Mobile billboard shines light on price of Trump’s deportation agenda

October 26, 2026 by 1 Comment

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham talks about a mobile billboard the labor federation is sending into communities across the state.

The cost of unleaded isn’t the only painfully high price confronting drivers in St. Paul – at least not today. That’s because the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s mobile billboard is crisscrossing the capital city, highlighting the local cost of President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

The public-awareness campaign, which arrives in St. Paul after tours through the Rochester and Mankato areas earlier this month, takes aim at $170 billion in funding for immigration enforcement in Trump’s signature tax and spending legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) of 2025.

The funding, which runs through September 2029, will build up two agencies, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), that were heavily involved in Operation Metro Surge here last winter.

That means Minnesota is on the hook for about $4.4 billion, or $2,050 per taxpayer, to expand the campaign that brought violence and chaos to our communities.

“That’s money people could use in their pockets,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said. “Affordability is such an issue right now. People are spending more on gas, on healthcare. They are making choices about whether to get groceries or go to the doctor.”

The Minnesota AFL-CIO’s mobile billboard spotlights a new online calculator, developed by the Economic Policy Institute, to isolate the cost of mass deportations on the local level.

The calculator also shows what those funds could have meant for public education and essential services that keep people fed, healthy and safe. The roughly $385 million paid by Ramsey County taxpayers, for example, could have been used to hire 1,300 public school teachers or to keep 11,261 people on Medicaid through the rest of Trump’s term.

Burnham said the state’s largest labor federation doesn’t want voters to forget how Trump and Republicans cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, Obamacare subsidies, and food assistance in their “Big Beautiful Bill,” while handing tax breaks to large corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

“We want to have candidates who are supporting children, working people and communities,” she said. “If we continue to lose this money (to mass deportations), people are going to keep coming up short every day.”

The mass deportation calculator adds to a growing body of research about the high cost of Trump’s immigration policies and, specifically, Operation Metro Surge.

The three-month occupation cost Minnesota an estimated 32,000 jobs, according to a report released by the Minnesota Budget Project earlier this month, and reduced economic activity, especially in the hospitality sector. Meanwhile, security costs for local communities increased by an estimated $700 million in the metro area.

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Feds spied on local unions during Operation Metro Surge

August 27, 2026 by

Communications Workers (CWA) Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson speaks during a demonstration outside Target’s corporate offices in Minneapolis. Federal agents issued administrative summons to obtain information on the union’s recent political spending.

Minnesota’s largest labor federation accused the Trump administration of “bringing back McCarthyism” after court filings exposed wide-reaching federal surveillance of local unions during the deadly and chaotic immigration dragnet last winter.

While purportedly investigating a criminal conspiracy to impede Operation Metro Surge, Department of Homeland Security agents infiltrated a meeting at the United Labor Center in Minneapolis, demanded one local union’s transaction log from U.S. Bank and dug into the political spending of another.

DHS investigators dubbed the spying campaign “Operation Puppet Master.”

Undercover agents, posing as protesters, also surveilled meetings at churches, parks, libraries and schools, “at times working to entice people into discussing or committing crimes,” according to court documents filed Aug. 13 by an attorney for one of 15 Minnesota protesters facing federal charges stemming from Metro Surge protests.

The filings also unearthed a diagram produced by DHS to show 18 organizations allegedly leading “The Conspiracy.” They include the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the Service Employees, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE).

Attorney Kevin Riach, who filed the motion, said DHS investigators “conjured up a vast and irrational conspiracy” without any criminal predicate.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham and other labor leaders called it an attempt to criminalize dissent.

“The Minnesota AFL-CIO and several of our affiliated unions are being targeted simply because our state’s labor movement stood in solidarity with our immigrant union members and neighbors when our state was under siege this past winter,” Burnham said.

“Minnesotans and most people across our country have rejected this administration’s attempts to demonize immigrants. They are now bringing back McCarthyism to paint unions and organizations that advocate for workers and families as threats to the nation.”

MAPE member Alec Stewart, one of 15 ICE protesters facing charges, says DHS surveilled unions “because our community connections and solidarity were so effective.”

The motion for discovery exposing the surveillance measures used here last winter seeks to compel DHS to provide a fuller picture of how its agents spied on Minnesota unions, nonprofits and activists.

Riach filed the motion earlier this month on behalf of Isaac Sant, one of 15 Minnesotans, including some union members, charged in June with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer as part of a coordinated Justice Department operation. Sant also faces interstate stalking charges for allegedly following an ICE vehicle to Hudson, Wis.

