Dave Zirin: The ‘megaphone of sports’ is more global, powerful than ever

January 31, 2018 by

As the NFL staged its Opening Night Party in St. Paul Monday, protesters shut down streets downtown, calling on Super Bowl sponsors to support local schools and racial equity.

Donald Trump has made politics part of nearly every reporter’s beat. The president’s policy proposals and inflammatory public comments spark reaction and resistance that spill beyond the Beltway, outside the traditional spaces reserved for political debate.

Nowhere, perhaps, has the spillover been more apparent – or uncomfortable – than in the world of sports.

When Colin Kaepernick chose not to stand during the national anthem at a preseason game in 2016, the “take a knee” movement against police brutality in communities of color caught fire. TV networks squirmed over the impact on their ratings, shock jocks lit up sports radio with hot takes, and sports reporters started asking questions that went beyond X’s and O’s.

Dave Zirin has been asking those questions for a long time. A former student at Macalester College, he is the author of “A People’s History of Sports” and other books on how sports and progressive movements intersect. Zirin is at work on a book with Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, and he writes and podcasts regularly at edgeofsports.com. He offered up his thoughts on what Minnesotans can expect during – and after – Super Bowl week in this interview, which has been edited (albeit lightly) for length (he had lots of good things to say).

UA: Teachers, low-wage workers and progressive groups here are using the Super Bowl spotlight to lift up their own campaigns, and some of their messages are obviously inspired by the way pro athletes have used their platform lately. This isn’t a new phenomenon in sports, but to what degree are we witnessing something historic?

Dave Zirin (photo credit: Jen Maler)

DZ: We’re certainly looking at a massive uptick in what is a historical continuum. Sports has always been this very powerful place. We’re taught that sports is this level playing field, this epitome of America, where anybody who’s good can make it. Yet the reality of sports is it’s a very unlevel playing field. It’s also one of the few places that if you come from a working-class or poor background, you have this immense cultural capital to tell your story – and to speak about what’s happening in the world.

I would argue that events like the Super Bowl become more and more these kind of global political events, almost like an economic Trojan horse in these communities. The spotlight is so bright. We’ve never been at a point where the megaphone of sports is more global and more powerful.

UA: What would you say to local activists looking to divert that spotlight into the streets?

DZ: I would say that they are doing the right kind of work. They are part of a tradition that’s really fired up recently in Olympic host cities, World Cup host countries and Super Bowl host cities, where people use the fact the world is watching this particular space to speak about everyday injustices in that space – and also how those injustices are aggravated by hosting these mega-events. People who are homeless find themselves under attack, sex workers find themselves under attack, union workers who might want to exercise their rights for the next week find themselves under attack. It’s not just about leveraging the spotlight, it’s about mounting a very real defense campaign against what these mega-events bring.

We’re talking about an increased police presence, the privatization of public space. We’re talking about the fact that the city is bending over backward to almost create a Potemkin village for the 1 percent that’s coming in. They seek to create this fake veneer of what the city actually is… And then as soon as those people leave and the media leaves, it all gets torn down. And when it all gets torn down, that’s also when it gets really dangerous for people because there’s this push to try to keep some of what’s been in there, whether you’re talking about stepped up police presence or closed-circuit TV cameras. I’ve been to so many Super Bowl host cities and Olympic or World Cup host cities, and that’s what they always say, that there becomes this mission creep…

UA: Twin Cities corporations spent $52 million to lure the Super Bowl to town, and the NFL won’t pay for much of anything this week as a result. What’s the local cost of this willingness to bend over backwards for the NFL and other pro sports leagues?

DZ: We have to suss through this. The actual cost, tragically, is not something that we’re going to be able to know until weeks, if not months, after the event itself. There should be an economic forensic exam, and the unions should take the lead on that. We can’t expect Democrats to do it for us… When they say they don’t have enough money for schools, for health care – this isn’t a question of having enough money, it’s about priorities.

UA: Are attitudes toward mega-events changing?

DZ: You are seeing changes. Cities are rejecting the Olympics, from Boston to Krakow. Cities have stood up to hosting these games because of the economic costs and political costs. Cities have started demanding concessions from the NFL and from local officials, like offsets so that every dollar that goes to the Super Bowl also goes to our schools, or goes to health care. Until that happens, we’re going to keep having this privatization of public wealth, which is really what the Super Bowl is once all the smoke and glitter clears.

UA: Going back to the player protests, how vital have players’ collective bargaining agreements been to this movement?

