ICE’s barbaric invasion of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) has been met with a heroic response by ordinary working-class people: community members following ICE to alert neighbors and film arrests, parents keeping watch over school grounds, community groups organizing noise demonstrations at hotels where ICE is staying, and mutual aid to support immigrant workers who can’t risk showing up at their jobs. These are just some of the courageous acts of working-class solidarity being organized by thousands of Minnesotans, many of them risking their lives in the wake of Renee Good’s horrific murder to stand up to the unhinged, trigger-happy agents of Trump’s personal army.
These grassroots community organizing efforts have even been able to stop some ICE raids entirely, and can lay the basis for important ongoing organizing. At the same time, there are limits to what this kind of work on its own will be able to accomplish. The anti-ICE and anti-Trump movement nationally should set our sights high—we should demand ICE be pulled out of every city in the US and then completely abolished, with the $170 billion dollars of ICE funding instead put toward the things working people actually need, like public school funding, healthcare, and building high-quality, affordable public housing.
A poll taken after Good’s murder found that 42% of people support abolishing ICE and 58% of those under 30 support the demand. The overall support for dismantling ICE has risen significantly since the “Abolish ICE” protests in 2018, when only 29% of people supported abolishing the agency, which shows the potential for the widespread fightback that could be built. But opinion polls won’t bring down Trump, and every step forward in the fightback has caused him to double down even harder. He ultimately wants to deal a crippling blow to the struggle of workers and all oppressed people—he wants us to live in abject terror, to become obedient footsoldiers for his warmongering imperialist agenda.
Shutting down ICE for good will require a much bigger, more powerful fightback, including the use of the most powerful weapon we have as workers: mass strike action. Since the beginning of Trump’s term, Socialist Alternative has been pointing towards the need for the working class to play a more decisive role in the anti-Trump movement. Now, over 100 unions and community organizations have signed on to a call for a one-day work stoppage across Minnesota on January 23 to demand ICE out of the state immediately. This is exactly the kind of next step that’s needed to kick ICE out—we need to build for the biggest possible strike in Minnesota and spread it across the country.
But Why Strikes?
The $30 trillion US economy only runs because 164 million workers show up at their jobs every day. Jeff Bezos might think that he and his billionaire friends make the economy run, but they’re not down at their local Amazon fulfillment center loading packages onto delivery trucks, and they would be in a real bind if millions of workers across the country stopped doing the work they underpay us to do. The United Auto Workers’ six-week strike in 2023 against the “Big 3” automakers, for example, ultimately cost GM, Stellantis, and Ford a combined $3.6 billion, and forced them to agree to wage increases of over 40% for tens of thousands of autoworkers.
It may seem like Trump is too powerful to be stopped. But he cares about making money for himself and his fellow billionaires more than he cares about almost anything else, and because we make the economy run, we also have the power to shut it down. In Trump’s first term, the only thing that forced him to back down was strike action, often combined with mass protests. Trump’s “Muslim Ban” was significantly delayed and watered down after the taxi drivers’ union in New York City went on strike against it, refusing to transport passengers to and from JFK airport where a large-scale occupation was taking place. Thousands of Comcast workers also walked out in protest, and thousands of people attended mass rallies at airports across the country.
During Trump’s 2018-2019 government shutdown, 10% of TSA workers called out sick in spontaneous protest. Air traffic controllers followed shortly after, leading to a full shutdown of LaGuardia airport. The American Federation of Government Employees organized rallies at federal buildings across the country. Then Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, called on all flight attendants to occupy Congressional offices until the shutdown ended and invoked the threat of a “general strike.” Within hours, Trump proposed a bill to reopen the government.
Mass strikes throughout history and around the world have won victories against the right-wing on a national level, from the 2016 strike in Poland which blocked a proposed near-total abortion ban, to the 2021 strike in Colombia repeal which reversed a right-wing tax reform bill. One of the greatest general strikes in history took place in France in 1968 and resulted in significant reforms for workers, though it had far more revolutionary potential. And of course the “Day Without an Immigrant” in the US defeated the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner Bill in 2006.
Striking Today
It’s true that Trump in his first term and Trump today are very different—his much deeper authoritarian turn means that merely the threat of strike action likely won’t be enough to force him to back down. Winning our demands will require large-scale strike action with a broad level of organization, especially in the unions, but also outside the unions. Workers in this country have done that before and we can do it again.
Shutting down the Twin Cities for even one day would have a real impact on the flow of profits to the megacorporations that operate there, like Target, US Bank, and 3M. Even more importantly, one high-profile mass political strike can turn into a nationwide contagion, showing workers in other cities how to escalate the struggle against Trump and ICE and inspiring them to take up the tactic. Ultimately, big business and the billionaires can survive one day of striking, but this is just the first step, and it can give the movement the experience it needs to begin organizing the bigger and more sustained action necessary to push back ICE nationally, as well as Trump’s reactionary agenda as a whole. The whole country needs to follow the Minnesota labor movement’s lead.