Unions and civil rights groups roundly condemned the charges.

In a public statement, 50 organizations accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department to punish a few activists for a historic campaign of popular resistance to Metro Surge.

The statement, signed by the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Education Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association and 13 other union groups, decries that the charges come from “the very same (agency) that refuses to investigate or press charges in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.”

The 15 protesters charged were among thousands of Minnesotans who rose up to defend their neighbors – tracking ICE agents, alerting communities to their presence, documenting their actions and demonstrating in the streets.

Organized labor lent critical support to those efforts – and federal agents clearly took notice, MAPE member Alec Stewart, one of the activists facing charges, said.

Stewart, a forestry worker for the State of Minnesota, joined a press conference last month outside Target headquarters in downtown Minneapolis, where labor, faith and immigrant organizations called on Minnesota’s large companies to publicly reject political surveillance and retaliation.

“The revelation of Operation Puppet Master exposes that while the government was targeting immigrant communities, tearing families apart, abducting children and murdering folks in the street, they were also attempting to disrupt and dismantle one of the facets of Minnesota that makes us so unique,” Stewart said. “That is our strong and unified labor movement.

“They were doing this simply because our connections and our community solidarity were so effective.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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AFL-CIO convention spotlights strength, solidarity of Minnesota’s labor movement

June 7, 2026 by

Minnesotans who joined the solidarity efforts during Operation Metro Surge take the stage on Day 1 of the convention. (AFL-CIO photo)

Union leaders and activists from across the U.S. are gathering in the Twin Cities this week for the 30th AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, the American labor movement’s biggest event.

The national labor federation picked Minneapolis as the site of its four-day convention well before a violent surge of federal agents in Minnesota drew worldwide outrage over the winter. But among the first orders of business on Day 1 was a recognition of local unions’ role in organizing resistance to the occupation.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, reelected to a five-year term later in the day, turned the Convention Center stage over to three local leaders, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson and Minneapolis RLF President Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou.

The presidents offered visiting delegates an overview of unions’ response to Operation Metro Surge – and the work that prepared Minnesota’s labor movement to meet the moment with solidarity.

The federal occupation saw unions raise funds for mutual aid and legal defense of detained members. Unions tapped into local solidarity networks, hosting training sessions for constitutional observers and preparing members to respond if ICE showed up on their worksite. And union members not only showed up in the streets as observers and demonstrators, but dozens of activists trained to become “union peacekeepers,” who kept marches safe and orderly.

“They thought Minnesota nice meant we would stand by quietly while federal agents disappeared our friends, neighbors and co-workers,” Burnham said. “But they mistook kindness for weakness. They invaded a winter people in winter, and our solidarity froze them in their tracks.”

(AFL-CIO photo)

Delegates on the convention floor rose for a standing ovation as Burnham welcomed anyone in the room who joined the solidarity efforts in Minnesota onto the stage.

“Now they know Americans are not afraid,” Burnham said. “They know if they send ICE into any of your communities, you will fight just as hard.”

Shuler thanked Minnesotans for their “sacrifice and resilience” before returning to the business of the convention – committee reports, elections and a roll call of affiliated unions, which included the 2-million-member Service Employees (SEIU) for the first time in 21 years.

The AFL-CIO also recognized seven new affiliates representing professional athletes, including WNBA players, who this year won historic gains in a new union contract, and Major League Baseball players, who are in a bitter round of negotiations with owners intent on suppressing their pay with a salary cap.

The theme for the 2026 convention is “With You, It’s Better in a Union.” Organizers expected between 1,500 and 2,000 delegates and guests to attend the four-day affair.

Delegates from the AFL-CIO’s 65 affiliated unions and from state and local labor councils come together at conventions to conduct required business and chart the future of the labor movement.

The event will feature prominent guest speakers and expert panelists to discuss issues facing workers and their families, from artificial intelligence to the rising cost of living.

AFL-CIO Minneapolis convention, Sunday June 7, 2026. Afternoon plenary. Photo: Jay Mallin
AFL-CIO Minneapolis convention, Sunday, June 7, 2026. Photos: Jay Mallin

The convention put a spotlight on Minnesota again on Day 1 when the AFL-CIO recognized the state’s labor movement as one of two recipients of the 2025 Meany-Kirkland Human Rights Award, celebrating the most powerful examples of solidarity in action from across the world.

Minnesota shares the award, presented during a dinner reception, with the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP).

The federation’s executive board announced winners of the award in March. Its announcement cited Minnesota union activists’ “courage and commitment to fighting for democratic rights” during the surge that began last December.