DZ: The collective bargaining agreement in the NFL has meant everything to these protests. While I would certainly argue that they have the First Amendment right to protest during the anthem, I really do think a lot of NFL players would have just been fired outright if it wasn’t for the fact that the CBA in the NFL has very specific language about whether players have to stand at attention. To compare and contrast, the NBA, which has much more political foment in it, has different language in their CBA that actually directs players to stand at attention. I think that’s one of the reasons you haven’t seen those kinds of protests in the National Basketball Association. They’re just not protected.

If the NFL had just started firing players left and right, they would have been at dire risk of invalidating the entire collective bargaining agreement. They would have given the union, which is already setting up in the next year for contract negotiations, an unfathomable amount of leverage …

As someone who’s interviewed a lot of these players, something that makes me really angry is that the players who are political also tend to be the players who are most community minded, bighearted and down to earth. There’s something so repellent to me that they’re the ones who are demonized by Trump and by certain members of the NFL ownership community. They’re the ones who really do represent the best – not just among NFL players, but among trade unionists in general.

UA: Trump’s use of the NFL – from tweeting about players who kneel to picking on the league at rallies – is remarkable. Why do you think it strikes such a chord with his supporters?

DZ: Like so much with Trump, while it strikes a chord with his base, it has not expanded his base. The polls I see show as many as three-fourths of people do not agree with how he has dealt with this issue. More people, after Trump got involved, were actually on the side of the players than before because he is so toxic.

But this is rank racism. There’s no other way to say it. These are players who are trying to start a conversation – not about the anthem or patriotism, but about racism and police violence. You think Donald Trump wants to have that conversation? Of course not. So he demonizes and attacks these players for being ‘ungrateful.’ One player said to me that ‘ungrateful’ is like Trump’s n-word, something he reserves for only black athletes. This is a very old script, and it resonates because you tap into envy. As if these ‘ungrateful’ athletes … haven’t worked their entire lives to make their way in the world.

UA: But you see backlash against this script?

DZ: Let’s talk about the No. 1 way we can tell that it didn’t work. When he called players SOB’s and used profanity before a rapturous crowd, where was he? He was in Huntsville, Alabama. What happened in Alabama? Somehow the Republicans lost a Senate race…

UA: Are you the guy no one wants to sit next to at the Super Bowl party?

DZ: No, people like sitting next to me. I always bring out the good food. I clean my house so I give people a nice place to sit. I usually spend the first 30 minutes of the Super Bowl in my own personal protest, live tweeting an episode of the “Facts of Life.” People on Twitter tend to go crazy. I lose a couple hundred followers, but I find it funny. I call it the Tootie Bowl.

UA: Who wins? Who are you rooting for?

DZ: I hate the New England Patriots because they always win and they’re arrogant and they’re obnoxious. But I’m sure you’ve heard people say that when the Patriots win it feels like Trump wins all over again. Slow your roll. They’re not Team Trump. Don’t take it that seriously please.

But I’m rooting for the Eagles, and I’ll pick the Eagles. I’ll never root for the Patriots. Ever.

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Teachers, allies keep heat on Ecolab, U.S. Bank as Super Bowl party ramps up

January 29, 2018 by

St. Paul teachers and supporters march through the streets of downtown St. Paul to the NFL’s “opening-night party” at Xcel Energy Center.

Hundreds of people whose work keeps the Twin Cities running shut down traffic outside a Super Bowl party in St. Paul tonight.

Teachers, low-wage workers and other activists called out the corporations funding the Super Bowl Host Committee – Ecolab and U.S. Bank, in particular – for prioritizing a high-profile game over local student outcomes and people’s lives.

“During this upcoming week, corporate elites will earn millions of dollars and use Minneapolis and St. Paul as their corporate playground, while we, the workers, continue to face wage theft, poverty wages and increased militarization in our communities,” Donia Caldwell, a member of CTUL’s fast-food worker organizing campaign, said during a post-march rally.

Activists marched through the streets, from Ecolab’s offices in Hamm Plaza to the Xcel Energy Center, site of the Super Bowl’s Opening Night party. As helicopters hovered overhead, marchers took over the busy intersection of Kellogg and West Seventh Street, backing up traffic in all directions.

Most people in the crowd carried signs supporting members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, who are scheduled to take a strike-authorization vote Wednesday. Members of the union’s negotiating team have said the two sides are making no progress on teachers’ top priorities, including smaller class sizes, pre-K programming and funding for nurses, librarians and language specialists.

But teachers aren’t just negotiating with the school district. SPFT is reaching out to corporations like Ecolab and U.S. Bank, the beneficiaries of local property-tax breaks, in an effort to recoup some of the funds diverted away from the district’s general fund.