To maximize the power of a mass strike, we need a bold lead from union leaders. Many will be gun-shy because “no-strike” clauses legally bar them from striking for their contract’s duration. But where union leaders won’t lead this kind of militant action, it will require mass rank-and-file pressure from below to force their hands. If that’s not enough, union members need to elect new union leaders who have more confidence in the power of the organized working class. Even workers who aren’t in unions can and should organize in their workplaces to take collective action during mass strikes like the one called in Minneapolis.
Ultimately, we also need a new working-class party in the US—one with a socialist program to take on the capitalist system that spawned Trump in the first place. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans actually represent us, and we need political leaders who aren’t afraid to mobilize millions into the streets to not just defend what little we already have, but go on the offensive to win things like free universal healthcare, a massive expansion of high-quality affordable public housing, and more. Under capitalism, the billionaires inevitably try to claw back whatever gains we win through strikes and other methods of struggle, so we need to fight for a new system—socialism.
How To Organize A Strike Or Sick-Out
A strike is the collective, organized action of a group of workers to withhold their labor from their employer for a particular demand. Labor law and union contracts often confine legally-sanctioned strike action to very specific circumstances. This can be a serious obstacle for workers wanting to deploy their most powerful tactic, the strike. It takes a group of workers who are confident, motivated, and fired up enough to break the law, and in unions, is greatly assisted by a fighting leadership willing to lead from the front and to have their members’ backs.
A sick-out is also a collective, organized action to not go to work, in the name of a particular demand, but workers use a sick day in order to evade retaliation or legal repercussions. This limits the number of days that the tactic can be used, but on a mass scale, it can deliver a similar economic effect to a strike, and therefore have a comparable political impact. It is a lower-stakes tactic than an outright strike. But most workers in the US do not have any experience with strikes, let alone political strikes, and mass participation in 1/23 as sick-outs would still be an important step forward for fightback, as well as for workers’ experience. For this reason, we support workers organizing sick-outs for 1/23, if it leads to wider participation, which we think it will.
Below is a basic step-by-step guide for organizing a sick-out or strike in your workplace, and though there’s much more that could be said, we hope this can be a place to start for workers looking to take action, whether you’re in a union or not!
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Build a Team
Identify a few coworkers who are angry about ICE’s occupation and might be ready to help organize a sick-out. Talk to them about collectively calling out sick on January 23, in line with the call from several unions and community organizations for strike action. Once you’ve found one or more coworkers who are excited about the idea, make a group chat and hold a meeting with them (outside of work) as soon as you can. To reach out to all your coworkers in a larger workplace, you may need to find co-workers who are willing to talk to workers in different departments, work sites, or who speak different languages and get them on board. Coordinate who is going to get the word out to which co-workers. Don’t use company resources like email or zoom accounts.
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Get the Word Out
Talk to your coworkers and explicitly ask them, “Will you join me in the citywide sick-out on 1/23 to fight back against the ICE invasion?” Some coworkers may be ready to call in sick on 1/23 as soon as they’re asked, while others might need motivation to be convinced. Many people have no personal experience with going on strike or sicking-out. Explain that thousands of our neighbors have courageously stood against ICE in the Twin Cities, and to escalate the fightback we need to shut the whole city down. We can achieve this if workers collectively refuse to work and shut off the flow of profits. Keep a tally of how many workers have agreed to call in sick on the 23rd: tell your more reluctant coworkers how big that number is to help convince them.
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Plan a Meeting
An in-person meeting can be helpful for coworkers to build trust in one another and brainstorm how to get more coworkers to join. This can be during lunch or right before or after work in a location that is easy to get to but where people can speak freely. One or two workers who are convinced of the need to sick-out should give a short introduction about why your workplace needs to be sicked-out to help shut down Minneapolis and fight back against ICE. Talk about the power of strike actions to affect political change. Then open up the meeting for questions and comments. One worker-organizer should be prepared to respond to questions and eventually wrap the meeting up by restating how important every worker’s role is in the Twin Cities right now. Distribute fliers that people can take to give to other workers.
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On the Day
Everyone who called in sick should meet outside your workplace before shifts begin with plenty of flyers for the sick-out. Cover as many entrances as you can and try to convince your coworkers then and there to call out sick to help kick out ICE and to join you in convincing others to do the same. Then, coordinate with your coworkers to meet together at the rally in downtown Minneapolis at 2pm!
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Avoiding Retaliation
As workers, our greatest strength lies in our numbers and our unity. The more people who strike or sick-out on 1/23, with a huge protest at 2pm, the safer we will all be from employer retaliation. If you think there’s any chance your boss won’t be supportive of the strike on 1/23, definitely be careful. Don’t use your company’s email or other communication platforms to talk about the sick-out. In-person conversations are the best way to convince people to join an important but bold and even scary action like this. On the 23rd, call in sick however you normally would at your workplace, in line with your workplace policies.
