SEIU representatives came to the Duluth Central Labor Body’s January meeting last week to give a report from the picket line by their members in Deer River. About 70 people are on an open-ended ULP strike that entered its second month on the day of the meeting, and Kayla Schwankle and Sarah Jo Roberts were eager to share the experiences their members and co-workers were having out on the line.
There were reports of community members standing with them, bringing bottled water and donuts and pizzas, offering hand warmers and honks of support through below-zero days.
There was some symmetry in their appearance at the January meeting: It came just days after the AFL-CIO and SEIU issued a joint statement announcing that the union had rejoined the federation after 20 years on its own.
“CEOs and billionaires want nothing more than to see workers divided, but we're standing here today with greater solidarity than ever to reach the 60 million Americans who say they’d join a union tomorrow if the laws allowed and to unrig our labor laws to guarantee every worker in America the basic right to organize on the job,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told the Associated Press.
The joint statement said, “Millions of workers are doubling down on a vision to fundamentally transform our lives. Workers want to join unions because they know that pay is too low and grocery bills are too high. Child care costs as much as rent, which also costs more than it should. Everything workers need to live is just one more chance for corporations to profit from them.”
There’s a rally for the strikers planned in Duluth, inviting allies to tell Essentia to agree to a market wage for workers. It’s scheduled to have happened by the time you get this issue. Check out www.laborworld.org to see how the community responded.
Workers know it’s better in a union and unions members know we’re stronger together. It doesn’t take much to help build that solidarity — a honk as you pass a banner, a decision to delay a small purchase until an action is over. Every little bit helps build the community you might need in the next fight.

-- Catherine Conlan