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Workers

"Bigger Than a Contract": In the Twin Cities, Marches, Strikes, and Blockades for May Day

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Workers across the Twin Cities rallied and marched on International Worker’s Day, or May Day, in solidarity with contract fights, to stand with immigrant workers, and to oppose the threats against working people all over the globe. 

Many of the actions were led by leaders in the ICE OUT coalition that formed following Operation Metro Surge earlier this year. From the early morning hours into the evening of May 1, workers went out on strike, picketed in front of businesses, and led rallies in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Along with specific demands of various contract fights, the coalition is also calling for ICE to discontinue operations in Minnesota, that any officer who kills a civilian be held legally accountable, no additional federal funding for ICE in the upcoming congressional budget, and an investigation for human rights and constitutional violations committed by ICE. The coalition is also demanding corporations become 4th Amendment businesses, ceasing economic relations with ICE and refusing ICE entry or use of their property.

Community

Minnesota Teachers and Grocery Workers: ICE Out of Our Workplaces

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Teachers, families, community groups, and grocery workers are calling for federal immigration authorities to stay out of their workplaces, and out of Minnesota, one day after an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident and mother Renee Good. 

“On the day of Good’s murder, federal agents deployed chemical irritants and abducted an educator overseeing safe dismissal from Roosevelt High School grounds (who has since been released),” reads a January 8 statement from Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, TakeAction Minnesota, Minneapolis Federation of Educators, and ISAIAH, a coalition of educator unions, workers, and community organizations. “ICE is putting our freedoms, our futures, and our lives at risk,” the statement continues. “Immigrant families, allied families, and educators are standing together to say ICE OUT now,” continues the statement, which announces a press conference the following morning. Laura Proescholdt, communications director for TakeAction Minnesota, emailed Workday Magazine a list of the coalition’s demands. They include, “ICE out of our schools, ICE out of Minnesota.

Workers

“There Is a War Against Us”: Worker Leader, Released from ICE Custody, Speaks Out

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Willian Giménez González is a day laborer in Chicago known for organizing for workers’ rights. He was part of a group that filed a federal lawsuit over the alleged beating and harassment of day laborers at a Home Depot. 

On September 12, federal agents detained him outside of his barbershop, beginning a 47-day ordeal in which he was held in the Broadview ICE detention center in Illinois and then moved to the North Lake detention center in Michigan. The abduction came in the early days of ​“Operation Midway Blitz” as the Trump administration dramatically ramped up the presence of heavily armed, masked federal agents throughout the Chicago area. Giménez González’s community responded with outrage and concern, rallying at the Broadview facility the day after he was detained.

Unions

Why 650 Minnesota Doctors May Go on Strike

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On November 5, 650 medical doctors, physicians assistants, and nurse practitioners with the Doctors Council-SEIU may go on a one-day Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike. The strike would impact over 60 Allina clinics across Minnesota. The workers are demanding safe staffing levels in order to retain healthcare providers and improve the quality of care for patients. If the workers do strike, the union believes it will mark the largest doctors’ strike in the private healthcare industry in the country. 

The workers formed the union in October 2023, making the unit the largest private-sector doctors’ union in the United States, according to a press release from SEIU. After nearly 20 months and over 50 bargaining sessions, the union states that Allina has not met them in good faith at the bargaining table.

Minnesota

“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.

Government

What It Means When Federal Union Contracts Disappear

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This article is a joint publication of The American Prospect and Workday Magazine, a nonprofit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of workers. Jason was elected to represent unionized workers at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New York state. But on August 8, he got the same notice as 400,000 colleagues across the VA: their union contracts were being abruptly eliminated in response to a Trump administration executive order. It was a Friday, and by the following Tuesday he had to clear out the union local’s office, which was housed in a VA facility. “I had to have a moving company show up, box up all of our equipment, all of our files, all the employee files,” says Jason, who requested I use a pseudonym and not identify his facility or specific profession to protect him and his colleagues from retaliation.