So far the corporations haven’t been receptive to the idea, SPFT President Nick Faber said.

“Ecolab has said no even though they’ve got $2.1 billion of untaxed dollars in offshore accounts. They’ve said no even though they’re going to be gaining $96 million a year through the new GOP tax bill,” Faber said. “Same with U.S. Bank, and they’re going to be getting about $1.1 billion from the new tax plan.

“And what will our students get? They’re going to get a party for millionaires and a game in the town across the river.”

While teachers called for an investment in schools, low-wage workers like Caldwell called on U.S. Bank and Ecolab to “divest” from poverty wages by supporting a $15 minimum wage in St. Paul and funding for enforcement efforts targeting wage theft across the state.

Support for language programs is among SPFT’s core bargaining proposals.
As the NFL staged its Open Night Party in St. Paul Monday, protesters shut down several streets downtown, calling on Super Bowl sponsors to support local schools and racial equity.

Bakery workers organizing Saturday’s Taste of Justice joined the demonstration, too. They pledged to keep shining a light on working conditions and union-busting at Franklin Street Bakery, even as co-owner Wayne Kostroski basks in the glow of his star-studded gala in St. Paul this week.

Bruce Peglow, an officer of Bakery Workers Local 22, called Franklin Street Bakery unsafe – one reason workers are trying to organize a union.

“Several weeks ago there was carbon-monoxide poisoning in the bakery,” Peglow said. “Two of the workers went to Hennepin County Medical Center. One woman, if she’d have been there five more minutes, she would be dead.”

Inside the Xcel Energy Center, Black Lives Matter activists succeeded in dropping a banner supporting the demonstration’s theme: “Divest from violence. Invest in community. Imagine what’s possible.”

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Here’s how labor activists plan to celebrate Super Bowl week

January 26, 2018 by

Today marks the kickoff of Super Bowl events in the Twin Cities, and organizers plan a 10-day run of concerts, parties, conventions and other events leading up to the big game Feb. 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium.

What you won’t find listed on the Super Bowl Host Committee’s online calendar are several opportunities to support working people organizing for dignity, respect on the job and quality public services.

“Minnesota’s Super Bowl shouldn’t just be about entertaining the rich and the powerful,” said bakery worker Travis Reinhart, whose union-busting employer will host a star-studded celebrity fundraiser in St. Paul next Saturday.

Already, the St. Paul Federation of Teachers is promoting a social media campaign targeting two of the Super Bowl committee’s biggest corporate sponsors: Ecolab and U.S. Bank. Teachers are in a difficult round of contract negotiations with the St. Paul school district, which is facing a multi-million dollar budget shortfall.

“Money has been stolen from our schools over the last 20 years … and that money has been going into tax breaks for corporations,” SPFT President Nick Faber said.

Kirinda Anderson, a parent active in union-led efforts to address the district’s racial disparities, called on Ecolab and U.S. bank to “step up and be better partners with the schools and the students … and to support public education in the same way they’ve supported this game.”

Here’s a rundown of events you won’t find on the Super Bowl committee’s website:

• The Pre-Game: Our lives over their game. Monday, Jan. 29, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Hamm Plaza, St. Paul.

Unions and worker groups are teaming up with racial-justice, climate-defense and immigrant-rights organizations to plan a march and rally outside the NFL’s Super Bowl Opening Night party in St. Paul.

Activists like Antonia Sanchez, a member of the Twin Cities low-wage worker center CTUL, are calling on the corporations sponsoring Super Bowl week to do more in their community than hold a round-the-clock party for ultra-rich.

“The millionaires are just going to get richer, and we’re not going to get anything out of it,” Sanchez said at a press conference announcing the groups’ Super Bowl plans. “These corporations are grinding us all down.

“We want to demand that these corporations … support raising the minimum wage in St. Paul to $15 an hour. We want them to support ending wage theft in Minneapolis and St. Paul.”

• Super Bowl Protest: Tackle Corporate Greed! Friday, Feb. 2, 4:30 p.m. Home Depot, 1520 New Brighton Blvd, Minneapolis.

Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank owns the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, making Super Bowl week the perfect time for janitors who clean Home Depot stores in the Twin Cities to renew their demand that the retailer adopt a responsible contractor policy.

CTUL, which is organizing janitors who clean Home Depot, has negotiated policies with Best Buy, Target and other retailers, paving the way for 500 retail cleaning workers to form a union last year.

Most people working in retail cleaning are immigrants, and CTUL is teaming up with immigrant-rights group Navigate MN to demand Home Depot use its lobbying clout to support so-called Dreamers’ protected status, pass a clean immigration reform bill and end immigration raids dividing families across the country.

