“No Work. No Spending": Minnesota Workers Will Strike Tomorrow to Protest ICE

We don’t even have a Labor Party in this country, to say nothing of the sort of working class organization needed to pull off something like that. 

Well I guess I’m sort of like the Grinch, except I’m like a month late. 

My heart is growing three times because what I have seen here has been beyond inspiring. People are coming together. They are not only saying that this has to stop now. They’re not only saying this is a system that no longer works for us. But they’re doing more than talking. They’re acting. 

They’re in the streets. They are engaging in new forms of mutual aid that they might not have engaged in in the past. They’re engaged in high level organizing of their memberships, of their neighbors, of their friends, families, their communities. 

There’s something like 10,000 people in the city or more who have joined rapid response networks in their neighborhood to try and patrol dog ICE. It has had a good effect at stymieing ICE and making it difficult for them to continue their operations.

There’s something I don’t know if people heard, but there was like a moment of silence for Renee Good at the Timberwolves game and someone yelled out, ​“Fuck ICE,” and it just exploded. The whole stadium was just cheering. I’ve never heard of that kind of thing before — frankly, even during the Black Lives Matter movement. So it’s very interesting to me. 

Janette Corcelius: I feel so inspired and moved and, frankly, optimistic because of the labor movement and this opportunity to fight and to lead for Minnesota, to lead in this moment. 

I’m getting people from around the country who want to replicate what we’re doing here where they are at, and that feels so good, especially in a time with so much despair. 

The labor movement has had a long history in the last 50 years of really not doing shit, especially labor leadership. But we’re seeing rank and file and leadership and even non-union people rise up in this moment – willing to take that day and not work, not shop, not go to school. 

I also want to connect that Palestine, and the organizing that labor unions have been doing the last few years around the issue of the genocide, has geared us up and propelled us to this moment and was honestly quite necessary. 

I think it’s clear that a vast majority of people in the Twin Cities are absolutely against this occupation. In my union, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, members have been actively trying to do something – pulling together networks of people in their buildings and around the city – in schools – to try and help immigrant students and families. Anticipating something like this happening, organizing began over a year ago and that network has been really important in helping schools respond quickly.

There’s a lot of participation now from many buildings. I don’t know the exact number, but I would imagine it’s somewhere near 90%. 

Most buildings have some sort of control system, including contacting families who are affected, enacting mutual aid – whether it’s getting people rides to work and back, or food, or things that they need to do that they just are too scared to leave their house to do. 

It’s uneven, as most things typically are in organizing. But it’s there, which is just a new thing for me and my experience of union organizing. I’ve been doing it for a long time.

This should come as no surprise to anyone sort of who’s been following the events in Minneapolis for the last 10 years. The George Floyd uprising literally instilled in people in this city a sense of a fight for racial justice, and I would argue, that was carried through in a number of different actions that various organizations have done since that time. 

Our own union went on strike in 2022 for the first time in something like 50 plus years. Centering the demands for our ESPs (support staff) was like a key demand of that strike that elevated it above everything else and made a lot of people see it as another piece in the fight for racial justice. 

So it’s not surprising to me that tens of thousands of people come out to protests. Some of our big days of protests are upwards of 30−40,000 people.

Douglas Williams: As I’ve been telling anyone who asked me in the Twin Cities right now, our response is as easy as 123. January, 23. ICE out of Minnesota: no work, no spending, we are going to show our working class power. 

Every Central Labor Council in this state has endorsed this day of no work. I fully agree with Dan that they are trying to see whether we will allow ourselves to be brutalized without a response, and we cannot allow the answer to that to be yes.

When I am teaching about organizing I always say that the first job of an organizer is to shut up and listen, but the second job of an organizer is to raise the expectations of workers and to broaden their horizons of what’s possible. 

Dan, Janette, and I have had so many conversations about a general strike. What they would tell you is that I am someone that is very skeptical of the idea that we could pull off a general strike anytime in this lifetime.

I’m not one for counting the chickens before they’ve hatched, but I think that January 23, this Friday, we are going to see something in this country that perhaps we haven’t seen since the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which is what you could call the closest thing to the last sort of major nationwide general strike that we’ve had in this country.

People understand and more are understanding every day, not only where we are in history, but also their place in where we are in history. They are choosing not to stay inside, not to stay silent, not just to say, ​“I approve of every strike except the current one,” or ​“I approve of every human rights movement besides the one that’s happening right now.” 

They are choosing to push forward in the hopes of crafting a better society. At the end of the day, that’s all the social movement is, man. That’s all our labor movement is. It is a collection of imperfect people working to create a more perfect world. And our creation of that world will make its debut, I believe, on January 23 and we have to do everything we can to make sure that it goes off as a success on that day, and that we keep the momentum going towards something better in the future.

Many of us knew that the Imperial boomerang was going to come back around on us. And I want to be quite frank: while things are very terrible right now, it’s nothing compared to what our government has done to Palestinians and to other countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Central and South America. Or what they’ve done in the past to Native American people and black Americans who are descendants of slavery. 

We know that this could get worse. So I’m hoping that this day will become either a week long or month long, statewide, regional, or nationwide general strike. 

I’m seeing it as a moment to get ready to flex our muscles that haven’t been flexed in a long time. There are unions that have never gone on strike before.

Less than 10% of American workers are in a union right now. I know that the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee and DSA and the organized labor movement is working to organize the unorganized and take advantage of this moment. 

I hope that every organizer and union member realizes that they have a duty to go around and organize regular people, like talking to people they don’t even know.

Canvas around your neighborhood to different businesses. Talk to the workers. There are union members whose unions didn’t officially sign on to this, but I went to their store and I said, ​“Hey, I wanted to know, are you all participating on January 23” and they’re like, ​“Oh yeah, we are, to the point that actually our owners are shutting things down because of it.”

That shows that militant shop floor organizing is essential. We can’t replace that. This is a bottom up movement. Yes, some nonprofits and NGOs did call for this day of action like Faith in Minnesota, ISAIAH, Unidos, and SEIU Local 26. 

But the bottom up element has been crucial to making this successful and impactful. I’ve been seeing a lot of small businesses who are taking major hits right now that have posted, ​“We’re closing on this day in solidarity.”

That’s been really inspiring. And I’m taking note of every single one of these businesses. Before the 23^rd and after the 23^rd I’m going to spend my money there.

Strikes, workshop stoppages and other workplace actions are most effective, in my opinion, alongside boycotts. There are people who are still shopping at Target, Amazon, Starbucks, and Caribou. 

These are some of the businesses that are supporting ice. Spotify is another. We need to stop feeding into this system. We’re doing that with mutual aid. 

I sure as hell want to see socialism in my lifetime. People say that’s pie in the sky ideal, but I’m feeling invigorated knowing that we might have a nationwide general strike in our lifetime, and it’s because of awesome people like you all on this call who have dedicated your life and will dedicate your entire life to this movement. We just need more people bought in on our project.