Minnesota
The seven dismissed janitorial workers, with a combined 180 hours of service among them, standing outside Hennepin County Government Center, where they worked.

“What is happening at Hennepin county?” Seven Senior Janitors Let Go With No Notice

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Mercedes Ponce is in tears outside the Hennepin County Government where she worked as a subcontractor for 12 years doing janitorial work before getting the news last week that she’d be getting let go with no prior notice. Ponce is one of seven janitors with a combined 180 years of experience who received a letter informing her she doesn’t work there anymore at the end of August. The janitors, all senior employees who have devoted their careers to cleaning the Hennepin County Government Plaza, are alleging age discrimination. The workers are members of SEIU Local 26, which represents 8,000 building management and janitorial workers across the Twin Cities. The morning of September 8, they held a press conference outside the building where they worked, then marched together into the facility, where they delivered a letter to the office of Building Management demanding the workers be reinstated.

Unions
Abdiqani Ali, a rideshare driver with the Rideshare Driver Organizing Committee of SEIU is met with applause from the crowd after speaking about his experience working at MSP.

“Workers Over Billionaires” Rally at MSP Airport for Labor Day

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On Labor Day, hundreds of workers from over 20 Minnesota unions and community organizations rallied at the Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) International Airport. They called for improvements to the lives of working people, and slammed policies that favor billionaires and corporations. The rally was held at the airport in order to highlight Delta’s lack of worker protections while donating millions of dollars to the Trump inauguration. 

The rally was accompanied by a live brass band called Unlawful Assembly, and several hundred community members marched through a drop-off area of Terminal 1. Many rally-goers held homemade signs expressing anger towards the Trump administration and demanding better working conditions for airport workers across sectors. 

According to a statement from the coalition, the rally’s demands include fair wages, healthcare, and union rights for airport and rideshare workers, corporate accountability from companies like Delta, healthcare for all, fully funded schools and social services, an end to immigrant scapegoating, workers’ right to organize and bargain, and taxing billionaires. 

Workers from various unions throughout the airport were present at the rally, including flight attendants, security workers, baggage handlers, wheelchair agents, janitors, and rideshare workers.

Minnesota
Ryan Christensen, a grocery store worker at Lunds & Byerlys for the past 38 years at a rally.

One Grocery Worker’s Fight to Defend What Matters Most

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Ryan Christensen is a 52-year-old grocery worker for Lunds & Byerlys, where he has been for 38 years. Christensen says that what was once a strong, family-supporting job has deteriorated over time. He was one of 9,000 grocery employees working on an expired contract across the Twin Cities Metro rallying under the demand “One good job should be enough.” 

Last week, workers ratified contracts with four companies—including the one where Christensen works. But grocery workers, represented by United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 663, rejected contracts with three other companies, and strikes could be imminent. Christensen commutes an hour and a half each way by car from his home in Richmond, Minn., to work at the Lunds location in Wayzata, Minn., six days a week.

Minnesota
On March 31, workers, students, and allies rallied together on the steps of Johnston Hall, the University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham’s office, to protest what they criticize as the university’s complicity in ICE’s recent abduction of a graduate student, and an onslaught of university policies limiting the freedom of speech across campus.

University of Minnesota Unions Say University is Capitulating to Trump Admin, Rally Against Detention of International Student

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On March 31, workers, students, and allies rallied together on the steps of Johnston Hall, which contains the office of the University of Minnesota President Rebecca Cunningham’s, to protest what they criticize as the University’s failure to forcefully object to ICE’s recent abduction of a graduate student, and an onslaught of University policies limiting the freedom of speech across campus. By assembling in the hundreds, the crowd challenged the University’s policy that any gathering of more than 100 people must have a permit obtained two weeks in advance. The rally was organized by AFSCME 3800, representing about 6,500 clerical workers across campus, and the Graduate Labor Union (GLU), representing about 4,000 graduate workers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. GLU, local 1105 of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), won its first union contract earlier this year. 

Abaki Beck, a Ph.D. candidate in public health and president of GLU-UE Local 1105, kicked off the rally by denouncing Cunningham’s administration, stating that the University’s leadership “capitulated to the Trump administration to protect funding.” 

In a January 30 article published in the The Minnesota Daily, Jake Ricker, a University spokesperson, is quoted as stating that, “While the University does not have responsibility or an active role in federal officials enforcing federal law or court processes, as a public university and employer, we cannot ignore federal court orders or subpoenas.” Some students and workers have criticized this and similar statements as an indication that the university doesn’t plan to aggressively fight the Trump administration rounding up of students. Beck went on to characterize Cunningham’s campus-wide email on March 28, one day after the abduction of a graduate student by ICE, as “insufficient” and delayed, “after violence already occurred.” In that email, Cunningham stated, “The University had no prior knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities before it occurred.” She called the news “distressing” and offered mental health support to those disturbed by it, but critics say she did not condemn the detention itself or publicly outline steps to avoid this kind of action in the future.