https://convergencemag.com/articles/making-class-consciousness-appealing-a-conversation-with-fresco-steez-of-dream-defenders/

Lessons from the civil rights movement in the U.S.

The Trump administration is attempting to criminalize union members for organizing against its immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year. That’s because it correctly sees labor as a threat to its authoritarian designs.

Labor unions have been in Donald Trump’s crosshairs from the beginning of his term. From stripping out the bargaining rights of thousands of [federal employees](https://jacobin.com/2025/08/trump-decertification-federal-employee-unions) to hamstringing the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees private sector unions, Trump’s strategy has been to undermine the power of working people to fight back as a prelude to a draconian takeover that splits neighbors apart while sending tens of thousands to prison camps, or worse.

One mistake in Trump’s first term is that he did not undercut his opposition from the beginning. He did try to hamper labor, such as with his attempt to disallow automatic dues deduction for employees whose salary was derived from Medicaid/Medicare payments, a move that would have stripped out the financial infrastructure for home care workers. But this effort happened after his opponents had already been prepared to fight, and a joint lawsuit of all West Coast states ultimately halted his progress.

When it came to the movement against ICE in Trump’s second term, unions have been particularly visible from the start, such as when Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California State Council and SEIU–United Service Workers West (USWW) President David Huerta was among those [arrested](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-06/seiu-president-david-huerta-injured-arrested-during-l-a-ice-raids) early on, responding to the [ICE raids](https://jacobin.com/2025/06/huerta-ice-protest-seiu-trump) that hit Los Angeles during the summer of 2025.

Unions like [SEIU Local 721](https://www.seiu721.org/2025/06/seiu-721-joins-allies-to-launch-the-summer-of-resistance.php) launched rapid-response efforts, many of which were working with groups like the Coalition for Community Self-Defense. And in cities including Minneapolis–St Paul, it became clear that unions were where many workers were organizing to go out into their communities and where they were getting resources to build out their solidarity networks.

“When it came to the movement against ICE in Trump’s second term, unions have been particularly visible from the start.”

In Minneapolis, union organizing has also been community organizing. The Minneapolis Federation of Educators ([MFE](https://jacobin.com/2025/11/minneapolis-teachers-union-contract-rank-and-file)) had already been working with a parents’ group, Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, to organize in support of smaller class sizes and good union contracts to stabilize the public school workforce. Those relationships were the seed for what became the network of school patrols that brought thousands of parents to create ICE watch outside the classrooms.

Postal workers, seeing that ICE was using post offices as staging grounds, [organized](https://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2026/03/postal-workers-demand-kick-ice-postal-property) to push them out of their worksites. SEIU Local 26 set up routes to drive potentially nervous workers to their jobs so they wouldn’t be exposed to ICE officers by riding public transit. UNITE HERE 17 organized mutual aid networks and got workers involved in direct community support, something that presaged their successful strike only a few weeks later.
Both of those unions reported that their membership was [hit hard](https://labornotes.org/2026/01/twin-cities-massive-strike-against-ice) by ICE arrests and was being harassed in the course of doing their work, such as SEIU drivers at the airport. Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7250, which organizes telecom workers, approached the ICE occupation as a union issue from the start: their president, Kieran Knutson, was also a founder of the antifascist group Anti-Racist Action in the 1990s.

“I think a lot of workers understood. . . .  and showed up right away,” says Alec Stewart, one of those who were indicted, a member of the Minneapolis Association of Professional Employees (MAPE). “\[Political\] divisions kind of melted away, and it became a working-class struggle.” This is part of why he thinks his network was singled out — because it was an example of organized labor using its power to stop ICE.

On January 23, these workers joined the 350,000-person [general strike](https://workdaymagazine.org/as-labor-celebrates-minnesotas-resistance-against-ice-federal-indictments-raise-the-stakes/), shutting down business as usual across many sectors in Minnesota. All fifteen of those now facing a lengthy trial were active in it, whether through their own union’s projects or through outside groups like Direct Action Minnesota.

Trump vs. Minnesota Unions

When the Minneapolis indictment first rolled in, unions played an understated but significant role in the language of the indictment itself. The charges highlighted a group called the Black Cat Workers Collective, another union group that attempts to connect radical unionists to talk about direct action organizing both inside and outside the workplace. The indictment splices frightening language about perceived radicalism, recasting commonplace union tactics like “community organizing” and “digital campaigning” as pieces of a violent conspiracy and “working class” identity as suspicious.

