Postal Workers Demand to Kick ICE Off Postal Property

As federal agents laid siege to the city of Minneapolis, rank-and-file postal workers in the Twin Cities organized two anti-ICE rallies.

The first, on December 15, was held in response to ICE agents using the employee parking lots at the Lake Street and Powderhorn Post Offices to stage their operations.

The second demonstration was held on January 18, after the killing of Renee Good. This was a much larger affair with around 250 participants, and involved other local unions such as the teachers, communications workers, and bus drivers.

As workers who serve our community and are out walking every day, we wanted to make it clear to our customers that postal workers are not associated with ICE, and that we want them off of postal property.

ICE operations in Minneapolis have made our working conditions unsafe. The chaos and violence they bring to our streets puts letter carriers at risk: unmarked cars flying through neighborhoods at high speeds, tear gas and flashbangs deployed wantonly, and deadly shootings.

We organized not only for our own safety, but also to stand in solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters who are most impacted by this state violence.

Our actions have forced debate within the union about what the role of a union should be. Should we be concerned only with bread-and-butter issues like wages and working conditions? Or should the labor movement also play a role in mass social movements?

We believe we should do both, and that doing so will strengthen our union as well as strengthening movements for justice.

Indeed, our organizing around this issue has helped bring people into the union who hadn’t been involved before. Workers who had never attended a union meeting turned out to these demonstrations, and in the weeks following, several of them came to their first meeting.

SAFETY HAZARDS

As federal agents continue to swarm our streets, Branch 9 passed an “ICE Makes Delivery Unsafe” motion at our January membership meeting.

Our contract and federal labor law already give us the right to safe working conditions. This motion is meant to educate members who may not know we have that right, and to give them the confidence to enforce it by filing a safety hazard form and refusing an unsafe assignment.

This knowledge and confidence will also facilitate our organizing around other hazards that make our job unsafe, such as extreme weather and wildfire smoke.

Rank-and-file letter carriers in Minneapolis continue to demand that national NALC leadership come out in support of getting ICE off of postal property, and that they fight to ensure that ICE cannot use postal parking lots or facilities for its operations.

We also demand that the Postal Service, and the Postal Inspectors, cut their ties with ICE and stop providing them information or cooperating with them in any way.

Emmett Bongaarts is a letter carrier and member of NALC Branch 9 in Minneapolis.