Portside

Working at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis, Pretti was a member of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3669. His killing drew condemnation from organized labor. 

National AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler called it a “senseless killing” and asked Congress to use its power to hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accountable. The Minnesota AFL-CIO executive board called for Noem’s resignation or impeachment and the immediate withdrawal of ICE agents from Minnesota. 

In Portland, retired union letter carrier Jamie Partridge called Pretti’s killing a “flexion moment” for labor, a turning point. Partridge is an activist with Portland Jobs With Justice and the Portland chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. The two groups had for weeks been planning a rally and march under the slogan “Labor Says ICE OUT!” but only a few smaller more progressive locals had endorsed up to that point, Partridge told the Labor Press. Overnight, some of the biggest labor organizations in the state came on board.

Labor at ground zero

Pretti’s killing followed the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by a federal agent, also a U.S. citizen observing immigration agents in Minneapolis. The agents are in Minneapolis as part of an enforcement operation that the Trump administration has dubbed Operation Metro Surge: In December, about 3,000 federal agents deployed to Minneapolis, a city that itself has only 600 police officers. Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, said their operations have been “pure chaos” for residents. After their arrival, Gabiou’s labor federation set up a legal and mutual aid fund to support union members and their family members who are detained, and it works with the Texas AFL-CIO to get legal aid once they’re removed to a detention center there. 

When an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people turned out for a Jan. 23 march in downtown Minneapolis after Good’s killing, they were marshaled by more than 350 union member peacekeepers in yellow vests trained by the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation. That was the day before Pretti’s killing.

Gabiou said Minneapolis residents have organized to a  remarkable degree: In every neighborhood, volunteers communicate about the movements of ICE, blowing whistles, recording video, and sometimes following agents. “People are trying to tell stories about what’s happening. You can see with your own eyes.”

Pretti’s killing touched a nerve for many union members, especially fellow union nurses and Veterans Administration workers. On Jan. 27, Oregon Nurses Association and the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals held a candlelight vigil outside the Eugene Federal Building. On Jan. 28, a similar vigil took place outside the Portland Veterans Administration hospital organized by the informal Federal Unionists Network. 

Then came the Jan. 31 march Partridge had been working on. Turnout exceeded organizers’ wildest expectations. The march was to go from Elizabeth Caruthers Park along South Moody Street to the ICE facility at 4310 S. Macadam Ave. and back to the park via South Bond Street. But the last marchers were still leaving the park when the first marchers returned, and thousands of marchers filled two-lane streets for the entire nine-block march route.

Though there was large and visible participation by union nurses and school teachers, most participants appeared to be members of the general public; the event had gotten ample coverage in the press.

IBEW Local 48 had not had time to consider a formal endorsement, but business manager Garth Bachman was at the rally with a contingent of about a dozen members. 

“We’re here today to protest the behavior of ICE and the Trump administration: the illegal detainment of immigrants and non-immigrants, United States citizens being murdered in the streets of Minneapolis…. Not all of us share the same opinion, but this is definitely a labor issue when our own members are afraid to leave their house.”

About a dozen members of IBEW Local 48 took part in the protest of ICE.

Labor says ICE Out

Organizers had promoted the event with two fliers; one saying “Labor says ICE out” and the other “Labor against ICE.” At least 29 local labor organizations endorsed (see the endorsers here) But it wasn’t the whole of the local labor movement, and not every corner of labor was equally on board. No building trades or industrial unions were listed as endorsers. Taking a stand against immigration enforcement might go against the strongly held belief among some members that unions should keep wages, hours, and working conditions as their sole focus. Organized labor is a movement, not a monolith, and has the same cleavages as the rest of American society. For years polls have shown a divide among Americans on some immigration policy questions, like whether to deport all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally.  But there are signs that some kinds of ICE conduct may be turning public opinion against its law enforcement mission: wearing masks, using excessive force, and forcibly entering homes without a judicial warrant.

That shift may also be galvanizing organized labor to take action, following the example of Minnesota. The national AFL-CIO is now offering online “Union Peacekeeper and Observer” trainings to union members every other Wednesday from 1 to 2 p.m. PST from Feb. 11 to April 22 (mobilize.us/aflciotraining/event/890611). The goal is to make nonviolent actions like marches or rallies safer and more effective and to de-escalate and document disruptions or enforcement. 

WE ARE ALL ALEX ”No hate. No fear. Immigrants are welcome here,” chanted Portland union members Jan. 31 in the South Waterfront neighborhood. Labor was at the head of a peaceful march of thousands protesting excess force by federal immigration agents. | Photo by Jason Kaplan

Attack on protesters

Before the Jan. 31 Portland rally, organizers had assigned peacekeepers. As the march to ICE was about to begin, Portland Association of Teachers president Angela Bonilla, rally emcee, asked, “Will you stay peaceful while you are part of our march?” “I will,” the crowd replied. And they did.

But when about half of the marchers had passed the ICE building, a group of individuals who may not have been part of the march crossed the building’s property line and approached its security gate. At that point, agents marched out and began firing volleys of tear gas canisters and other projectiles into the crowd, one of which broke a window at the low-income apartment building across the street.

Oregon Nurses Association member Ryan Futterer said he was about 100 feet from the ICE building when he saw the tear gas. 

“I was feeling very short of breath” Futterer said. “It was scary.” Marchers fell back and helped each other, using water to wash out their eyes, Futterer said.

SEIU Local 503 president Melissa Unger was marching with a group of home care workers who are members of her union when she heard three loud bangs.

“We saw kids stream out with parents,” Unger said. “This was a family friendly union event. People brought their families. They were showing up as union members, and everyone committed to being peaceful.”

Three days later, the Oregon AFL-CIO president returned to Caruthers Park for a press conference in which union members shared their stories about the attack by federal agents. Former Local 503 executive director Brian Rudiger had brought his wife and two sons to the event.

“I will never forget the look of absolute terror in my kids’ eyes when they realized that their government was shooting chemical munitions at them for peacefully protesting,” Rudiger said.

Oregon Nurses Association member Ryan Futterer, right, encountered tear gas marching with his coworkers.

Pretti’s example 

In the days after Pretti’s killing, video emerged of an earlier incident in which he kicked the taillight of an ICE agent’s vehicle. But another video emerged as well, of Pretti solemnly delivering a final salute to a veteran who had died under his care. “Today, we remember that freedom is not free,” Pretti says in that video. “We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it and even sacrifice for it.” 

Editor Don McIntosh has been with the Northwest Labor Press since 1998. Born in Baltimore, he moved to Portland in 1985, and first practiced journalism at the Daily Vanguard, Portland State University's student newspaper. After earning a bachelor's in history, he served as an underground union organizer (salt) with Teamsters Local 174 in Seattle. Back in Portland, he wrote for the Portland Business Journal and Willamette Week and was editor of the Portland Alliance, a monthly community newspaper.

The Northwest Labor Press is an independent union-supported newspaper. The print edition is mailed out twice a month to about 45,000 members of over three dozen unions in Oregon and Southwest Washington. The online edition has been maintained here at nwlaborpress.org since 1997.  There are few other publications like it. Founded in 1900 by a consortium of trade unions, it’s one of America’s oldest and last remaining labor movement newspapers.