Minnesota

Los trabajadores de limpieza asean los establecimientos después de las compras navideñas, pero ellos no pueden festejar con sus familias.

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Para Elbida Gomez, la temporada festiva no se marca con alegría o tiempo con familia, sino un aumento drástico en su carga de trabajo—limpiando baños y oficinas, sacando la basura, trapeando y limpiando comida del piso de la cafetería para empleados. 

La madre de dos, de 43 años, dice que es una de solo dos personas cuyo trabajo principal es limpiar la sucursal de Cabela’s—una cadena de tiendas que venden artículos de caza, pesca y campamento—de Woodbury, Minnesota. Aumenta el tráfico peatonal en lo que los clientes hacen sus compras navideñas. Los padres hacen fila con sus hijos para tomarse una foto con Santa Claus. El piso se cubre con chocolate, envolturas de dulces y huellas, y, cuando empieza a nevar, la entrada de la tienda está perpetuamente cubierta de sal y arena, dice. 

“Hay poco tiempo y mucho trabajo”, dice Gomez, quien ha hecho trabajo de limpieza desde que se mudo a los Estados Unidos de Honduras hace unos 15 años. 

Pero en un sector que trata—literalmente—de sanitizar las experiencias festivas de otras familias, a ella se le niega la oportunidad de relajarse y festejar con su propia familia. Gomez no recibe vacaciones pagadas de su empleador, Carlson Building Maintenance, que se contrata para limpiar a Cabela’s.

Minnesota

They Clean After Holiday Shoppers. But They Don’t Get to Celebrate with their Families.

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. For Elbida Gomez, the winter holiday season is not marked by cheer or family time, but by an exponential increase in her workload — cleaning bathrooms and store offices, taking out the trash, mopping entrances and wiping up food from the floor of the employee cafeteria. The 43-year-old mother of two says she is one of just two people whose primary job is to clean the Woodbury, Minn., location of Cabela’s, a big box store chain that sells hunting, fishing and camping goods. Foot traffic increases as patrons do their holiday shopping. Parents line up with their children to take a photograph with Santa Claus.

International

The U.S. Labor Voices Opposing Military Aid to Israel

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This article was jointly produced by Workday Magazine and In These Times. As the Israeli military relentlessly bombards 2.4 million Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and a ground invasion appears imminent, one storied, national union — the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) — is opposing U.S. military aid for the state of Israel whose assault on the besieged strip has already taken the lives of at least 1,800 Palestinians (a number that is quickly rising) and displaced more than 420,000 others. The Israeli government’s overwhelming violence comes on the heels of a surprise attack by Hamas militants on October 7 when 150 were taken hostage and more than 1,300 people, almost entirely Israelis, were killed. “We certainly don’t support any killing, whether it’s in the form of bombs, guns, starving people through blockades, or through apartheid, from any side,” says Andrew Dinkelaker, the UE’s general secretary treasurer. ​“U.S. military aid going in is pouring gasoline onto a fire. It encourages that there be military solutions, and military solutions will get more people killed.”

In opposing U.S. military aid to Israel, the UE — along with some organizers, elected representatives and rank-and-file workers from other unions, as well as just a few progressive members of Congress like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D.-Mich.) and Rep. Cori Bush (D.-Mo.) — is striking in a U.S. political climate defined by unqualified bipartisan support for Israel’s newly formed, hawkish ​“unity” government as it uses white phosphorus and cuts off fuel, food, water and electricity to Gaza’s entire population, which is about half children. 

A video has been circulating of Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying, ​“We are fighting against human animals.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Friday, ​“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible.

International

Republicans Are Using Anti-China Rhetoric to Undercut Striking UAW Workers’ Demands

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​​This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Three and a half weeks into the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) stand-up strike against the Big Three — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — the GOP is coalescing around a talking point: that the autoworkers’ real enemy is China. The argument goes something like this: Biden’s federal policies are driving up electric vehicle production, which requires the import of components, like batteries, from China. This process, according to Republicans, is not only enriching an official U.S. rival, but also threatening U.S. jobs. This line of thinking fits perfect for a staunchly anti-union Republican Party, because it allows its purveyors to look like they are standing with striking workers, without supporting any of their actual demands, like a 36% pay increase, an end to tiers, stopping the abuse of temporary workers, cost-of-living adjustments and more paid time off.

Midwest

“Your Body Suffers”: The Unremarkable Pain of an Auto-Assembly-Line Worker

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The Nation. Daniel Carpenter was one month past his 40th birthday when he suffered neck pain so severe that he thought he was having a stroke. “I was up north with my girlfriend at the time at a wedding,” said the autoworker, who has been employed for nearly 19 years at General Motors, almost all of it at the company’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center in Michigan, which produces the Hummer and Silverado. “We were staying at a cabin. I couldn’t walk.

International

Stop Letting Auto Companies Pit Workers Against the Environment

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. In recent media coverage of the United Auto Workers’ stand-up strike against the Big Three car makers — Stellantis, Ford and General Motors — a false narrative is circulating: that the walkout is in conflict with the urgent need to mitigate climate change. The basic argument is that if wages and benefits were to improve, this would make the transition to electric vehicle manufacturing unprofitable, and would therefore imperil a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s environmental policy. 

“Union demands would force Ford to scrap its investments in electric vehicles, Jim Farley, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview on Friday,” reporter Jack Ewing wrote for the New York Times on September 16. Ewing goes on to quote Farley saying, ​“We want to actually have a conversation about a sustainable future, not one that forces us to choose between going out of business and rewarding our workers.”

In an article that ran on September 13, the day before the strike began, New York Times reporter Noam Scheiber put it similarly: ​“The companies say that even if they could raise wages for battery workers to the rate set under their national U.A.W. contract, doing so could make them uncompetitive with nonunion rivals, like Tesla.”

These reports echo the talking points of the same companies that have had a direct hand in slowing the transition to electric vehicles. All of the Big Three automakers are members of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group, that lobbied against a proposed Biden administration rule to require that two out of three new passenger cars sold in the United States are electric vehicles by 2032. 

These companies have also played a key role in fueling climate change. Scientists at Ford and General Motors knew about the impacts of global warming as early as the 1960s, yet the companies intensified their fossil-fuel heavy business model, turning to the manufacturing of trucks and SUVs over the ensuing decades while donating ​“hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups that cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming,” as revealed in a 2020 investigation by E&E News.

Midwest

UAW’s “Element of Surprise” Strike Appears to Be Working

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Workers walked off their shifts on September 14 at midnight to cheering crowds, as the United Auto Workers launched its first simultaneous strike against the ​“Big Three” automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. The initial work stoppages were not company-wide, but instead targeted at three locations: GM’s Wentzville Assembly in Missouri, Stellantis’ Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, and Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., just outside Detroit. The plants employ some 12,700 of the roughly 150,000 UAW members who work for the Big Three. The strike strategy, developed under the leadership of reform challenger Shawn Fain, was defined by its element of surprise.