Saint Paul, MN – On August 14, members and supporters of the MN Free Palestine Coalition packed every available seat at the quarterly Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI) meeting to demand divestment of state-managed pension funds and other public monies from Israeli weapons manufacturers, banks and bonds, and other entities, complicit in Israel’s apartheid system that contribute to the genocide in Palestine.

The MN Anti-War Committee (AWC) has identified a total of nearly $4.3 billion in public Israeli entities and multinational corporations, some of which explicitly contribute to the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians, all of which profit from it, including Elbit Systems, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics.

The SBI meeting was chaired by State Auditor Julie Blaha because Governor Tim Walz, who usually chairs the meetings, was campaigning for the Harris/Walz Democratic presidential ticket.

The meeting had a significantly higher number of state patrol troopers than previous meetings and every attendee was given a purple ticket which informed them that disrupting the meeting would lead to gross misdemeanor charges. Multiple protesters were searched by cops and had their signs taken away. Despite these attempts to intimidate pro-Palestinian protesters, four banners and many pictures of murdered Palestinian children were snuck into the meeting and the protesters chanted loudly throughout the whole meeting.

16 union members and community activists testified at the SBI meeting asking for the state of Minnesota to divest from genocide. Stacey Gurian-Sherman, an anti-Zionist Jew and a former public employee who organizes with the Climate Justice Committee, was the first speaker. Her powerful speech kicked off the public comment section of the meeting, “This is painful to me because it is being perpetrated in my name as a Jew – and in violation of Geneva Convention protocols created as a direct result of Nazi atrocities during WWII that murdered 6 millionJews, and 5 million more Romanies, persons with disabilities and in the queer community. What Israel is today should be painful to all of us for being perpetrated in our names as Americans.”

Omari Hoover, a member of both the MN Anti-War Committee, the Free Palestine Coalition and executive board member of AFSCME Local 2822, gave the SBI the 3425 petition signatures the AWC collected this summer and their updated white paper on the board’s investments.

Hoover stated in his testimony, “Earlier this year, when the Palestinian death toll was just under 30,000, we passed a resolution for divestment in Israel. Since then, the death count has risen to almost 40,000 with an anticipated 186,000 for those unaccounted for. In April, I watched Governor Walz give an impassioned speech at the AFSCME Council 5 Day on the Hill about how he plans to stand in solidarity with laborers and would continue to put efforts into thriving unions. Since then, along with everyone on the Minnesota State Board of Investments, you have shown that the solidarity is only with organizations that build an economy in favor of infinite financial growth. You meet quarterly with no indication that there'll be any progress in Minnesota’s divestment of the ongoing atrocities that is the current genocide, happening daily in occupied Palestine, of which many labor organizations have put forth divestment and ceasefire resolutions for.”

Neil Radford, a member of MFT 52 and Minnesota Workers United, also has his pension invested by the SBI. He testified, “Divestment is not a request, it is a demand, and it does not stop with Palestinian liberation. The SBI needs to divest from Israeli apartheid and divert itself and this state from a future where increased militarism is our only answer.”

Michael Runyon, an organizer with Students For Palestine-Normandale and the MN Peace Action Coalition testified, “When you decide to invest in companies like General Dynamics you are choosing to fund the only company in the United States that produces that shell casings for the MK bomb series that was used by Israel to bomb a school in a so-called safe zone killing over 100 innocent men women and children who had gathered for morning prayer. You helped pay for the bombs that tore those people to shreds, so much so, that not one complete body could be recovered.” Runyon is also a part of organizing a protest on September 14 in Bloomington, Minnesota at General Dynamics.

Many protesters said goodbye to each other acknowledging that they will ride the Anti-War Committee’s buses to Chicago on Sunday to March on the DNC on August 19.

#SaintPaulMN #FreePalestine #Antiwarcommittee #Walz #MinnesotaWorkersUnited

Minneapolis, MN – At least 14 unions from Minnesota held a rally in support of the striking Minneapolis educators, March 20. The rally was organized by the Minnesota Workers United (MWU) Strike Support Committee, which is the sanctioned labor and community strike support committee of the Minneapolis educators’ strike.

