Thousands of Workers Sign Petition to Inslee, Demand Vaccine

A petition sent late last week to Gov. Jay Inslee takes him to task about not including service industry and other related industry workers in his vaccine plan.

The Washington Hospitality Association began circulating the petition around March 12, and it quickly exploded to more than 3,500 signatures. Even more being added digitally as well.

The people signing represented at least 350 different businesses, ranging from hotels to restaurants, coffee shops to bars, even some retails. At least that's what we got up to while counting.

Part of the petition read as follows:

"On March 16, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Jay Inslee announced that social gathering was prohibited and the closure of indoor dining in Washington – a prohibition that has remained in place in some form in the year since. Throughout the pandemic, restaurant and hospitality workers have operated as “essential workers”, serving hundreds of thousands of meals in every community throughout our state– and they have done so extraordinarily safely. Yet restaurant and hospitality workers were not included in the “essential workers” phase of Gov. Inslee’s vaccination eligibility program after health care workers and adults 65 years and older."

It goes on to include at at least 40% of the people included in the petition, and those who work at businesses who are part of the Hospitality Association are "people of color," or "indigenous" people; of whom Inslee repeatedly talks about protecting and helping.

The petition finishes with this before the signatures begin:

"If you believe the people who prepare and serve your food should be on the same vaccination schedule as the people who package and sell it, please sign this petition and let Gov. Inslee know his vaccination plan has a glaring hole without restaurant and hospitality workers included in the next phase."

The petition is pretty long, to read it for yourself, click on the button below.

When you're out and about when restaurants go to 50%, maybe order the drink from WA?