• Super Bowl Breakfast: Support $15 and Workers’ Rights! Saturday, Feb. 3, 7 a.m. Hilton Minneapolis, 1001 Marquette Ave.

As the Super Bowl Committee and its corporate sponsors hold a breakfast inside the hotel to honor the NFL’s “positive legacy” of community service, worker groups will gather outside for a “people’s breakfast to honor the worker leaders and community members in Minneapolis and St. Paul who fight for living wages rights on the job for themselves, their families and their communities.”

The event will call attention to the need to fund enforcement of Minneapolis’ new minimum-wage ordinance, and lift up the campaign for a $15 minimum wage – without a tip penalty – in St. Paul.

• A Taste of Justice. Saturday, Feb. 3, 5 p.m. St. Paul Labor Center, 353 W. 7th St.

Workers at Franklin Street Bakery have been trying to organize a union for over two years, looking to improve wages and working conditions in the Minneapolis facility. Their campaign has drawn a stifling – and sometimes illegal – response from management, which recently sent a labor lawyer to intimidate one worker in his own home, according to a report from Bakery Workers Local 22.

Bakery owner Wayne Kostroski holds a hunger-relief event – “Taste of the NFL” – with celebrity chefs, NFL players and wealthy executives each year during Super Bowl week. Last year, bakery workers countered with a fundraiser of their own, and this year they plan to do it again, only blocks away.

“While helping food shelves is a good thing, Wayne pays many workers as little as $11 an hour, forcing us to use food shelves,” Reinhart said. “I know I’ve been there. The Taste of the NFL’s slogan is ‘kick hunger.’ We have a simple answer for Wayne: Kicking hunger starts at home.”

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Union opposes U.S. Bank CEO’s campaign for Minneapolis Institute of Arts board

July 17, 2013 by

11287480Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union announced today it will protest outside the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ annual membership meeting tomorrow, urging members not to elect U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis to their Board of Trustees.

Davis is the immediate past chair of the Minnesota Orchestra’s board. The orchestra has been locking union musicians out of their jobs since Oct. 1, 2012, and the 2012-13 concert schedule was wiped out as a result.

SEIU Local 26 represents security officers who work for the MIA.

In a letter sent to MIA members today, Local 26 President Javier Morillo urged members to take a good look at Davis’ record before voting in the Board of Trustees election.

“Given Richard Davis’s track record at the Orchestra, we are very concerned about the negative influence he may exert on the MIA board,” Morillo’s letter says. “The Orchestra’s recent actions have shown a callous disregard for its employees, the community, and the quality of the institution itself.

“Richard Davis has inflicted catastrophic damage on the orchestra and left fans disheartened and demoralized. Don’t let this happen to the MIA.”

Morillo called on Davis to remove his name from consideration, as MIA members must vote for or against a slate of candidates, which includes Davis. Members cannot vote against individual nominees.

In a press release, Local 26 announced plans “to greet those attending Thursday evening’s MIA annual membership meeting,” and said their members will be joined by Minnesota Orchestra supporters.

The membership meeting will begin at 4:30 p.m. inside Pillsbury Auditorium on the MIA’s campus, 2400 Third Avenue South in Minneapolis.

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Minnesota Orchestra musicians, fans rally as lockout enters second month

November 1, 2012 by

Nils Halker, a longtime orchestra patron from St. Paul, joins the locked-out musicians’ rally in Peavey Plaza.

Musicians locked out of their jobs by the Minnesota Orchestra rallied with patrons, union leaders and other supporters in Peavey Plaza downtown Minneapolis today, as the lockout of 95 members of Twin Cities Musicians Union Local 30-73 entered its second month.

Although buoyed by strike benefits from their international union, the American Federation of Musicians, locked-out orchestra members have been without regular paychecks and health insurance for 31 days.

Many have accepted temporary, fill-in positions with orchestras around the country. Others are beginning to seek permanent work elsewhere, which is bad news for the orchestra’s fans and patrons, clarinetist Tim Zavadil said.

Attrition among orchestra members “is going to severely threaten the world-class status that the Minnesota Orchestra has been known for and what the state of Minnesota has supported for 110 years,” Zavadil said.

Orchestra ticketholders at the rally echoed those concerns. Nils Halker of St. Paul carried a homemade sign identifying himself as a “locked out patron” supporting the union musicians.

A longtime season ticket holder, Halker already has missed two concerts as a result of the lockout. He said he sides with the union in the dispute because he believes gutting musicians’ salaries would erode the artistic quality of a “cultural treasure.”