12 unions or labor organizations were listed on the event as cohosts to the MWU event, which included MWU, AFSCME Locals 3800, 2822 and 3937, CWA Local 7250, the Minnesota Nurses Association, SEIU Healthcare MN, MN Bookstore Workers United, MACE, UFCW 1189, the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, and the MN AFL-CIO. More unions were reported to have endorsed the events along with the list of cohosts on the event.

Around 300 union members and elected leaders attended the rally which began in the parking lot of Shiloh Temple, across the street from the Davis Center where the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) office is located. The rally then marched, circling the two city blocks surrounding the Davis Center.

At the Davis Center the unions delivered a scroll of the educators' demands at the front door. Theatrics were significant as a union member dressed costume of a town crier read the demands from a large scroll and attempted to be let into the building before placing the scroll in the door handles of the building while the crowd watched and cheered.

Many unions and community members spoke in support of the educators’ demands and called on MPS to meet the educators’ demands for safe and stable schools.

Later, at 9 p.m. that night, the educators stated that they had received a fourth “last, best and final” offer from MPS in which MPS moved some on raises for education support professionals, but the union says that the movement did not meet the needs to consider settling the contract and that MPS will need to move further.

As of Monday, March 21, the strike has now entered its 14th day and workers remain solidly committed to winning the demands that meet the needs of their educators and students and that will allow for safe and stable schools. The educators are on strike for significant pay raises for education support professionals (ESPs) to have a living wage, for smaller class sizes, and mental health supports for students, among other demands. The ESPs are predominantly oppressed nationality low-wage workers. The union is demanding a living wage for the ESPs in which no ESP make less than $35,000 a year.

Picket lines resumed at 7:30 Monday morning at Minneapolis schools, which remain closed for the strike and according to MPS’s own data, 95% of the educators continue to honor the strike.

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #Strikes #TeachersUnions #MinnesotaWorkersUnited #MinneapolisFederationOfTeachers

Minneapolis, MN – On Saturday March 5 rank-and-file union members along with parents, teachers and students held a press conference in support of the teachers, education support professionals (ESPs) and education assistants who will begin a strike Tuesday in Minneapolis and Saint Paul public schools.

More than 93% of the Minneapolis educators voted to authorize the upcoming open-ended strike, along with a 78% strike vote from Saint Paul educators. In the week after the educators’ votes, food service workers in the Minneapolis school system also authorized a strike by a 98% vote. The food service workers’ strike is expected to start soon after the educators’ strike begins.

The press conference was organized by Minnesota Workers United (MWU) which is coordinating community and labor support for the strike on the Minneapolis side of the river, and also stands in support of the Saint Paul educators. Minnesota Workers United are rank-and-file union members who work to build a fighting labor movement through things like strike support, fundraising for strikes and organizing labor and community actions both in support of strikes as well as around broader community issues that affect the working class.

Some of MWU’s more notable previous actions have included things like a large rally downtown Minneapolis when the supreme court issued an anti-union ruling on the Janus versus AFSCME case which made public sector jobs effectively right to work, organizing a protest at Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freemans house in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd, a successful fundraiser and strike support event for the 2016 Minnesota nurses strike, as well as organizing strike support for the Saint Paul Federation of teachers when they nearly went on strike two contracts ago.

Along with MWU, the press conference featured participation by labor federations including the Minneapolis Regional labor Federation, the AFL-CIO, and Education Minnesota, AFSCME Locals 2822 and 3800, CWA Local 7250, SEIU Local 284, and more. Additionally, there were speakers from Twin Cities Coalition for Justice For Jamar, along with parents, students and community members.