Peterson, president of the St. Paul RLF, said the convention was an “exciting opportunity for our nation’s union movement to find inspiration and advance the coalition work that will meet the challenges ahead for working people across the country.”

“The world watched as Minnesotans joined together last winter to protect our neighbors and defend our democracy, and local unions and federated labor bodies, through their organizing work, helped build power and solidarity to meet that moment,” she added.

Both Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond were re-elected on Day 1 after no other nominations emerged from the floor.

Watch video of the convention’s proceedings at aflcio.org.

— Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Restaurant workers call on industry group to ’86 ICE’

February 27, 2026 by

Twin Cities restaurant and hotel workers bring their “86 ICE!” campaign to the offices of Hospitality Minnesota.

Workers in the Twin Cities’ restaurant industry marked the start of Valentine’s Day weekend with a march on the offices Hospitality Minnesota, where they demanded the trade association sign onto a campaign to protect immigrant customers and staff.

Workers at the Feb. 13 rally in downtown Minneapolis said the violent surge of immigration enforcement across the state over the last two months had sent many of their colleagues into hiding – or worse.

The “86 ICE!” campaign, a nod to industry slang for banning someone or something from an establishment, calls for employers and employees to work together on training, planning and surviving the crisis created by increased immigration enforcement.

Demands include refusing service to immigration agents, denying entry to agents unless they have a judicial warrant and training all restaurant employees in how to protect the rights and safety of customers and fellow staff members.

Two local worker centers, CTUL and the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Minnesota, are behind the organizing effort, and several local restaurant owners already have signed on, including Miguel Hernandez, owner of Lito’s Burritos in Richfield.

Signing onto the “86 ICE!” campaign, Hernandez said during the rally, would show that Hospitality Minnesota stands by the business owners who are doing the right thing.

“Most of these demands are already being done by a lot of good community business owners,” Hernandez said during the rally. “Of course, there’s always bad actors, and we need them to stand up for their staff, too.”

Organizers also want restaurants to pledge not to fire or discipline immigrant workers who miss shifts because they fear being harassed or detained.

Remy, a Minneapolis bartender, gives a shout out to his co-workers who were detained during Operation Metro Surge. “Some of them I’ll never see again.”

Operation Metro Surge may be over, but the number of agents, combined, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection remained about three times greater than previous levels as this issue went to press.

For Patti, an immigrant worker in the hospitality industry who asked not to share her last name, attending the “86 ICE!” rally was the first time she had left her home, aside from going to work when it felt safe, for over a month. She said co-workers helped with groceries and other supplies, and her employer offered flexibility and help getting to work safely.

But not everyone she knows in the industry has been as fortunate. Patti said it wasn’t until after a friend who works as a dishwasher was detained at a bus stop on his way to work that his restaurant began offering rides to vulnerable workers.

It’s a sad example, she said, of why “we need proactive safety plans and trainings at all restaurants.”

Several non-immigrant workers at the rally offered shout-outs to co-workers they worry they will never see again. Hazel, a server whose employer took the “86 ICE!” pledge, said workers in her restaurant were willing to strike to keep their colleagues safe.

“If nothing else, everyone must feel they are safe in their workplace,” she said. “They need to be protected by their employer. But more importantly and more personally, I want to say goodbye to my co-workers after a shift and know they will be there the next day.”

After the rally, a delegation of workers and business owners attempted to meet with a Hospitality Minnesota representative but were told the offices were closed for the day.

CTUL and ROC said supporters of the campaign have sent nearly 2,000 letters to Hospitality Minnesota, but the industry group has denied requests to “discuss a path forward.”.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Poll finds ‘staggering’ support among Minnesotans for massive ICE protest

January 30, 2026 by

Thousands march through downtown Minneapolis during the labor-endorsed “Day of Truth and Freedom.”

Faith, labor and nonprofit groups behind the massive “ICE Out of MN” day of action Jan. 23 released polling today that suggests nearly a quarter of Minnesota voters participated in the protest.

Hundreds of businesses closed Jan. 23, as tens of thousands of protesters marked a “Day of Truth and Freedom” in the streets of downtown Minneapolis, marching in subzero temperatures to demand an end to federal immigration operations in Minnesota.

Local labor organizations, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO and area labor councils in the metro, endorsed the massive march, which culminated with a rally at Target Center. And union members showed up for the event in any number of ways – as trained “union peacekeepers” helping direct traffic around the march, as volunteered stagehands preparing the arena, or by taking a stand in their community or workplace.