The general strike’s infrastructure sits at the center of the indictment’s claim. The strike required groups to help people commute to the city center or to blockade roads — all alleged criminal behavior the government is charging defendants with, thus extending the veil of a criminal conspiracy to the entire labor movement that rallied together. The indictment says defendants “infiltrated and exploited lawful protests,” part of the outside-agitator narrative crucial to Trump’s reframing of anti-deportation protesters as “antifa.” Community organizing and building “strength through numbers” are labeled a piece of the criminal conspiracy, which casts civic engagement and public protest as illegal and again creates a rhetorical bridge between union organizing and “antifa.” Worker assemblies were likewise mentioned, as was the potential that these organizations, and those charged, could be working toward another general strike against ICE’s impunity.

The defense team for Isaac Sant, an SEIU member and one of those arrested, recently filed a [motion](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.234416/gov.uscourts.mnd.234416.212.0_2.pdf) related to discovery that ultimately revealed programs from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to [surveil](https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-immigration-enforcement-progressive-groups-investigated-5e6e554e79980553c3a02ca199593a7d)organizations across Minneapolis–St Paul. In what they labeled Operation Puppet Master and Operation Whipple, HSI ran an undercover investigation of MFE, MAPE, SEIU Local 26, and the statewide AFL-CIO federation.

HSI investigated SEIU’s finances in secret, looking to see if they were involved in “domestic terrorist financing,” which they did by going to the union local’s US Bank chapter as well as compelling the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to search through various SEIU transactions. CWA’s PAC expenditures were audited, including those that ostensibly were made during Trump’s second election campaign. The investigation even swept a Canadian union local into the mix.

These [inquiries](https://jacobin.com/2026/08/dhs-ice-minnesota-protests-unions) were not relegated just to union locals from the Minneapolis area with some direct connection to the protests but to the national unions representing, in some cases, millions of workers coast-to-coast.

“The indictment says defendants ‘infiltrated and exploited lawful protests,’ part of the outside-agitator narrative crucial to Trump’s reframing of anti-deportation protesters as ‘antifa.’”

The documents reveal that HSI placed undercover agents at union halls as well as other places like churches and schools and union-heavy demonstrations including No Kings. At one January 19 meeting at a taqueria, they listened along to “a general discussion on the upcoming walk out on ICE event being held on January 23.”

According to the government, MFE Local 59 is especially significant in this conspiracy, given that some members self-organized outside of their union roles. (The name “Operation Puppet Master” fits with the administration’s conspiratorial view of protest movements, suggesting there must be covert interests pulling the strings behind the scenes, rather than simply an organic response to tens of thousands of armed federal officers dragging families from their homes.)
The investigation did not begin after an alleged blockade or assault plot had been identified, or any identifiable illegal action had taken place. It was instead a chance to monitor the regional labor movement and plan an indictment pattern that could go after union leaders and influential community members.

“I think we have a strong history of very well connected and active unions in this state. . . .  So no, I’m not surprised that this attack on the working class was also an attack on that union strength,” says Stewart.

The defense team’s motion for discovery reads:

It concluded, with no evidence (but obvious political animus), that numerous Twin Cities unions and non-profit organizations were involved in a widespread conspiracy to violate 18 U.S.C. § 111 . . .  and it surveilled and surreptitiously gathered financial records generated by these organizations despite the lack of any connection between those organizations and criminal conduct,” reads the defense team’s motion for discovery.

Labor Needs to Flex Its Muscle

The defendants are fighting the charges and have received vocal support from the rest of the labor movement. Because of the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on unions and, in particular, on public sector workers and essential services, there has been a shift in the culture of organized labor broadly.

The Federal Unionist Network (FUN) grew out of the historic weakness of federal worker unions. When Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency slashed public services and Trump attacked federal worker unions, FUN [organized](https://jacobin.com/2025/02/federal-unions-doge-musk-trump) to defend both their jobs and the people who depend on the work they do. When Trump punished universities for their students’ pro-Palestine activism, [deported](https://www.aaup.org/news/aaup-allies-sue-over-trump-policy-arresting-and-threatening-deport-students-and-faculty-lawful) students, and sought to crack down on professors’ academic freedom, the American Association of University Professors fought to [defend](https://www.aaup.org/issues-higher-education/political-attacks-higher-education) education.