At the press conference MWU released a sign-on letter in support of the Minneapolis teachers and ESP’s demands calling for a living wage for ESPs, improvements to attract and retain oppressed nationality educators, mental health supports for kids, smaller class sizes, and better compensation for educators. The sign on letter was signed by 47 organizations including the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation and the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

On Sunday March 6 at 5 p.m. MWU will be holding a rally at the Minneapolis Public Schools building in support of the educators.

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #Strikes #TeachersUnions #MinnesotaWorkersUnited #MinneapolisTeachersFederationMFT

St. Paul Park, MN – On February 4, with wind chill readings below zero, members of a wide collection of unions gathered for an evening rally at the Marathon Refinery picket line, where Teamsters who work at the refinery have been locked out for two weeks after a 24-hour strike.

Union leaders took to the stage and spoke in solidarity with the locked out workers, including several leaders from Teamsters 120, which represents the refinery workers, along with speakers from the Minnesota Nurses Association, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, Laborers Local 563, The Awood Center, AFSCME Local 3800, UFCW 1189 and others. Members of Minnesota Workers United were among the rally participants.

Cherrene Horazuk, president of AFSCME 3800, which represents clerical workers at the University of Minnesota, said, “The pandemic has laid bare the corporate greed for all to see. Workers are risking their lives while the big companies are raking in profits, showing no concern for worker safety, especially if they can turn a faster buck. But when workers stand together, they have power to turn things around. We’ve seen that with healthcare and education workers especially demanding safe workplaces. And Teamsters 120 members are setting an example for the labor movement as a whole that, when we stand together and fight back, we will win and we will make sure workers are safe on the job.”

The cold temperatures and blustery winds did not stop hundreds of union members and supporters from showing up to the rally and has not stopped the Teamsters 120 members from keeping their picket lines strong. The Teamsters 120 members say they are fighting to keep the community safe and avoid accidents like the explosion at the Husky Refinery in 2018 that caused an evacuation in the city of Superior, Wisconsin.

#StPaulParkMN #PeoplesStruggles #Teamsters #MinnesotaWorkersUnited #TeamstersLocal120 #MarathonRefineryPark

Minneapolis, MN – On Thursday, June 11, 3200 protesters gathered at the Hennepin County Government Center demanding justice for George Floyd and real change. Protests had been going on daily, sometimes several per day, for 18 days since the police murder of George Floyd.

While a battle rages over the role of police ‘unions,’ members of at least seven unions organized and turned out to the protest as part of a labor contingent organized by Minnesota Workers United. The labor contingent also sent several speakers up to the stage to speak and demand justice for George Floyd and to make it clear that police have no place in the labor movement.

David Gilbert Pederson from Minnesota Workers United addressed the crowd in a lively speech saying, “The police have no place in our movement. The national AFL-CIO must immediately expel the International Union of Police Organizations. These killer cops are not our union siblings. They are scabs, they are strike breakers, they are class collaborators, and they have kept us under subjugation for decades.”

AFSCME Local 3800 executive board member and clerical worker at the University of Minnesota Chandra Killebrew said, “I was born and raised on the Northside and Southside of Minneapolis. To give people an idea of how long this has been going on, I can remember the name of a young boy who was taken from us by police too soon. Tycel Nelson. That was back in the 90s. This is a marathon y’all and we have to keep on running.” She went on to say “I am a mother, I am a sister, I am a cousin, and an auntie. I am a grandmother to a Black man, Power to all people!”

Groups of members were seen joining the labor contingent from AFSCME Local 3800, AFSCME Local 2822, AFSCME Local 34, AFSCME Local 1842, Minnesota State College Faculty Association, Fridley Association of Educators, Bloomington Association of Teachers and more.

In addition to labor contingent members, there were dozens of other speakers there to get their voice heard and demand justice.

Among them was Sumaya Aden, the sister of Isak Aden who was murdered by police in Eagan. She stated, “People like to talk about the racist South. But we are living in the Jim Crow North!”

After a series of speeches at the Government Center the protest gave way to a large march which took over 5th Street and marched over to a nearby police station where they rallied before marching back to the Government Center.

