Crusading actor Danny Glover has supported a campaign to rally Puerto Rico’s hotel workers to join the local branch of a large US labour union in a bid to receive better pay and benefits.

The Color Purple star joined leaders of the Gastronomical Union on Sunday, which represents about 2,100 employees at nine hotels in the US territory, to call for the island’s hospitality workers to unite against poor working conditions.

It is believed there are around 8,000 hospitality workers who don’t belong to any organised union in Puerto Rico. Glover says, “The union’s fight is to construct a world in which we want to live.”