5/21 Weekly Email + AANHPI Heritage Month

Hi all, 

I have a reminder about Memorial Day, information on the MOU ratification vote, updates on the Tempe Sales Tax proposal, information about our next membership meeting, and a writeup about AANHPI Heritage Month. I prescheduled this email on May 19th - apologies in advance if any details are out of date. 

I am out of the office this week through Wednesday, May 27th. If you need assistance with general concerns, please reach out to Vice President Brittainy Nelson via email (vicepresident@uaeatempe.com) or at the union phone number (480-719-9608). Resolutions Director Natalya Ennels should be contacted (resolutions@uaeatempe.com) if you need help with an investigation or disciplinary case. 

Memorial Day Holiday: Next Monday, May 25th, is Memorial Day and a City Holiday. Please don’t come to work if you’re not scheduled. Thank you once again for everyone who needs to work this day to keep Tempe functioning. 

There are not a lot of direct connections between Memorial Day and union work, but the National Park Service has a thorough writeup on the history of the holiday if you’re interested. 

MOU Ratification: I have opened a voting form for the MOU ratification vote. This form will be open for members to vote on the MOU between now and Thursday, May 28th, at midnight. 

If you would like to review the summary of our new MOU, you can check out last week’s email here. 

Tempe Tax Proposal: I attended last week’s Council meeting to see what would happen with the proposed sales tax ballot proposal. As a reminder, this was a proposal about a ballot initiative which would raise Tempe’s sales tax by 0.5% to fund public safety, transit, and early childhood education. City Council has passed the measure, which means Tempe voters will get to vote on whether to pass it in November. Nothing is guaranteed, but if the measure passes in November it will help address staffing and equipment gaps in Tempe Parks, PD, and Fire, which will have direct benefits to our members in those areas. It will also fund new early childhood programs and will offer some spots to Tempe staff - that said, Tempe residents will have first priority in these programs, followed by Tempe teachers, and then Tempe municipal employees 

Contest Reminders: This is the last day members can enter our 2026 Crafts Contest and our Donation Incentive Program. You can enter crafts at this link and donate additional FHL time at this link. Winners of the Crafts contest will be announced in our July newsletter. The Donation Incentive Drawings will also tentatively occur in July. 

Next Membership Meeting: Our next membership meeting will be on June 18th, from 5:30-6:30AM at the Kyrene Water Plant Main Building (311 W Guadalupe), in the first floor conference room. The plant can be accessed off of Guadaulpe through the main gate, then members can enter the SE door of the building on the SE side of the property. 

You can rsvp at this link until Thursday, June 11th. 

If you would like an updated copy of our membership meeting schedule, please see the attached document. As a reminder, we have a virtual bulletin board with pdf copies of all materials posted on our physical boards - you can check that out here. 

Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: May is AANHPI Heritage Month so I wanted to continue to highlight some important labor leaders from those groups. This is a continuation of a writeup I did last year on leaders like Ai-Jen Poo, Larry Itliong, Wong Chin Foo, and Philip Vera Cruz - if you want to read more about them, you can check out that writeup on our blog.  

Last year I briefly mentioned Chinese-American’s contributions to the completion of America’s first transcontinental railroad. I briefly summarized their contributions but there’s a lot to their story - if you want to know more, this article goes into a bit more detail about what they endured and their accomplishments on that project. 

Ah Quon McElrath (1915-2008): Ah Quon was born in Hawaii and spent much of her youth helping her family make ends meet by collecting trash, making charcoal to sell to the community, and working in pineapple canneries. Ah Quon finished degrees in sociology and anthropology from the University of Hawaii in 1938 and joined the Hawaii Territorial Board of Public Welfare - there, she helped organize the workers and win raises. She also used some social work training to help workers organize during the 1938 Inland Boatmen’s Strike and families recover from the 1946 tsunami which caused major damage to the town of Hilo. Around this time she married Bob McElrath, a fellow organizer who later became the communications director of the Local International Longshore and Warehouse Union chapter (ILWU Local 150). Ah Quon helped provide food and resources to support 26,000 workers when they struck in the 1946 sugar strike, and later served as a legal aide when 7 labor leaders were sued by the federal government for violating the Smith Act (a case the labor leaders eventually won). Ah Quon continued providing social support for the ILWU for years, helping workers navigate their health and medical benefits. She was actively involved in the ILWU through 1981 and continued to speak at union events up until the early 2000’s, when she was entering her nineties. The ILWU website had a picture with a quote from one of her 2003 speeches that I thought was quite moving - I’ve enclosed it below. 

Gene Viernes (1952 – 1981) & Silme Domingo (1952-1981): Gene and Silme were two Filipino-American activists who were involved in organizing canneries in the northwestern United States in the 1970s. Silme got started in activism in the 1970s and helped organize protests against then-Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled from 1965 to 1986. He also co-founded the Alaska Cannery Workers Association (ACWA), which pursued legal action against discrimination in northwestern canneries. After he posed as a student doing a research project to get inside Washington canneries and gather details on discrimination, the ACWA filed a class-action lawsuit against multiple fish companies and won millions in damages for 700 plaintiffs in 1973. 

Silme later became an officer for Seattle’s Local 37 Cannery Union, running with his friend Gene on a platform of anti-corruption and internal reform. Unfortunately both men were tragically gunned down inside the headquarters of the Local 37 on June 1st, 1981. While some initially suspected that they had been killed due to their reform work, it was later revealed that there were significant links between the killers and the Marcos administration - a federal jury in 1989 agreed that the Marcos administration was likely responsible and they had been killed for their anti-Marcos organizing efforts. 