All of this took place the day before another major protest is planned for Friday at the Police Officers Federation at 1811 University Avenue NE in Minneapolis. Many of the labor contingent members said they would also be attending the protest there to show that police are not part of the labor movement.

#MinneapolisMN #Labor #PeoplesStruggles #AFLCIO #PoliceBrutality #AFSCME #MinnesotaWorkersUnited #GeorgeFloyd

Minneapolis, MN – Around 500 rank-and-file union members and officials from dozens of unions came together at Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman’s house in Southwest Minneapolis, May 31, to demand justice for George Floyd and an end to racist policing. The protesters were resolved not to let racist tropes about outside agitators stop them from doing what is right.

The crowd was fiery and boisterous as 13 speakers gave moving testimony and calls to action to stand up for justice and stand up for George Floyd. Many speakers remarked on their experiences as Black people in America and what it is like to be routinely harassed and threatened by racist policing. Several mentioned that they are not outside agitators but instead are from the community where these events have occurred and have seen community members come out in huge numbers to fight for justice. Many calls were made for everyone there to stay out in the streets and do what it takes until justice is served. Demands were made to arrest all four cops who were part of murdering George Floyd.

Mahva Jones is an executive board member with AFSCME Local 3800, which represents clerical workers at the University of Minnesota, and she had this to say, “The system is not broken, it is working as designed. At no point in this country's origin were Black people meant to be anything other than slaves or dead.”

Hennepin County Attorney Mike freeman waited four days to file any charges against any of the officers who participated in the murder of George Floyd. When he did he only charged police officer Derek Chauvin, and only with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, despite his kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for eight and a half minutes as he begged for his life and slowly slipped into unconsciousness with a crowd surrounding him shouting that Chauvin was killing the man. Three other officers participated both directly and by standing watch and keeping people back so they could not help stop officer Chauvin and save Floyd’s life.

Harrison Bullard, executive board member with SEIU Local 26, said, “When Jamar Clark met with his unfortunate end, I said this on the steps of the government center, and I'll say it here today: When someone who is elected by you refuses to do the job they are there to do, so do what they do to you. Fire them.” He went on to talk about the need for the intense actions and protests that have occurred by members of the community over the last five days. He said, “You got to put fear in the police's hearts just like they put fear in the hearts of the Black people in our city. We got to live standing on our feet, not on our knees.”

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota executive board member Deb Howze said, “You want to talk about police brutality? It’s been going on since the beginning of time. It ain’t nothing new. But now we got a generation that’s standing up, speaking out, fighting back and saying hell no! We talk about boots on the ground? You’re damn right we got boots on the ground! We're going to turn this around. One is incarcerated. We don’t want no one. We want one, two, three, four incarcerated and all the rest of them that did wrong around here. We gotta stand up and keep fighting back.”

The protest was organized by Minnesota Workers United, which is rank-and-file union members united for solidarity, struggle and workers’ rights. One of the emcees at the event was AFSCME 3800 President Cherrene Horazuk who read a powerful quote from Dr Martin Luther King Jr reminding us of his calls to fight.

Here is the MLK quote that President Horazuk read: “We’re tired. We are tired of being at the bottom. We are tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. We are tired of our children having to attend overcrowded, inferior, quality less schools. We are tired of having to live in dilapidated substandard housing conditions where we don’t have wall to wall carpet, but so often end up with wall to wall rats and roaches. We are tired. Smothering in an airtight cage in the midst of an affluent society. We are tired of walking the streets in search of jobs that do not exist. We are tired of working our hands off every day and not even making a wage that is adequate for the basic necessities of life. We are tired.”

President Horazuk went on to further quote Dr King saying, “Now the other thing is that nothing is gained without pressure. Never forget that freedom is not something that is ever voluntarily given by the oppressor. It is something that must be demanded by the oppressed.” She went on to remind us that Dr. King said that “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

Minnesota Workers United will continue to stand together in the streets and in their unions to fight for justice until police are no longer able to kill Black and brown people in the streets.

