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Workers

Workers

The U.S. Workers Who Went on Strike for Gaza

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. The most significant U.S. labor strike in the past two years in solidarity with Palestinians started with a simple premise. According to Nate Edenhofer, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, ​“Everybody has some sort of vision of how they think the society we live in should be — most of them don’t think of it as being a genocide.” Edenhofer was part of organizing that strike, the only major strike so far from U.S. labor to defend the Gaza protest encampments and oppose the mass killing of Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023. It included thousands of academic workers across the University of California system, echoing recent tactics of dockworkers — from Spain to Greece to France to Morocco—who have refused to handle military equipment and items they believe will be used against Palestinians. 

The strike rolled through one of the largest public university systems in the United States, with 19,780 workers voting to authorize the work action. The University of California campuses became sites of a pitched labor battle and a broader student struggle to stand with Palestinians. 

For nearly two years, Palestinian trade unionists have been urging workers — especially American workers, given the role of the United States in arming, funding and politically supporting Israel’s military actions — to take workplace action to stop the onslaught.

Immigration

Construction Workers Occupy Lobby of a Developer, Demand Action Against ICE Raids on Job Sites

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On January 21, construction workers and community allies sang, chanted, and marched into the offices of D.R. Horton, which organizers say is the largest developer of single family homes in the country. They aimed to deliver letters asking the company to protect workers against ICE raids. Within 15 minutes, at least seven Lakeville police arrived and ordered the crowd to leave the premises. Marchers left the stack of letters in the lobby and continued the rally outside. 

The action was organized by Centro de Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL), a worker center, and it was part of a nation-wide effort calling on D.R. Horton to take action after reports of ICE detaining construction workers on construction job sites. Similar actions were held across the country, including in Atlanta, Ga., Nashville and Knoxville, Tenn., and Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La. 

Workday Magazine spoke with Alexander, a construction worker who specializes in siding and is a member of CTUL.

Community

Minnesota Teachers and Grocery Workers: ICE Out of Our Workplaces

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Teachers, families, community groups, and grocery workers are calling for federal immigration authorities to stay out of their workplaces, and out of Minnesota, one day after an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident and mother Renee Good. 

“On the day of Good’s murder, federal agents deployed chemical irritants and abducted an educator overseeing safe dismissal from Roosevelt High School grounds (who has since been released),” reads a January 8 statement from Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, TakeAction Minnesota, Minneapolis Federation of Educators, and ISAIAH, a coalition of educator unions, workers, and community organizations. “ICE is putting our freedoms, our futures, and our lives at risk,” the statement continues. “Immigrant families, allied families, and educators are standing together to say ICE OUT now,” continues the statement, which announces a press conference the following morning. Laura Proescholdt, communications director for TakeAction Minnesota, emailed Workday Magazine a list of the coalition’s demands. They include, “ICE out of our schools, ICE out of Minnesota.

Workers

“There Is a War Against Us”: Worker Leader, Released from ICE Custody, Speaks Out

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Willian Giménez González is a day laborer in Chicago known for organizing for workers’ rights. He was part of a group that filed a federal lawsuit over the alleged beating and harassment of day laborers at a Home Depot. 

On September 12, federal agents detained him outside of his barbershop, beginning a 47-day ordeal in which he was held in the Broadview ICE detention center in Illinois and then moved to the North Lake detention center in Michigan. The abduction came in the early days of ​“Operation Midway Blitz” as the Trump administration dramatically ramped up the presence of heavily armed, masked federal agents throughout the Chicago area. Giménez González’s community responded with outrage and concern, rallying at the Broadview facility the day after he was detained.

Unions

Why 650 Minnesota Doctors May Go on Strike

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On November 5, 650 medical doctors, physicians assistants, and nurse practitioners with the Doctors Council-SEIU may go on a one-day Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike. The strike would impact over 60 Allina clinics across Minnesota. The workers are demanding safe staffing levels in order to retain healthcare providers and improve the quality of care for patients. If the workers do strike, the union believes it will mark the largest doctors’ strike in the private healthcare industry in the country. 

The workers formed the union in October 2023, making the unit the largest private-sector doctors’ union in the United States, according to a press release from SEIU. After nearly 20 months and over 50 bargaining sessions, the union states that Allina has not met them in good faith at the bargaining table.