Earlier in the day, about 100 clergy members were arrested in a civil-disobedience action at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a key site in the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to abduct and rush detained Minnesotans into detention centers.

Organizers behind the one-day action called for “No Work, No School, No Shopping.” The polling found 23% of Minnesota voters participated in some way, with 38% of participants saying they did not go to work and 65% saying they did not shop.

Minister JaNaè Bates, co-director of the progressive faith coalition ISAIAH, called the poll results “staggering.”

“People were willing to take a real hit to their paychecks and demonstrate their resolve for getting ICE out of the state,” Bates said.

She also noted that 33% of Minnesotans polled said they were more likely to shop at a business that closed in solidarity with the day of action. “People will remember who’s standing by us, and people will remember … who businesses choose to stand behind.”

Indeed, the solidarity on display Jan. 23 offered a stark contrast to the silence from Minnesota’s large corporations.

Groups like ISAIAH have ramped up the pressure on corporations like Target, Delta and Starbucks in recent weeks, demanding they refuse to allow federal agents on their properties – and use their clout in Congress to freeze funding for ICE operations.

A delegation of clergy members took those demands into a meeting with Target CEO Brian Cornell on Jan. 22. In a statement after the meeting, they said Cornell’s response fell short of “the urgency this moment requires.”

Some clergy groups are planning sit-ins at Target stores this weekend.

While the day of action called for no work, most labor groups that endorsed the action cautioned union members to follow the terms of their contracts, which typically include no-strike clauses. Still, hundreds of independent restaurants and retailers closed, and weather-related school closings made it easier for families and workers to show up, too.

Educators hold a “teach-in” at City Hall.

As demonstrators gathered two blocks away for the march through Minneapolis, rank-and-file members of the Minneapolis and St. Paul educators unions held a teach-in at City Hall, dramatizing the heartbreaking impacts of “Operation Metro Surge” on their schools.

The somber event featured sing-alongs, readings from a children’s book and a group discussion – guided by a teacher at the whiteboard – about how communities and elected leaders can help students and families who have gone into hiding or, worse, seen family members disappear.

St. Paul and Minneapolis are among metro-area school districts that have adopted a hybrid learning model, and the classroom at the teach-in reflected that reality, with empty desks and floor mats marked with signs depicting the fate of absent students.

“Students and staff have been abducted, schools stalked and teargassed, with classrooms missing more students every day,” said Drake Myers, an education support professional in Minneapolis. “I don’t know a single educator who wants our federal tax money going to pay for this.”

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, noted that messages of solidarity have been pouring into her office since the massive march, including solidarity from unions in other countries.

“Our international labor community is concerned for the welfare of people of their nationalities who are in our communities,” she said. “They are pushing us to fight this fight, especially for people of their nationalities who are being illegally targeted and harassed..

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , ,

MSP Airport unions lead march on ICE terminal as labor shows solidarity with Somali community

December 3, 2025 by

Local 17 organizer Geof Paquette speaks to the crowd of activists outside Signature’s terminal at MSP.

One day after the Trump administration announced it would target the local Somali community with immigration raids, two airport unions led a march on the company that operates Minneapolis-St. Paul International’s charter terminal, where local detainees are being flown in shackles to deportation hubs.

More than 200 activists from labor, community and faith groups gathered Dec. 3 at the Terminal 2 light-rail stop and marched together to the Signature Aviation terminal. There they rallied with speeches and chants, and later tied red ribbons of remembrance to the iron fence that separates the terminal from the public road.

Speakers called on local officials, including the Metropolitan Airports Commission, to find ways to stop the deportation flights.

“These deportations create terror in our neighborhoods and are ripping families apart,” said Geof Paquette, an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 17 who works with immigrant workers at MSP’s bars and restaurants. “They do nothing but sow fear and anxiety in our community. We’ve got to demand better.”

Another union speaker, retired airport janitor and Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26 member George Mullin, offered a firsthand account of the squalid, dehumanizing conditions detainees face in the privately owned holding centers to which they are flown from Signature’s terminal.

George Mullin, a retired SEIU member, traveled to deportation hubs in Louisiana earlier this year.

Mullin joined a delegation, sponsored by SEIU, that traveled to remote detention hubs in Louisiana earlier this year. Those sprawling private prisons, like Signature Aviation and the charter airlines that use its terminals to traffic ICE detainees, are “making money off of cruelty,” Mullin said.

“I’m here today because one of the bright spots of our trip to Louisiana was seeing detained women reacting to us for showing up where no one comes,” he said. “They waved like crazy the whole time.