#MinneapolisMN #Labor #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #Teamsters #AFLCIO #SEIU #PoliceBrutality #PublicSectorUnions #Antiracism #AFSCME #TeachersUnions #MinnesotaWorkersUnited #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #MinneapolisUprising

Minnesota Workers United is currently asking Minnesotans to call Governor Walz and let him know that Minnesota cannot safely reopen until there is universal testing available, plans for any businesses to reopen are reported, vetted and approved by the Department of Labor and by any unions representing involved workers, and until unemployment is made available to any workers who refuse to go back to work until they deem it safe to do so. The phone number to call Governor Walz is 651-201-3400.

Up to now, numbers of COVID-19 cases in Minnesota have remained lower than in many other states largely because of social distancing and the closure of non-essential businesses. While this is better than higher numbers it is certainly not enough. Only 22% of workers were sent home even under the strictest times of the stay-at-home order. Even before that order expired another 100,000 workers were already ordered back to work, many of these workers work in completely non-essential workplaces like golf courses.

Minnesota is just beginning to hit its spike in COVID-19 cases, with the curve rising faster every day and no end in sight. Now is not the time to reopen any further services in Minnesota. Instead, resources must be spent putting the above-mentioned plans into place to make workplaces safe once things do reopen.

#MinneapolisMN #US #Healthcare #PeoplesStruggles #DonaldTrump #MinnesotaWorkersUnited #COVID19 #GovernorTimWalz

Minneapolis, MN – “Workers of the world, unite! Not ‘workers of America unite’ or ‘workers who look like us, pray like us or love like us unite.’ It’s all workers,” said union organizer David Gilbert-Pederson of Minnesota Workers United. “We have more in common with the tailor in Tehran than the bankers who crashed our economy. We have more in common with the bus driver in Caracas than the politicians locking kids in cages.”

Gilbert-Pederson spoke to a protest on Lake Street, July 13, of over 80 people gathered to oppose recent U.S. war threats against Iran and Venezuela. Organized by the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, the protest featured speakers from a variety of labor, international solidarity and anti-imperialist groups, and called attention to murderous new U.S. sanctions against Cuba as well as Iran and Venezuela.

In a speech, Mary Beaudoin of Women Against Military Madness said, “We are at war on Iran right now. The U.S. is engaged in a ‘hybrid war,’ meaning it’s waging a war with a variety of tactics. The U.S. is encouraging a terrorist group, the MEK, which wants regime change in Iran. And in January, the U.S. State Department was caught funding the Iran Disinformation Project, which has been promoting war in Iran to the media, and smearing Americans who expressed opposition to war in Iran.”

“But by far sanctions on Iran have done the most harm. Sanctions are an act of war,” she continued. “They have crippled Iran’s economy, and made it impossible to import items for agriculture, industry and health care, which are needed to keep its infrastructure functioning. Iran is under siege, and the dying has begun.”

Recent weeks saw rising tensions between Iran and U.S.-aligned forces in the Persian Gulf. An escalating back-and-forth of threats against oil shipments through the narrow Strait of Hormuz – just off Iran’s southern coast – has stemmed from the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal with Iran and the imposition of extreme sanctions. The crisis reached new levels last week with the seizure of an Iranian oil tanker by UK authorities as it passed by Gibraltar, allegedly at the behest of the Trump administration.

Despite the news cycle’s focus on war threats against Iran, the Minneapolis protesters were also keen to point out that similar acts of U.S. aggression continue against Latin American countries.

“The Center for Economic & Policy Research estimates that over 40,000 Venezuelans have died because of U.S. sanctions,” explained Tracy Molm of the Anti-War Committee, who in April traveled to Venezuela with a Freedom Road Socialist Organization delegation. “It’s important to note that sanctions overwhelmingly affect the most vulnerable in society, denying people desperately-needed medicines and supplies like cooking gas, making daily life very difficult in the countries targeted.”

