Twin Cities Labor Report 1/26
Did we just have a General Strike?
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Twin Cities Labor Report. This past week was a real week of bravery for tens of thousands of Minnesotans. We protested all week, and on Friday shut down Minneapolis in something as close to a general strike as we’ve gotten in some time, in negative one billion degrees cold. And then on Saturday ICE murdered another one of us, Alex Pretti, an AFGE Local 3669 ICU nurse at the VA Hospital. After the murder, around a hundred of the gangsters invaded my neighborhood and tear gassed the whole area. But folks fought back, the goon squad left, and we held one of the most defiant vigils I have ever been to. Before I get to the rest of the newsletter, I have a request- please let me know how Friday went in your shop and in your union! I don’t have any real data on which shops had successful sick-outs, for instance. You can reply to this if you get this via email, or send me a substack DM if you have the app.
Upcoming Labor Events
Education Minnesota Lakeville- Lakeville Public Schools- Lakeville teachers are having another school board rally this Tuesday as contract negotiations drag on. It will take place from 4:30-5:30pm at the District Office, 17665 Kenwood Trail.
Farmington Education Association- Farmington Public Schools- Right next to Lakeville, teachers in the southern exurb Farmington are some of the worst paid in the metro, and are still working under an expired contract. They are rallying at tonight’s school board meeting, at the Farmington City Hall, 430 3rd St, Farmington, MN 55024.
Recent Labor Events
AFSCME Locals 1842 + 2508- City of St Paul- Around 1,000 AFSCME workers for the City of St Paul reached a TA on a new contract this past week. The leadership was pretty happy with the deal, the big highlight is that they have $1 raises across the board. Flat dollar value raises versus percentage raises really help lower the gap between the bottom of the wage brackets and the top, which is really huge for a workforce with a pretty wide pay disparity. Even more impressive, this breaks a long-standing pattern of giving percentage raises. Good for these workers!
SEIU HCMNIA- Health Partners- SEIU workers at Health Partners Clinics around the metro recently voted to authorize a strike with a 99% margin, and followed it up with a 6am picket on Friday. Given that it was -22 degrees out at that time, it’s impressive anyone showed up.
General Strike Reportback
On Friday, January 23rd, the Twin Cities held a mass day of action that came pretty close to being a real general strike. Hundreds of businesses closed their doors, and many others worked with skeleton crews. A rally in downtown approached maybe 70,000, with more staying home due to weather or keeping watch in their neighborhood. In the morning, thousands protested at MSP, and a hundred clergy from across the country took arrests. ICE’s command post at Fort Snelling was successfully blockaded for a couple hours, too. Pretty much every restaurant and shop was closed in most of Minneapolis- going to the bathroom downtown during the rally was nearly impossible. Both Karmel Mall and Hmongtown Marketplace, two immigrant malls already struggling with huge declines in sales, shuttered for the day as well.
On the other hand, the economy did not fully shut down. My personal over/under for a successful event included a shutdown of Metro Transit and of substantial amounts of business in the suburbs on the high end, neither of those things happened. That’s important, because while Minneapolis has really been the hotspot to ICE resistance, there are both huge immigrant populations and huge employment centers in the suburbs. A shutdown of the massive UNFI warehouse in Hopkins, for instance, would have shut down grocery deliveries to pretty much the whole state.
So who did participate? This shutdown was powered by mostly-unorganized retail and service workers demanding their businesses close, which really is remarkable. Within organized labor, universal no-strike clauses theoretically ban this type of mid-contract action from taking place. Despite that, many union shops closed for the day, and others experienced mass sick-outs, which are theoretically violations of the clause as well. In UFCW, all of the co-ops we represent across our two locals, as well as Half Price Books and Peace Coffee shut down. All of the museums in the Twin Cities shuttered, with most of those being represented by AFSCME or OPEIU. One of IATSE’s big shops, the Guthrie Theater, fully shut down as well. Starbucks Workers United doesn’t have a contract as we all know, so they just took six shops out on a ULP strike!
What’s next? There is an immediate political question of this current ICE occupation, which has since escalated with another murder, this time of a union brother. This has provoked the Chamber of Commerce to put out the world’s weakest statement, hoping for a de-escalation of unnamed “tensions.” More effective has been the continued street-based resistance to ICE through grassroots rapid response groups. A good next step for labor would be to fully get behind these and encourage participation. Another step would be for workers to pressure companies to adopt protections against raids and declare themselves 4th Amendment businesses.
I hope that this action gives union members nationally the courage to start talking about political strikes and mass action outside of just voting. In order to be truly effective, though, this needs to happen at least five times the scale. That will take, for a start, the thousands of people who made this day a real thing going to their union meetings and explaining why it was so important and necessary. And it will take the unorganized workers who participated organizing unions at their shops, and bringing this energy in to the labor movement. Actions like these only work when the rank and file are activated enough to push both their employer and their union leadership in the right direction.
Instantly iconic photo from the Strib
Recent Public Sector Card Checks
IUOE Local 49- City of Watertown- The 49ers are now representing utility workers for the far exurban city of Watertown.
Teamsters 320- City of Long Prairie- 320 is now representing clerks and administrative workers in Long Prairie, a small meatpacking town.
I liked your post on the MPLS strike because it hit on the key points of what was happening at the major employment spots. The stores that closed were small businesses, some coops and cultural institutions. Most probably employed under 10 people but there were a couple cultural institutions. But if you look at the grocery chains where people shop. the major retail outlets, the fortune 500, as well as government institutions they were not shut down. Also no reports of significant impairment.
I think if you add up the likely employees at the small employers that shut down voluntarily (although I am sure with some pressure) its probably under 20k. Then an unspecified called in sick but the main ones i have heard are where strong organizing like cwa .
But overall we are talking more in the 1% range with most with support or permission from employers. It still was a great action but I think numbers are numbers. Also the poll that the community groups did is deeply flawed and actually misleading for multiple reasons. Anyway good post and better than most i have seen.