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TEN NATIONAL UNIONS CALL FOR ANTI-TRUMP RESISTANCE  
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Natascha Elena Uhlmann
April 8, 2025
Labor Notes
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_ Ten national unions and dozens of locals representing more than 3
million members have issued a joint statement demanding the release of
immigrant workers recently snatched by Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. (You can add your name below) _

Members of various unions rallied in protest March 27 outside the
Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, where farmworker
organizer Lelo Juarez and SEIU member Lewelyn Davis are being held.,
Credit: The Stand // Labor Notes

 

The statement names farmworker union leader Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez,
who was picked up in what appears to be blatant retaliation
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his organizing; SEIU Local 925 member Lewelyn Dixon, a University of
Washington lab technician detained on her way home from visiting
family; SEIU Local 509 member Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student whose
detention by federal agents was captured in chilling footage
[[link removed]];
sheet metal worker Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a SMART Local 100
apprentice who was sent to El Salvador’s notorious prison complex;
[[link removed]] and
United Auto Workers Local 2710 member Mahmoud Khalil, abducted by
federal agents in front of his eight-months-pregnant wife.

The unions are also calling on employers, university administrators,
and local governments to refuse to cooperate—and demanding that
elected officials “find their spines.”
 

Trump is reprising tactics from other times in U.S. history when
“the government was actively suppressing protest and dissent,”
said Carl Rosen, president of the United Electrical Workers (UE).

In the Palmer Raids of 1919-1920, immigrant leftists and labor
agitators were arrested and deported, mainly to Italy and Eastern
Europe. In the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and ’50s, federal
workers, Hollywood workers, academics, and labor leaders alleged to be
communists were fired, blacklisted, hauled before Congress, and
sometimes jailed.

“When a segment of the population is first targeted, it’s not
going to stop there,” said Rosen. “Eventually it’s going to be
used against the labor movement and any Americans who want to stand up
for justice. So we were happy to join together with other unions in
saying, ‘We are going to resist this.’”

PRELUDE TO ACTION?

Faced with Trump’s dizzying array of assaults on labor, immigrant
workers, campus workers, and free speech, till now the organized
working class, representing 14 million union members, has largely
stayed quiet or focused on each union’s individual fights.

This joint declaration could be a prelude to more coordinated and
direct action to resist the attacks.

“Hopefully this is a sign of, maybe if there were past issues with
unions or organizations that maybe had differences, this could be the
thing that brings everybody together, uniting for one cause,” said
Edgar Franks, political director of independent farmworker union
Familias Unidas por la Justicia, where Lelo Juarez is a leader.
“Relationships will be established or amended, and from there we can
have a united, fighting labor front.”

“Right now, there are a lot of people doing a lot of good work to
try to organize,” said Faye Guenther, president of Food and
Commercial Workers Local 3000 in Washington, one of the initiators of
the joint letter. “I think that we will be better served if we can
set aside as many differences as we can and pull together in as broad
of a table as possible.”

FIND CORPORATE TARGETS

For labor to face down these attacks, our movements will need to be
prepared to disrupt business as usual. “Clearly, Tesla has struck a
nerve,” Rosen said, referring to regular protests at dealerships
around the country, which have helped send the company’s stock into
a tailspin; Tesla’s mega-billionaire CEO Elon Musk is spearheading
the attacks on federal workers.

“I think we need to be finding additional corporate targets,”
Rosen said. “There are a lot of big businesses who are profiting off
of their association with Donald Trump and their willingness to assist
him in carrying out his agenda.”

He harks back to the explosive public reaction in 2008 when UE Local
1110 members in Chicago took a brave step: they occupied their
factory. Republic Windows and Doors was shutting down, but on the last
day of shifts, workers refused to leave. They held a sitdown strike
until they reached a $1.75 million deal for severance and other
benefits owed, and eventually they reopened the factory as a
worker-run cooperative.

“It caught the attention of people across the country who were so
angry about the banks getting all of this money while workers were
getting laid off,” Rosen said. Supporters picketed Bank of America
locations and even committed civil disobedience by holding sit-ins
inside bank branches. “The amount of pressure that put on the bank
was definitely very important in helping make sure that the workers
won the settlement that they did.”

TALK IT UP

“The next step in this fightback requires us talking to our
co-workers and neighbors about how the employers and billionaires
benefit when workers are divided and afraid,” said Stephanie Luce,
labor studies and sociology professor at the City University of New
York and a member of the Teachers (AFT).

“We should look for spaces to have more conversations and get
workers ready to take bigger actions,” she said, “because the
attacks will keep coming.” She said unions are working together to
build large actions on May 1 (find information at maydaystrong.org
[[link removed]]) and also recommended Labor
Notes’ “Tactics to Build Power”
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Unless members get involved, a resolution is just a piece of paper.
“The petition is a tool that we need to use to unify people, but it
will do us no good if the only people that sign onto it are
organizations,” said Guenther. “Workers need to be in these deep
conversations about what kind of world they want to have and what kind
of country they want to live in.”