We got to show them that they are not alone. We see them, and we are with them. Today we’re doing the same thing. To our neighbors who are being put on these planes in chains, likely with no idea where they are going, we see you.”

Labor’s leading role in the march on Signature Aviation illustrates how unions here – and across the U.S. – are showing solidarity with immigrant communities under attack, while also working in coalition to defend people’s rights and hold the Trump administration accountable.

Demonstrators tie ribbons to the iron gate outside the Signature terminal.

Local SEIU unions were among those that reacted swiftly after President Trump began spewing hateful rhetoric at Somali immigrants. In a Cabinet meeting, Trump called them “garbage” and said they “contribute nothing” – an insult belied by work local SEIU members do as school employees, health care workers and property-service workers.

“We could not be prouder or luckier to have many Somali Minnesotans as coworkers and courageous leaders in our struggle to end poverty wages for everyone,” Minnesota’s SEIU locals said in a statement. “As usual, Trump is saying things that aren’t true and claiming powers he doesn’t have. We will make sure all our members have the tools they need to protect their rights.”

To that end, the state’s labor movement has been helping stage training sessions in nonviolent, direct action, supporting immigrant-rights and progressive groups as they brace for an increased federal presence in the Twin Cities. The first session in November drew an overflow crowd, prompting the groups to schedule another for Dec. 7.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said that solidarity demands labor mobilize to meet the moment.

“Union members refuse to let anyone, even the President of the United States, divide us based on what we look like, where we were born, or how we pray,” she said. “President Trump and his cronies are hoping that working people will forget that immigrants aren’t standing between us and a better life – billionaires are. We refuse to let them break our solidarity.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Unions show solidarity with immigrant workers amid deportation surge

April 25, 2025 by

Public outrage spilled into the streets outside El Salvador’s consulate offices in St. Paul on April 17, as demonstrators offered support for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Sheet Metal Worker (SMART) apprentice mistakenly apprehended in Maryland and illegally trafficked to El Salvador.

Local and international unions are fighting for their members who have been ensnared in President Donald Trump’s chaotic mass-deportation effort.

Meanwhile, union workers in Minnesota hospitals and schools are calling on co-workers to refuse aid to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in their workplaces.

“We stand firmly against policies or practices that seek to marginalize or criminalize immigrant communities,” the Minnesota Nurses Association said in a statement after ICE agents detained an employee at a hospital where its members work in Marshall, Minn.

“The integrity of our profession rests on the belief that health care is a human right. We advocate for policies that protect immigrant patients, support their access to healthcare and uphold their dignity. We will not be complicit in any actions that undermine these principles.”

The pushback from labor and community groups comes as Trump’s deportation plan approaches a constitutional tipping point, with uncertainty as to whether the administration will follow court orders upholding immigrants’ due-process rights.

One high-profile case at the center of public outrage involved Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a first-year apprentice member of Sheet Metal Workers (SMART) Local 100, based in Maryland.

A native of El Salvador, Abrego Garcia had been living and working legally in the U.S., but in March, ICE agents mistakenly detained him in Baltimore due to an “administrative error.”

Later that month, he was among some 200 detainees that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security illegally trafficked to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, with no opportunity to make their case in court.

The administration denied Abrego Garcia and other immigrants their due process rights under the Alien Enemies Act, declaring the husband and father part of an invasion that threatens U.S. national security – allegations that Abrego Garcia’s union president called nonsense.

“Kilmar, our Local 100 brother, is a resident of Maryland and a sheet metal apprentice who works full-time to support his wife and five-year-old son, who has autism and a hearing impairment,” SMART President Michael Coleman said. “He came to the United States as a teenager 15 years ago, and it is my understanding that he was legally authorized to live and work in this country and had fully complied with his responsibilities under the law.

“In his pursuit of the life promised by the American dream, Brother Kilmar was literally helping to build this great country. What did he get in return? Arrest and deportation to a nation whose prisons face outcry from human rights organizations. SMART condemns his treatment in the strongest possible terms, and we demand his rightful return.”

Speaking to his federation’s legislative conference earlier this month, Sean McGarvey, the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, also demanded Abrego Garcia’s return.

“We need to make our voices heard,” McGarvey said. “We’re not red, we’re not blue, we’re the building trades, the backbone of America…

“And yeah, that means all of us. All of us! Including our brother, SMART apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who we demand to be returned to us and his family now!” McGarvey said to a standing ovation from delegates. “Bring him home!”

