers. HERE also has joined the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in launching an outreach campaign into targeted New York City neighborhoods to ensure that displaced, low-wage workers, including immigrants, receive all of the public and private help available to them.