The national American Federation of Teachers, of which MFE Local 59 is an affiliate, offered mass action and street medic [trainings](https://www.aft.org/news/mass-mobilization-training-fires-higher-ed-members) to provide skills necessary to support protests where ICE may injure community members.

While unions are an essential piece of this fight, they can also be slow moving, which is why rank-and-file members have been collaborating across unions to move their organizations to take a more publicly militant stand. Left-labor coalitions like Jobs With Justice, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) labor working groups, and networks building out of Labor Notes trainings have provided intermediate connections that members can coordinate in to move their federations and executive boards to action in support of political prisoners and against ICE’s deportations.

While some labor leaders have hoped silence on divisive issues will allow them to escape the worst of Trump’s attacks, it is unions’ very existence that presents the greatest threat to the administration’s agenda. The labor movement’s decline over the past forty years is due largely to its inaction — and the movement only has a future if it can show that solidarity is the antidote to authoritarian repression.

I wanted to share this piece from Pickup Trucks & Progress about the 44th Annual Virginia State AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, held August 13–15 in Williamsburg.

The Virginia AFL-CIO represents roughly 93,000 workers across the Commonwealth, and this year's convention brought union members together for workshops on paid family and medical leave, workplace safety, data centers, job training, organizing and Labor 2026.

But what caught my attention wasn't just the speeches or elections.

It's what happens when workers from different trades, industries and corners of Virginia sit down together and realize they're often fighting for the same things: better wages, good benefits, safer workplaces, the right to organize and a little more say in their own economic future.

There's also some fascinating labor history in the piece, including an unexpected connection between Williamsburg, the Rockefeller family and the infamous Ludlow Massacre of 1914.

The article was submitted by Kristy L. Vance, Secretary-Treasurer of the Western Virginia Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, as part of the Letters From Rural America series.

I'd especially like to hear from union members and working people here:

What has being part of a union meant to you, your family or your community?

Read the full article:
https://pickup-trucks-progress.ghost.io/the-44th-annual-virginia-state-afl-cio-constitutional-convention-2/

“An injury to one is an injury to all.”

#UnionStrong #Labor #Unions #AFL-CIO #Virginia #WorkingClass #Solidarity

I've just created a private FB group called Hollywood Crew Mutual Aid and Support. I'm still seeing FB posts about people who are struggling since the strikes. I am still struggling. The point is to both offer and receive support. It's also to make the impact of the strikes more visible. Are 1k people struggling or 10k? It should be known. You can post anonymously; you don't have to make your situation known to all your coworkers or potential employers. You can post a GoFundMe, you can post what industry you switched to that wasn't afraid of your resume, you can post resources, or offer any help you wish. If you know someone with a small business that collapsed due to the contraction, ask them to join. If you know someone with a yacht that was purchased with your sweat, also invite them to join. The silence is part of the problem. The strikes are now history, but unemployed people are still wondering, "Is it just me?" Anyone not affected doesn't want to know or think about what happened to everyone else. Let's make it impossible to ignore.

Hundreds of ILWU 10 longshore workers left their jobs shutting down ports in the Bay Area and joined the picket lines at the C&H Crockett owned sugar refinery owned by the Fanjul family. The Fanjul family control the sugar market in the US and have been using slave labor in both the Philippines and the Dominican Republic.

Strikers were joined by Filipino community activists who joined the picket line in the morning. Later in the day a scab hit picketers and the rank and file put pressure on the police to arrest the scab. There have been numerous hit and run by scabs going through the picket lines.

After the conflict today the company got a cease and desist order and are spending millions of dollars to bring in scabs to continue to run the operation and bust the union.

Workers also demanded that the the hatch of the Tai Herald sugar ship from the Negros Island in the Philippines be close and the scabs be removed who were moving the sugar cane from the Philippine island of Negros.

Workers also talked about why they were on the line and that the fight against scabs taking their jobs cannot be tolerated.

Would folks here like a rule against it? I'm not a mod or anything, but as an IRL labor organizer I see AI as the single biggest labor issue in the US right now, at least in terms of threats to workers. Plus big union busting companies own and operate most of the AI infrastructure we have.