In Minnesota, members of the graduate student workers’ union at the University of Minnesota rallied behind a student at the Carlson School of Management, Dogukan Dunaydin, detained by ICE March 28 outside her home.

GLU-UE Local 1105 President Abaki Beck called the arrest an attack on constitutional rights and community safety. The union staged rallies in support of Dunaydin on campus and, later, outside the federal immigration court where his case was being heard.

“An attack on one of us, is an attack on all of us,” Beck said. “As a union, we remain committed to protecting our international graduate workers.”

Carl Rosen, general president of the graduate workers’ union, noted that many graduate students were being targeted for protesting U.S. policy, particularly support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

“History has shown that a government that feels like it can get away with detaining or deporting our community members for political speech will also be willing to arrest or deport union leaders who speak out,” Rosen warned.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

For some local union members, Trump’s attacks hit close to home

October 30, 2020 by

David Hallas has worked at the Gerdau steel plant in St. Paul for 18 years.

David Hallas was watching TV on an early-September night when one of President Trump’s campaign ads caught his eye.

“It was popping on the screen every 5 minutes,” Hallas remembered. “All of a sudden I’m like, wait a minute!”

That was the moment Hallas glimpsed footage from Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to the Gerdau Ameristeel plant in St. Paul last year. Across the screen scrolled a big, bold tagline: “JOBS.”

Hallas, a member of United Steelworkers Local 7263, has put in 18 years at the Gerdau plant, and he was in the crowd for Pence’s event. But the company has since announced plans to shutter the St. Paul facility, making the tagline a gut punch to the 222 union members who lost their jobs June 30.

“It just shows that they’re so disconnected from working people,” said Hallas, one of 40 people still working at the plant through March. “They have no idea what’s going on, and they’re willing to use workers as props.”

For Hallas, voting Trump out of office this year is an opportunity to hold the president accountable for his failed promises. He’s one of many local union members who have seen firsthand the failures of Trump’s reckless, divisive and often-inept approach to the highest office in the land.

For many union members, this election feels personal.

Students living in fear

Since Trump took office in January 2017, Camila Carroll has seen an increase in anxiety and trauma among her students at Highland Park Middle School. A member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, Carroll teaches English language learners. Many of her students come from immigrant and refugee communities.

“They don’t know if there’s a day when mom or dad or another family member will be taken away,” Carroll said. “I know because they tell me how scared they are.”

At his campaign rallies Trump regularly degrades refugees and their impact on local communities, drawing wild cheers from his supporters. The hateful rhetoric creates “hard conversations” with emotionally vulnerable students, Carroll said. “No one should have to go through that,” she added.

Some of her students’ family members have been swept up in the administration’s immigration raids. “More of our students have had family members separated” since Trump took office, Carroll said.

“I listen to the stories of when they watched their dad get deported,” she said. “And we don’t have the resources we need as a school to give them the mental-health supports they need to deal with such a traumatic event.

“It’s happening right here in our own backyard.”

Workers at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis, members of AFGE Local 1969, rally for a fair contract. AFGE has been in talks with the Trump administration for two years, with no agreement.

Veterans deserve better

Tom Edwards served in the U.S. Navy for 15 years before taking a job at the post office and joining the American Postal Workers Union. Now retired and living in West St. Paul, Edwards relies on the VA for his health care, which he described as “second to none.”

When local members of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1969 who work at the VA began sounding the alarm about efforts to undermine the VA, including understaffing and attacks on workers’ rights, Edwards took notice.

To the former postal worker, the story sounded all too familiar.

“The VA is just like the post office to them,” Edwards said. “The money that goes into the VA, the private sector wants it. They want all those billions of dollars that could be made with privatization of both of those facilities.”

Connie Beissel feels the same way. She retired in March after a long career as a member of Branch 9 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, and was so upset with the administration’s attacks on the post office that she committed to volunteering at Labor 2020 phone banks twice a week.

“This election became personal to me when the current administration said that he didn’t trust the Postal Service and Letter Carriers in particular,” Beissel said. “Although I am now retired, I still consider myself a Letter Carrier, and I still have a loyalty to ensure that the U.S. Postal Service survives for another 250 years.”

Failure by any measure

By any policy measure, Trump’s first term in office has been a disaster for working people. But it has been a windfall for corporations and the richest 1% of Americans.

The $2 trillion tax cut passed in 2017 slashed corporate tax rates, prompted a surge of stock buybacks and delivered huge benefits to offshore investors and CEOs. But there’s no evidence to support the president’s claim those corporate profits would trickle down into workers’ paychecks.

