Tho Thi Do

Tho Thi Do

Tho Thi Do has worked for many years as a community organizer, activist and labor organizer. She is the General Vice President for Immigration, Civil Rights, and Diversity for UNITE HERE. Thi Do arrived in the United States from Vietnam in 1975 and graduated from High School in San Francisco in 1978. She soon began volunteering with the Vietnamese Youth Development Center, focusing on placement of youth in summer jobs. She has a 20yr old son and lives in San Francisco, California.

Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union

Since 1989 Tho Thi Do has worked for Local #2, HERE, first as an organizer and now as Secretary-Treasurer. She was recently elected as a Vice-President on the HERE International Union Executive Board.

CPA 40th anniversary congratulations

John W. Wilhelm, Sherri Chiesa, Peter Ward, D. Taylor, Tho Thi Do.

Asian Advocacy

Tho continues to be very active in the Southeast Asian community in San Francisco. She is the Chair of the Southeast Asian Community Center in San Francisco which began as an advocacy and social services center and is evolving to encompass voter rights education, forums on political issues, and is in the early planning stage to develop their existing building into a community center. Tho is also on the Board of Directors of the Vietnamese Youth Development Center which is focusing on youth employment as well as educating and developing new youth leadership in the Southeast Asian community.

2003 PWW banquet

Youth groups and unions on the front line for youth and workers’ rights were honored at the 2003 Northern California People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo banquet on Sunday, Nov. 9.

Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2 Secretary-Treasurer Tho Thi Do spoke for Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride participants from her local and other locals in the Bay Area. Despite government-inspired immigrant bashing, Tho Thi Do said, “We have seen a lot of hope. … We met many families, many communities that are organizing to make changes for the years to come.” The audience gave warm applause to Judith Goff and Walter Johnson, heads of the Alameda County and San Francisco Labor Councils, which strongly supported the IWFR.

A group of union members accepted the award for SEIU Local 1877, representing janitors throughout the Greater Bay Area who won a recent contract victory.

UC Berkeley Labor Center

In 2009 Tho Thi Do of UNITE HERE Local 2 served on the advisory board of UC Berkeley Labor Center.

UNITE HERE

Left to right: Fred Ross Sr with International Longshaw Workers Union leader Jimmy Herman and UNITE HERE] organizer Tho Thi Do at Neighbor to Neighbor coffee protest in the 1980s

On June 30, 2009 Tho Thi Do was elected to the position of General Vice President for Immigration, Civil Rights, and Diversity for UNITE HERE.

The Organizers' Forum

As at Jan 28, 2010 Tho Thi Do was on the Board of Directors of The Organizers' Forum, a group with the mission of strengthening grassroots organizations by increasing capacity and stability of their democratic structures, to link organizing networks, and to improve on the skills and strategies employed by both community and labor organizers.

Social Policy

As at Jan. 29, 2010 the Social Policy Organizers' Forum Board included:

Deepak Bhargava, John Calkins, Tho Thi Do, Mary Gonzales, Ken Johnson, Michael Kieschnick, Drummond Pike, Mark Splain, Andy Stern, Pat Sweeney, Mary Rowles, John Hoyt, Gustavo Torres.

External links

• UNITE HERE website