Bringing corporate tactics to Orchestra Hall?

The onus for preserving and protecting that treasure, Halker added, falls on the orchestra’s Board of Directors, which includes the powerful CEOs of corporations like U.S. Bank, Land o’ Lakes, Xcel Energy and others.

“They are not being good custodians,” Halker said of board members. “I believe it’s an irreplaceable treasure we are going to lose if this is not resolved in a good way.”

Some observers have questioned whether orchestra board members are bringing their corporate values – and hostilities toward unions – with them to Orchestra Hall. Halker pointed to the increased use of lockouts among employers – from the National Hockey League to American Crystal Sugar – looking to exact steep concessions from their workers.

“It seems to me to be a pattern,” he said. “The lockout has become a new management strategy, very widespread, because management feels they have a lot more leverage now than they have in the past.”

Holiday offerings in doubt

Orchestra management and its Board of Directors made the decision to lock out musicians Oct. 1 despite the union’s offer to continue negotiations while playing out the 2012-13 season – with a guarantee that musicians would not interrupt the concert schedule with a strike.

That offer was rejected, and concerts have been canceled through Nov. 25.

Management may decide next week to cancel more events, including popular holiday offerings.

That would deal a stinging blow to restaurants, parking ramps and other businesses around the Minneapolis Convention Center, which will house the orchestra during construction of a $52 million lobby at Orchestra Hall.

Tim Zavadil, a clarinetist and member of the union’s negotiating committee, talks to the media during the rally.

Zavadil called management’s decision to expand Orchestra Hall while demanding 30 to 50 percent pay cuts from musicians a “remarkable juxtaposition.”

Union members at the rally renewed their call for the orchestra to open its books to an “independent, third-party financial analysis” of whether the pay cuts are really necessary – a request the orchestra repeatedly has denied.

“We don’t know what they’re afraid of, why they won’t agree to this,” Zavadil said. Pointing out that the orchestra is demanding the average musician sacrifice $60,000 in concessions, Zavazil added: “I’ve never invested $60,000 anywhere before, but were I going to … I would need the most complete and verified financial information I could possibly find.”

If the orchestra moves forward with canceling holiday concerts, Zavadil said, the union has plans in the works to give concerts to fans and supporters at alternative venues, like musicians’ homes. Muusicians were encouraged by the turnout – more than 2,100 people – at a sold-out concert staged by the union Oct. 18.

Halker was in the second row for that show. It was his only opportunity to hear the orchestra since the last season ended and, he hopes, not his last.

“It was spectacular,” he said. “It was emotional, it was powerful, it was thrilling – and sad at the same time.”

Click here for more information on the Minnesota Orchestra lockout, and what supporters can do to help.

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Service Employees plan Friday march on Wells Fargo in Minneapolis

May 9, 2012 by

SEIU activists will keep the pressure on Wells Fargo with a rally Friday in Minneapolis.

The Service Employees International Union is urging people who bank with Wells Fargo to take their business elsewhere, citing the bank’s record of bankrolling anti-immigrant and anti-worker forces in Minnesota.

The union, led by SEIU Local 26, will stage a rally at the Wells Fargo Bank downtown Minneapolis (6th St. & Marquette Ave.) on Friday, beginning at 2:30 p.m. Union leaders and activists will urge customers to withdraw money from their Wells Fargo accounts and reinvest it elsewhere.

Gerardo Cajamarca, a member of Local 26, accused Wells Fargo of “hypocrisy” in its dealings with immigrant communities, particularly Latinos. The bank targets immigrant communities through its marketing efforts, the union said, but “is also helping bankroll a for-profit prison system that unfairly targets the same groups.”

The SEIU and its allies also will call out Wells Fargo on Friday for financially supporting politicians like Rep. Michele Bachmann, who co-sponsored a bill that would eliminate birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. The union says it will expose the bank’s record of foreclosing on homes owned by immigrants and targeting immigrant communities with offers of “reckless subprime mortgages.”

Friday’s rally outside Wells Fargo will serve as a follow-up to an action staged by the SEIU and its community organization, Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, on April 17. Activists used the deadline for filing income-tax returns to expose Wells Fargo’s record of avoiding taxes by exploiting loopholes in the tax code and parking profits in offshore tax havens.

“In an election year, when candidates will seek the Latino vote, the public should be made aware, again, of just who is bankrolling whom in ways that are harmful to Latinos and other minority and immigrant communities,” the union said.

The Wells Fargo protest will serve as the culmination of the “99 Percent Week of Action,” targeting major banks like Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank. Read more about the week of action on Workday Minnesota.

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