St. Louis Park, MN – Dozens of immigrant rights supporters gathered to protest on March 5 in the inner-ring suburb of Saint Louis Park outside Hardcoat Inc., an aluminum finishing business. Last week immigration officials swarmed the Hardcoat building at West Lake Street and Taft Avenue and detained seven immigrant workers.

The protest was called by the Immigrant Defense Network, a large network of organizations that was formed in Minnesota after the presidential election.

At the protest, a statement was read by a family member of one of the detained workers, and members of COPAL, MN8 and MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) spoke.

In the last two weeks there were also immigration raids at workplaces in Duluth and Rochester, Minnesota. Speakers at the protest emphasized that the ICE operation at Hardcoat and in other parts of Minnesota shows the reality of Trump's attacks on immigrants – they are going after workers, not criminals.

#StLouisParkMN #MN #ImmigrantRights #MIRAC #COPAL #MN8

St. Louis Park, MN – Amy Klobuchar supporters couldn’t fill the gymnasium, March 1, at Saint Louis Park High School, even with the help of some 250 protesters demanding freedom for Myon Burrell, an innocent Black teen she sent to prison for life when she was the county district attorney. Myon Burrell’s family, the Racial Justice Network, Minneapolis NAACP, Black Lives Matter Twin Cities, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar, Communities United Against Police Brutality, and Black Lives Matter Minnesota called for community members to mobilize to protest at the Klobuchar rally, two days before the primary vote. For more than a month, they’ve been calling on Klobuchar to drop out of the race. Hours after the protest, she announced she’s doing just that.

After rallying outside briefly, protesters marched into the campaign rally, easily overcoming the resistance of a few campaign staffers. The marched to the front of the space, and soon took over the stage and much of the area directly in front of the stage. Doors opened at 7 p.m., and protesters were running the program. The campaign turned up the rally music to full blast, including tracks by the Indigo Girls, Bob Dylan and, shamelessly, Prince. As the music got louder, so did protesters’ chants, “Free Myon!” “Black lives matter!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, Klobuchar has got to go.” As Klobuchar was supposed to take the stage at 8 p.m., the campaign scrambled, asking organizers to meet with Klobuchar off-stage, and to let her rally proceed.

The campaign has since spun that story, claiming that organizers refused to meet. In fact, it was Klobuchar who backed out when organizers said they would speak to her with Myon’s family, but Klobuchar refused. Protesters were going strong for more than an hour and a half, facing off with upset Klobuchar supporters, almost all white, including some large men who attempted to physically intimidate women and children. Nothing stopped the protesters, and Klobuchar was unwilling to answer for her role in Burrell’s unjust imprisonment in front of her own supporters. Shortly after that, at 8:43 p.m., a voice came booming over the loudspeaker, “We’re sorry to say that the night’s event has been canceled.”

Protesters cheered, and Klobuchar’s supporters fled, like their leader. The rally closed with a performance by the TKO Drumline and Knockout Danceteam.

Myon Burrell was just 16 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Amy Klobuchar’s office prosecuted Burrell on the basis of paid jailhouse informants, coerced eye witness testimony, questionable interrogation tactics, with no DNA, fingerprints, ballistics, or other tangible evidence linking him to the crime. Myon Burrell has spent nearly 18 years in prison and is now 33 years old. He has continued to maintain his innocence since day one.

Facing little support nationally, and losing support every day in her home state, the final nail in the coffin of Amy Klobuchar’s presidential bid was the fight to free Myon Burrell.

#StLouisParkMN #OppressedNationalities #US #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Antiracism #Elections #TwinCitiesCoalitionForJusticeForJamarTCC4J #AmyKlobuchar #MyonBurrell

Upon finding out that workers had decided to form a union, the boss immediately doubled up on managers walking the floors of the nursing home and they flew in ten professional union busters to stand in the halls and intimidate and threaten union supporters. They literally would run up and break up any two workers who started talking to each other anywhere on property. Workers on the ground said it felt like being in a prison, with managers and their hired muscle acting as the prison guards.

These union busters resorted to the lowest tactics in the book to try to stop the workers. One union buster even referred to a group of workers who were immigrants from Africa as “slaves.” They quickly fired one of the main supporters of the union in retaliation for her union support and activity. They then claimed she was not fired, that she was just “indefinitely suspended.” They lied to people about who was or was not eligible to vote in the election in an attempt to suppress votes for the union. They tore up union flyers and threw them at supporters, swore at them and called them all “idiots.” Essentially, they violated every legally protected right that these workers have. In one pathetic attempt to stop the workers, they even mandated people to take off their name tag lanyards that had union logos on them and mandated them to wear ones that said “Vote no.”

Management even committed voter fraud by trying to convince those who were not eligible for the vote to go vote anyway, to try to create confusion around the vote count and get the results thrown out or tied up in court for years to give them time to fire everyone before their union got recognized.

There were many complaints from residents that these hired union busters who management brought in were disrupting their lives and the care they needed. Some of those residents even put on union buttons to show their solidarity with the workers who were under these disgusting and illegal attacks.

In the end, Golden Living made it clear they would stop at nothing to keep these workers from having a voice. The good news is that the power of the workers doesn’t come from laws or from collaboration in a voting process. The power of the workers comes from the fact that they are the people who do the work. They knew this well and because of it they were not afraid. These brave workers stood up to the illegal attacks that they were forced to endure and they voted 88 to 19 to join SEIU Healthcare MN.

Now as they go forward this group is well prepared to stand strong bargaining their first union contract and put the boss in their place just like they did while organizing their union.

#StLouisParkMN #SEIU #PeoplesStruggles #unions #LaborMinnesota