But Trump’s attacks have also made the case on the public stage for
why workers need an institution that defends their rights: “A lot of
people, not even just in the farmworker sector, have been reaching out
to us about how to unionize,” said Franks. So have federal workers:
AFGE reports record numbers joining.

“Strongmen and dictators feed on peoples’ fear and chaos,”
Guenther said. “We have to take actions where we can show that we
can win and that help overcome people’s fear.”

UNIONS CAN SIGN ON TO THE PETITION HERE 
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_[NATASCHA ELENA UHLMANN
[[link removed]] is a staff writer at
Labor [email protected] ]_

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LABOR DEMANDS AN END TO THE ASSAULT ON THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE AND
PROTEST

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The labor movement holds one value above all others: solidarity. Labor
demands an end to the Trump administration’s assaults on immigrant
workers, freedom of speech, the right to organize and bargain, and
federal government workers, their unions, and the services they
provide.

We will not stand by as President Donald Trump terrorizes immigrant
workers with abduction, detention, and confinement without due process
in unmarked facilities, far-flung detention centers, and a notorious
prison in El Salvador.

The attacks are ramping up, and we need to act fast. In Washington
state, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents smashed a car window
and detained farmworker Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a leader in the
berry-pickers union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, on his way to
drop off his partner at work. They locked up SEIU Local 925 member
Lewelyn Dixon, a lab tech at the University of Washington, when she
returned from a family trip. They raided a roofing company where
workers recently went on a safety strike, and arrested 37 people.

In Massachusetts, federal immigration agents snatched Rumeysa Ozturk,
a graduate student at Tufts University on a student visa and an SEIU
Local 509 member, on her way to break her Ramadan fast. She had
written an op-ed in the student newspaper in support of Palestine. 

In Baltimore, they arrested sheet metal worker Kilmar Armando Abrego
Garcia, a SMART Local 100 apprentice and father of a disabled child,
and sent him to El Salvador’s nightmarish prison—then they called
it an “administrative error” and said they could not get him back.

In New York, they abducted Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia
University graduate and United Auto Workers Local 2710 member, for
protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza. They have also taken many
others whose names aren’t public yet. 

This administration attacked these members of our communities on their
way to work, on their way to worship, on their way home. They locked
them up after speaking their minds. And they did that on purpose.

They have also threatened and intimidated university administrations
in an effort to enlist them in suppressing dissent. Sadly, many have
acquiesced to these demands, making a mockery of the concept of
“academic freedom” and the free exchange of ideas. Students have
been suspended and expelled. Faculty members have been disciplined and
discharged.

Further, the mass firings of federal workers and the attempt to
abolish their collective bargaining rights are attacks also on the
services they provide and the very function of our government. Trump
wants a government that only serves the interests of corporations and
oligarchs. Rather than a government of, by, and for the people, he
would create one by and for the privileged rich. He wants to create a
culture of fear. 

We must not bow to any of it. 

* _WE CALL ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO IMMEDIATELY RELEASE OUR
FELLOW WORKERS AND STOP THIS CAMPAIGN OF TERROR._
* _WE CALL ON ALL EMPLOYERS AND STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS TO
REFUSE TO COLLABORATE WITH THESE ATTACKS, AND TO DO EVERYTHING THEY
CAN TO RESIST._
* _WE CALL ON UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATIONS TO STAND UP TO THE THREATS
AND COERCION, AND TO REFUSE ANY COOPERATION WITH FEDERAL IMMIGRATION
AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES SEEKING TO UNLAWFULLY PERSECUTE
FOREIGN STUDENTS AND FACULTY AND STUDENT DISSENTERS._
* _WE CALL ON ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS TO FIND THEIR SPINES AND STAND
UP FOR THESE WORKERS._
* _WE CALL ON ALL UNIONS TO ORGANIZE RALLIES, DEMONSTRATIONS, AND
OTHER ACTIONS TO DEMAND THAT THE ADMINISTRATION STOP THESE ATTACKS AND
FREE OUR FELLOW WORKERS. THE LABOR MOVEMENT MUST ACT TO STOP TRUMP'S
DEPORTATION, CENSORSHIP, AND INTIMIDATION MACHINE.WHEN NECESSARY, WE
MUST DISRUPT BUSINESS AS USUAL. _

We must not be passive or silent in the face of this authoritarian
assault on our rights, the Constitution, and democracy itself. An
injury to one is an injury to all!

Please sign this call and add your name
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to a growing list standing up to Trump’s campaign of terror.

Click here to add your name or your organization's name
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* immigrant workers
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* immigrant labor
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* ICE
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* Immigration and Customs Enforcement
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* deportations
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* Donald Trump
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* Trump 2.0
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* homeland security
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* Labor Unions
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* Trade Unions
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* Labor Movement
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* Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia
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* Lelo Juarez
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* Lewelyn Davis
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* Rumeysa Ozturk
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* Mahmoud Khalil
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* UAW
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* Painters Union
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* UE
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* Flight Attendants
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* APWU
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* national nurses united
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* NEA
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* National Writers Union
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* AAUP
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* Inlandboatmen's Union
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