Twin Cities Cleaning Workers Are Hungry for Justice

by Eli Meyerhoff

Minneapolis, Minnesota—A campaign for workers’ rights escalated on May 21st, with a hunger strike that lasted for twelve days. The organizers’ commitment to justice inspired me to get involved, joining them for pickets and actions in support of their ongoing campaign. Fed up with decreasing wages and degrading work conditions, cleaning workers at grocery stores in the Twin Cities have been organizing through Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL—The Center of Workers United in Struggle).

According to cleaning worker and CTUL organizer Mario Torres (translated), “... the conditions in retail cleaning are tough. Ten years ago, pay was better. Many workers made $10-11/hour and four to five people worked each shift in many stores. Now workers earn $7.50-8.00/hour and there are only two workers per shift.”

CTUL’s Campaign for Justice in Retail Cleaning kicked off November 6th, 2010 with a march of over 300 people, calling for local grocery chains—including Cub Foods, Target, SuperValu, and Lunds/Byerlys—to open dialogue with workers and to commit to a code of conduct for fair wages and improved working conditions.

The cleaning jobs are contracted out to different companies, but the campaign is targeting the major retail chains, because, according to a CTUL ally, Tad Hinnenkamp,

They purposefully have reinvented the game so that there are a couple dozen cleaning companies competing to clean their stores. Of course Cub Foods picks the cheapest cleaning company, forever ensuring that the wages of the cleaning workers will continue to spiral downward. Meanwhile they hoodwink the public into believing it's not their fault--that it's the cleaning contractor's fault because they pay the wages. That's just PR. Or as I call it, disinformation. They have purposefully set up the cleaning industry this way to pay the workers nothing so that their executives and their boards can make millions. It's no coincidence that the workers salaries spiral downward as the executives' salaries and the companies' profits jump upwards.

The campaign ramped up in March after Cub Foods fired Mario Torres. Hinnenkamp said that this incident cemented his active participation in the struggle. He said, “Mario was fired for his organizing; it was simple as that. If Cub Foods and its hired contractors, such as Carlson, think that they can get away with such immoral behaviors and illegal actions, then obviously it is time for the people to stand up to their bullying.”

Hinnenkamp then helped put on a guerilla theater skit in a Cub Foods store, lampooning the company, but was tackled and pepper sprayed by a security guard.

After this violent incident, CTUL announced that if they continued to receive no sign of willingness for dialogue from the company, they would escalate to the more militant tactic of a hunger strike. No response came, and so, on May 21st, the hunger strike began, with initial participation from four cleaning workers and four community allies. In a video explaining their motivations for such a drastic action, a CTUL organizer said they are “bringing to light the everyday injustices they face cleaning Cub Foods.”

The hunger strikers occupied a space on the sidewalk outside of a Cub Foods on Lake Street in Minneapolis, setting up tents and spending the night there. Community supporters came and picketed one of the store entrances every day for a couple of hours in the afternoon and evening. I became one of these supporters, participating in some of these pickets, chanting—example: “Que es lo queremos? Justicia! Y cuando la queremos? Ahora!” [What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!]—and drumming and dancing along with the hunger strikers. Stamping the pavement together with people who usually sweep grocery store floors was an intense experience, and I was building relationships with people from whom I, as a white college-educated male, am usually separated by the city’s segregations of race, class, and language.

Many leaders from the community came out to show their solidarity with the cleaning workers. On the fourth day of the hunger strike, Minnesota State Senator Patricia Torres Ray came and expressed her support, saying, ““I think we forgot, or lost track, of what workers’ rights are all about. And now we are beginning to understand ...” (video). U.S. Representative Keith Ellison joined the pickets on the ninth day and said, “We look at Cub as a corporate leader who could improve the working conditions for those workers. Just sit down and talk, and come to a conclusion that allows them to have a livable wage."

Many religious leaders came out for a day of support, and through their Receipts for Rights Campaign, the Spirit of Truth group “collected $105,000 in receipts from people who have committed to spend their money at places that meet their values.” They led a delegation to Stillwater, Minnesota to deliver the receipts to the president of Cub Foods, but he refused to meet with them. Support was building, as on Day 7 of the action, five new cleaning workers decided to join the hunger strike and a popular local spoken word artist, Guante, performed during the pickets.

Facing continued silence from Cub Foods’ management, CTUL called for a boycott over Memorial Day weekend (video). In the lead-up, I joined an action at another Cub Foods, in Bloomington, where twenty of us marched through the store, chanting and handing out fliers with info about the campaign and a call for the boycott (which led Cub Foods to get a temporary restraining order against any CTUL organizers or supporters entering their property). The boycott was effective at translating moral concern into economic pressure on Cub Foods. CTUL ally and hunger striker Hinnenkamp said, “Hundreds of people chose a different route during the campaign and decided to shop with their morals by going elsewhere.” As a participant in the pickets on these days, I found it inspiring to see many potential shoppers turn away from the store after they learned about Cub Foods’ disrespect for workers’ rights.

Despite building much community support, the hunger strike ended after twelve days. CTUL held a press conference with many supporters present, and they framed the end of the action in a way that sought to emphasize that, far from giving up, they are continuing the campaign in more serious ways. One of the hunger strikers, Rev. Grant Stevensen of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in St. Paul, said, “we can’t give up this fight because what’s at stake is wages—but I would say also our soul.”

In continuing the campaign, Hinnenkamp believes that a tough struggle is still ahead. Yet he pointed to an example of a similar struggle—the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and their campaign based in Florida—that shows hope for successes while acknowledging the difficulties. He said,

The CIW is a worker's center run by and for the workers, much like CTUL, that is comprised mostly of immigrants of color. They started back in 1993, I believe, and had to work hard to gain support from the community, especially outside of the migrant community. They even went through a 30-day hunger strike over a decade ago that was meant to pressure the tomato growers. It wasn't until they really focused their attention on the big fast food chains with their “penny more a pound” campaign, that they began to see the power of their movement with actual real change.

After a four-year boycott campaign, they pressured Taco Bell into increasing workers’ wages and enforcing a code of conduct for better working conditions. After much pressure from the movement and their network of allies,, other large companies eventually followed suit. Hinnenkamp said, “I see many parallels with the CIW and CTUL. I believe CTUL can mirror many of the successes as well.”

A week after the end of the 12-day hunger strike, I attended a meeting that CTUL held for allies of the campaign. We started with a discussion of the pros and cons of the hunger strike action. In addition to building a great deal of community support, one very tangible pro was that the Cub Foods cleaning workers received a fifty cent an hour raise from the Carlson cleaning contractor. CTUL organizers said that one of the biggest cons was that, in addition to having a temporary restraining order issued against them, they were also being sued by Cub Foods. This lawsuit puts them in a tough legal position; they could possibly face jail time for charges of contempt and the court fees could be very high, despite their having sympathetic lawyers who will work pro bono.

One of the organizers said that it is a testament to how much power this campaign was able to build that Cub Foods has been pushed to a point of being so scared that they will launch a major lawsuit, risking being portrayed as a “Goliath crushing David.”

To help CTUL continue the campaign for justice in retail cleaning and to stay alive as an organization, they need help from their supporters, especially through fundraising, to show Cub Foods that they can take on the lawsuit and they won't be intimidated into backing down. They are accepting donations through their website, and they are hoping to soon hold a benefit concert.

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