“The latest round of sanctions on Venezuela are aimed at the CLAP, a government food distribution program. The CLAP program provides food to 6 million Venezuelans,” Molm continued. “If sanctions were the ‘humanitarian solution,’ why would the Trump government target food programs? That’s because sanctions aren’t humanitarian at all. They are a tool of warfare!”

Joe Callahan of the Minnesota Cuba Committee called out the Trump administration for re-imposing the U.S. blockade on Cuba, in part for the socialist country’s longstanding humanitarian missions in Venezuela and around the world. “Mike Pompeo and others have tried to blame Cuba for the failure of the coup attempts in Venezuela. To be sure, Cuba is closely allied with Venezuela. There are tens of thousands of Cuban doctors there, and the Cuban government has strongly denounced U.S. aggression against Venezuela. But of course the real reason for the failure of the coup attempts in Venezuela was the lack of support of the Venezuelan people and military,” he said.

Demonstrators chanted and held signs, got supportive honks from passing motorists, and a number of pedestrians joined in support.

#MinneapolisMN #International #AntiwarMovement #StudentMovement #Labor #OppressedNationalities #Venezuela #Iran #US #MiddleEast #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #sanctions #MinnesotaPeaceActionCoalitionMPAC #DonaldTrump #MinnesotaWorkersUnited

Minneapolis, MN – Minnesota Workers United organized an emergency response protest, June 27, when the U.S. Supreme Court announced their anti-union ruling in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31. It started with a rally at the Teamsters Trucker Strike Memorial and was followed by a march of hundreds of workers through downtown, ending at the U.S. Federal Courthouse.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments regarding Janus vs AFSCME Council 31 in February and announced their 5-4 decision to rule against public sector unions on the court’s last day of the session. The court overturned the precedent from 1977, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, and ruled that public employees cannot be required to pay a fee to cover the union’s costs to negotiate a contract.

Cherrene Horazuk, the president of AFSCME 3800, helped organize the protest and explained, “The Supreme Court endorsed an attack on the rights of unions and workers by corporate interests. This will negatively impact working people and massively expand wealth inequality in this country. This risks taking Minnesota workers’ rights back 80 years, to a time when unions were practically criminalized. We will not be silent if they attack our right to organize together. Like the striking Teamsters from 1934, militant class struggle is how we will resist that happening regardless of the Supreme Court decision.”

Shane Clune, chief steward of AFSCME 2822, spoke passionately to the crowd, “Brothers and sisters, we were here to mark the passing of an era. The era of business unionism is over. Labor peace is dead. Today is our first day in a new world, and we must choose what that world looks like. Our unions have become shadows of their former selves. Though they were necessary and indispensable, they were insufficient to the task of advancing the status and worklife of working people. This is because we got complacent. Fair share fees paid for big organizations with lots of overhead.”

Clune continued, “We fell from solidarity, retired from fighting, and became just another fee-for-service organization, another business that wants workers money and spends that money lobbying Congress. We stopped helping each other fight, and delegated the fighting to others. Too often we told our members not to fight, to take a bad deal because fighting meant taking a risk. That is called labor peace, and we drank its wine to quiet our fighting spirit. Janus is our hangover. We cannot go back to the way things were. Good riddance.

“Instead we must look to how our brothers and sisters, past and present, have taken up the fight. We must look to the Pullman Strike, to Blair Mountain, to the Teamsters Strike that took place on this sacred ground. We must look to the teachers’ strikes, in West Virginia and across the nation. We must look to all of these to see how we must fight and win when the law does not recognize our rights. And like those brave workers, we must be ready to do what needs to be done,” Clune added.

Members from dozens of public and private sector unions in the Twin Cities came together for the protest. Activists pledged to continue the fight against corporate and government union-busting efforts and to strengthen the solidarity among workers by supporting each other’s fights.

#MinneapolisMN #JanusVAFSCME #MinnesotaWorkersUnited