Prem Pariyar (1984 – Present): Prem is an Nepali-American organizer who has fought to eradicate caste-based discrimination in the United States. Prem was born in Nepal in the Dalit community, a group of people who are considered socially inferior to everyone else. While the caste system was theoretically abolished in Nepal in 1964 (and while this was later codified in the 2014 constitution), approximately 400,000 Dalits still experience social exclusion and even assault if they attempt to engage in the same social activities or spaces as members of higher castes. Prem advocated for the Dalits while in Nepal. He immigrated to America in the early 2000’s and found that many of the same caste dynamics were replicated among Nepalese and Indian immigrants, leading to social exclusion and hiring discrimination. He worked to organize salon workers experiencing discrimination and after starting a masters degree in social work he pushed for changes in higher education. He worked with an existing non-profit, the Equality Lab, to push universities around the US to establish bans on caste-discrimination, and then pushed cities like Seattle and Fresno to update their anti-discrimination ordinances to ban caste-discrimination as well. He is currently working to push changes at the state level as well - California’s Congress passed a caste discrimination ban in 2023, but this was vetoed by their governor before going into effect.  

Saket Soni: Saket is an Indian-American labor organizer who started his career doing community organizing in Illinois. He later became the founder and director of a group called Resilience Force which organizes workers in the emerging climate disaster recovery field - around the same time he also founded the National Guestworker Alliance, to protect the rights of non-citizen workers brought in to work in America for specific projects. After Hurricane Katrina flooded Louisiana in the early 2000’s and caused billions in property damage, thousands of migrant workers were brought in to help clean up and repair the state. Saket discovered that hundreds of Indian workers had been brought in on exploitative contracts and were being held in a work camp (built above a former toxic waste dump) in indentured servitude-like conditions - they were only allowed to leave the camp under armed guard, were fed moldy food for their meals, were forced to turn over most of their paychecks to the company, and were forced to live 24 men to a single trailer. Saket helped organize an escape for these men and supported them as they pursued legal action against their employer - they eventually won millions of dollars in a 2015 settlement where the company, Signal International, was found guilty of labor trafficking, fraud, racketeering and discrimination. 

Employee of the Quarter Reminders:  Nominations for the Employee of the Quarter (Q3 2026) will be accepted until Monday, June 1st, 2026 (finalists will be announced in our July newsletter). If you would like to be considered (or would like to nominate a peer), please fill out the application (it takes 5 minutes) before the end of day on June 1st. If you would like a refresher on program rules, check out this blog post. One thing that’s important to the Executive Team is making sure we recognize employees from as many departments as possible - we have still not seen a lot of applicants from Water, Strategic Management, Financial Services, the Park Ranger team, the non-sworn side of PD, Sustainability, and a few other areas. While it’s not the only consideration, you have a better chance of recognition if your nomination is for someone in an area we haven’t acknowledged yet.

Member Highlights: UAEA would like to highlight more of our members in future newsletters and are looking to find a few people we can interview about their daily work and time with Tempe. We’d like to show off the variety of jobs that are done around Tempe, as well as inform Tempe about the skills needed to be successful in different areas. If you’d like to be highlighted in a future edition of our newsletter, please reach out to president@uaeatempe.com.

Insurance Open Enrollment: Open Enrollment for Insurance and FSA donations is now available through your Peoplesoft portal. This year is passive enrollment - if you have no changes to make (coverage amounts, dependents, marital status, etc), you do not need to do anything. That said, it may be worth checking your account just to make sure you are aware of what you are paying for - you can do this between May 4th and May 22nd. When you login to your Peoplesoft Account you will see the “Benefits Open Enrollment” tab in the bottom right. Click on it to start the process.

HSA/FSA Deadlines: Just as a reminder, employees have until June 30th, 2026 to use funds from their FSA and HSA accounts. You can carry up to $680 from one plan year to another, but you will lose any additional funds in your account above that amount. 

Community Resources: UAEA is aware of rising fuel prices and how this is impacting members. We are having some internal city discussions about possible workplace changes, but also wanted to post some resources for members who may be struggling to make ends meet. This is a similar list to what we posted in November with a few new additions. Please feel to reach out if you have additional recommendations about local resources. 

AZ Food Bank Network: This link contains information about dozens of food banks and assistance sites across Arizona. You can search by the directory and the zipcodes they provide services for to find food banks in your areas. 

AZ Medical and Nutrition Assistance: This is an Arizona-State run program that can help connect people with Arizona State programs that provide assistance for people who need medical coverage, WIC support, or additional access to nutrition. I do not know all that the program entails. 

Maricopa County Utility Support: This is a Maricopa County program that can help people receive assistance paying for utilities. Some cities have unique offerings while others are covered under one umbrella program. 

AZ 211: This is a Arizona-State run help line that can help people connect with a variety of resources and support they may be unaware of in their area. 

Tempe Employee Relief Fund: This is a Tempe-run program (paid for by employee donations) that can provide support of up to $1,200 to assist Tempe employees with unplanned emergency bills (housing, mortgage, utilities, etc). 

Employee Assistance Program: If you have insurance through the City of Tempe, you can take advantage of the EAP, a group of resources which can provide free therapy, legal consultations, or classes on stress management. 

Cheap Recipe Guides: These are two free cookbooks designed for cooking high-nutrition and easy meals on a budget. Even if you’re not a fan of the recipes, there are some good tips on stocking a kitchen with affordable and long-lasting staples. 
Free Transit Pass: This contains information on how to obtain your free bus, streetcar, and lightrail pass as a Tempe employee.

Thanks for a great week, everyone!