The Trump administration renegotiated NAFTA, and has claimed the era of corporations “offshoring” U.S. manufacturing jobs was “over.” In fact, the opposite is true. A report issued in August by the Economic Policy Institute found nearly 1,800 factories shuttered between 2016 and 2018. And St. Paul’s Gerdau facility will soon be added to the list.

And then there’s Trump’s failure to lead a competent, nationwide response to the pandemic. Enhanced unemployment benefits for millions of Americans have run out, while America’s essential workers have been left to fend for their own health and safety by Trump’s Department of Labor. All the while, U.S. billionaires have watched their wealth grow by $845 billion, and Wall Street has hardly missed a beat.

There are plenty of reasons to vote Trump out of office, but for union members like Edwards and Carroll, it’s just as important to see Trump – and all that he stands for – defeated.

“Many of the students I’ve had, who I’ve connected with around these issues, they’re going to use their voice and they’re going to go vote,” Carroll said. “It gives me hope they are seeing the difference they can make in the world.”

Edwards recalled Trump’s quip at a campaign rally here in Minnesota that if he loses the state, he’s never coming back. “When I heard that,” Edwards said, “I decided I’ll be darned if I’m not doing everything in my power to make it happen.”

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

St. Paul teachers answer Trump’s divisive rhetoric with wall of support for immigrant students

January 20, 2017 by
Leah Adair, a teacher at Crossroads Montessori in St. Paul, holds a sign reading "You are welcome here and safe here" in Karen.

Leah Adair (L), a teacher at Crossroads Montessori in St. Paul, holds a sign reading “You are welcome here and safe here” in Karen.

 

Teachers, parents and community members lined the walkway outside LEAP High School in St. Paul yesterday, forming a protective wall around students at the school for new immigrants as they walked to their buses after dismissal.

Organized by the St. Paul Federation of Teachers on the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the public action was a pointed rejection of the new president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric – and a call for district leaders to make school the one place students don’t have to worry about their skin color or immigration status.

“We want to unite against the threat of deportation, we want to unite against racism, sexism, all the ‘isms’ that are going to be coming out of DC for the next four years,” SPFT President Denise Rodriguez said. “And we want billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes so we can fully fund our schools.”

 

St. Paul school board members will vote Tuesday night on a “sanctuary school” resolution. Supporters want the district to protect students from deportation raids at school and adopt a policy against sharing student information with immigration agents.

All children deserve a chance to succeed at school, but middle-school English teacher Leah VanDassor worries that fear and uncertainty will create barriers to success for her undocumented and immigrant students.

Leah VanDassor

Leah VanDassor rallied in support of her undocumented students.

“I want to let them know that they’re safe with us, they’re safe in school and they’re supported,” VanDassor said. “These opportunities at our public schools are here for everybody.”

Since his election, Trump has vowed to deport 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants. That pledge, along with his baseless claim that immigrants crossing the border with Mexico tend to be violent criminals, has trickled down into St. Paul classrooms, students and teachers said.

Amy Hewett-Olatunde, an English teacher at LEAP and winner of the state’s Teacher of the Year award, called the day after Trump’s election “the worst day of my teaching career.”

“We answered questions that we’ve never had to answer,” she explained. “Our students had a really difficult day, and they’ve had more difficult days since then.”

“Some of my students are feeling like their family might be deported, or someone in their family might be deported,” VanDassor said. “That puts them under a lot of stress, and it makes it hard for them to learn.”

LEAP student Nathanael Valera, whose family relocated from Mexico to St. Paul, said he knows classmates and relatives worried about “being chased by the authorities.” So it warmed Valera’s heart to see the security blanket of support outside his school yesterday.

“I have seen the worry in my classmates and relatives, but we can do something about it,” Valera said. “We can stand together as a community, raise our voices and protect and defend the rights of those who cannot protect themselves.”

The rally was one of several teacher-led events at St. Paul schools – and schools across the country – on Jan. 19, part of educators’ nationwide “#ReclaimOurSchools” campaign. Former SPFT President Mary Cathryn Ricker, currently serving as a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, said it’s more vital than ever that teachers, parents and students continue working together to support public education.

“Let’s make sure that the energy of this rally is carried forward every day, so that every day students feel welcome … and every day students feel the power of the partnerships we as adults are creating to meet their needs,” Ricker said. “Let’s do this together. Let’s reclaim our schools.”

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Unions backed comprehensive immigration reform bill 10 years ago … and still do

May 1, 2014 by
The Union Advocate ran this cartoon in May 1964, celebrating an agreement brokered by President Lyndon Johnson to end a four-and-a-half-year dispute between railroad companies and their unions. In an address to the nation, Johnson praised both sides, and called the agreement a victory for collective bargaining. “I tell you quite frankly there are few events that give me more faith in my country and more pride in the free, collective bargaining process,” he said.

The Union Advocate ran this cartoon in May 1964, celebrating an agreement brokered by President Lyndon Johnson to end a four-and-a-half-year dispute between railroad companies and their unions. In an address to the nation, Johnson praised both sides, and called the agreement a victory for collective bargaining. “I tell you quite frankly there are few events that give me more faith in my country and more pride in the free, collective bargaining process,” he said.

Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to provide a pathway to “legal residency” for an estimated 9 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. a decade ago. The measure drew support from unions, religious groups and immigrant organizations.

Ten years later, of course, the fight for immigration reform continues.

Unions 10 years ago made up a key part of the Alliance for Fair Federal Immigration Reform of Minnesota, and they announced their support for the “Safe, Orderly Legal Visas and Enforcement Act,” or SOLVE Act, which “focused on family reunification, earned legalization and reducing visa backlogs,” The Advocate reported.

[The Union Advocate’s “This Month in the Archives” feature offers a look back at what the newspaper was reporting from 5 to 100 years ago. Our digital archives are online, searchable and free to anyone. Click here for access.]

100 Years Ago: Call for public market in St. Paul

Farmers and consumers would benefit greatly from the establishment of a municipal marketplace in St. Paul – that was the conclusion reached in a report printed on Page 1 of The Advocate on May 29, 1914.

“Investigations in various places have shown that the cost of distributing food after it reaches the city is excessive and bears very heavily upon the consumer.”

Transportation costs – rail and shipping – were not to blame for high costs, the report determined. Rather, “the real problem is distributing the products after they reach the city. There are too many middlemen, and there is too much speculation and altogether too much waste.”

“Every large city should have a market municipally owned and operated, capable of handling train loads and equipped with adequate machinery for handling and cold storage facilities ample to care for any surplus of perishable goods. From this market produce could be sent directly to the retail stores or sold in retail market stalls directly to the consumer.

The report noted such markets were rare in the U.S., but pointed to successfully operated markets in European cities like Budapest, Brussels and London.

“We see the farmers everywhere organizing to get higher prices for their crops… The farmers are determined to take for themselves the profits that now go to the middlemen… If consumers would get their food for less cost they must organize for that purpose. Great terminal wholesale markets may furnish the machinery for serving the consumer, provided the consumer owns and operates those markets either by cooperation or municipal enterprise.”

75 Years Ago: Veterans sue governor over firings

Fifteen members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees who were war veterans sued the State of Minnesota after being discharged from state jobs without cause shortly after Gov. Harold Stassen’s inauguration in January 1939.

The union, according to a report in the May 11 edition of The Union Advocate, accused Stassen and members of his administration of “officially and personally maliciously” conspiring to remove the veterans from their positions with the Disabled War Veterans’ Relief Agency.

“On January 31, 1939, during office hours and without previous notice, moving men from the State Relief Agency came to the office where these men were employed and moved the desks, equipment, and records from under them,” The Advocate reported. “A number of the veterans, whose duties were outside of the office, came to work the next morning and found their desks, records and equipment were gone as well as their jobs.”

Other state employees were growing “panicky,” according to The Advocate, that their jobs might be lost to political patronage.

25 Years Ago: Union gives Brown & Bigelow a lift

A year after fighting off demands for major concessions, unions representing workers at Brown & Bigelow, the St. Paul printing company, announced they had helped the company bring in new equipment to increase its productivity, efficiency and bottom line.

Officers of Local 1-M of the Graphic Communications International Union called it a remarkable turn of events, considering Brown & Bigelow President William Smith, after acquiring the company a year earlier, had immediately demanded a 10 percent wage cut and told workers to “take it or leave it.”

The company, which employed about 625 people at the time, installed $60,000 worth of plate processing equipment with assistance from the union. The equipment, provided on a loan basis, included a conversion unit for developing printing plates and an oven for baking and hardening them.

“The state-of-the-art units are faster, more efficient and safer than previous methods,” The Advocate reported.

Local 1-M officer Kevin O’Keefe struck an optimistic tone. “We are anxious to turn this thing around so we can bargain wage gains,” he told The Advocate.

Filed Under: From the Archives Tagged With: , , , ,
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