Janitors/Window Cleaners Protest Brings Minneapolis To A Halt

Protesters supporting janitors, 2,000 security officers & window cleaners seeking higher pay and more sick time took to the streets, blocking downtown streets and causing massive traffic jams, Thursday, February 18, 2016 in Minneapolis, MN. 

Morning rush hour snarled as protesters block downtown Minneapolis streets - The protesters are from a group supporting janitors engaged in a one-day strike during contract talks. 

Protesters supporting janitors seeking higher pay and more sick time took to the streets Thursday morning, blocking downtown streets at the peak of the morning rush hour, which caused massive traffic jams on I-94 and I-35W in Minneapolis. Marchers, carrying banners to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, took over 12th and 11th Streets and the area of 3rd Avenue to 5th Avenue S., Minneapolis Police spokesman John Elder confirmed. At the 5th Avenue exit off I-35W, some protesters played music as they choked off all cars from entering downtown.

Traffic heading into downtown was at a standstill for nearly an hour, and the State Patrol shut down major entry points. Exits from northbound I-35W to 5th Avenue and westbound 94 to 5th Avenue were closed around 8:15 a.m. They reopened 30 minutes later as marchers made their way along city streets to the area of 8th Street and Nicollet Mall, according to scanner reports.

Major backups as long as 3 miles were reported on northbound I-35W, Minnesota Department of Transportation cameras showed. Highway traffic returned to normal around 9 a.m. and downtown traffic soon after that. Still, the protests angered some commuters. “Making me late for work isn’t going to make me feel sympathetic to your cause,” a disgruntled commuter tweeted. Some Metro Transit buses were being diverted, too.

Twin Cities janitors staged a one-day strike Wednesday in an effort to improve working conditions, including higher wages and more paid sick days. Protesters supporting a $15 minimum wage blocked I-35 traffic from entering downtown Thursday morning.

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (or The Center of Workers United in Struggle) said non-unionized workers for Capital Building Services Group and three other cleaning companies joined the strike of unionized janitors led by the Service Employees International Union Wednesday night. The CTUL organized a 6 a.m. rally of nonunion workers near the downtown Macy’s before moving to the freeway ramp with the other groups around 7 a.m. CTUL said it was trying to call attention to pay and wage theft issues faced by nonunion janitors. “We are here to disrupt business as usual” said Stephanie Gasca, an organizer for CTUL. She said stopping traffic and hitting the streets was the best way to get their message heard.

Hilario De Leon Perez, a cleaning worker in Minneapolis, said he is here to support a minimum-wage increase to $15 dollars an hour, as well as paid sick leave, vacation days and holidays. “Me and the other workers want the rich and powerful to hear us because we want this change and need this change,” he said. CTUL on Tuesday publicized a $425,000 settlement that it reached with Capital Building Services Group, an Illinois-based cleaning service, for back wages to workers at Macy’s and Herberger’s stores in the Twin Cities.

Twin Cities union janitors set to strike Wednesday - A Twin Cities union representing 4,000 janitors is preparing to go on strike Wednesday. A Sunday deadline for a new contract passed, prompting the Service Employees International Union Local 26 to announce members will walk off the job on Wednesday. A rally is being planned at 7:30 that evening at U.S. Bank Plaza in Minneapolis.

The workers are asking for a minimum wage of $15 an hour. They are also seeking a limit on the amount of work they must complete during a normal shift, which they have described as the equivalent of cleaning 20 houses. In addition to the janitors, 2,000 security officers, window cleaners and other workers are represented by the union. The security officers reached a separate contract settlement Thursday. A vote to ratify that agreement is set for Saturday.

Negotiations for the janitors’ contract began in October, to replace a three-year contract that expired Dec. 31. Union members voted in January to authorize a strike, with a deadline of Sunday. A strike would be the first in decades by sub-contracted union janitors in the Twin Cities.

Window Cleaner Mimes Apple To Shame

A Greenpeace protest-mimer cleans a window at Apple's downtown San Francisco store.

Greenpeace Shames Apple With, Um, Fake Window-Washing: Greenpeace has upped the ante in its fight to get Apple to commit to using more renewable energy in its data centers. Or at least it tried to up the ante. About a dozen protesters hit Apple’s store in downtown San Francisco at just after 11 a.m. Pacific on Tuesday. Some of them were dressed as janitors or window washers, others carried black bouquets of helium balloons which they unleashed inside the store, letting them float up to a hard-to-reach second-floor skylight. The environmentalist organization also unleashed a new video, dinging Apple for using dirty energy to clean its cloud (below).

They also hit stores with similar protests in New York and Toronto as part of an ongoing public-relations campaign against data center operators, dubbed “Clean Our Cloud.” After being dinged in a 2011 Greenpeace report, Apple has taken steps to present itself as a serious clean-energy user. The company says that its brand-new Maiden, North Carolina, data center will soon use 60 percent renewable energy — thanks to a state-of-the-art solar array and biogas plant. And just last week, Apple vowed to power a brand-new Prineville, Oregon, data center with 100 percent renewable energy. But Greenpeace wants more. They want Apple to commit to powering their Maiden facility with more renewable energy, even as it continues to expand. Maiden is where Apple powers its iCloud, the fast-growing service that lets Apple users store their photos, videos and other files in a centralized place.

Greenpeace wants Apple to sign long-term contracts for renewable energy in North Carolina, similar to deals that Google set up as it brought data centers in Iowa and Oklahoma online. “If Apple had something like that … that would be something that would give us a lot more confidence in their intentions,” said Gary Cook, an IT analyst with Greenpeace. Greenpeace’s big problem with Apple is the fact that it’s using Duke Energy in North Carolina, a utility that gets 46 percent of its power from coal and another 52 percent from nuclear facilities. The environmental activists are worried that without a commitment to renewables, Apple will simply draw more coal and nuclear energy as it expands its Maiden facilities.

Apple has spent $500 million on Maiden to date, but it is expected to invest another $500 million there over the next 10 years. Apple had no comment on Tuesday’s protests, held on the same day the company announced its quarterly earnings. Company spokeswoman Kristin Huguet referred us to an earlier statement where Apple said that its Maiden data center will be “the greenest data center ever built, and it will be joined next year by our new facility in Oregon running on 100 percent renewable energy.” In San Francisco, the in-store protest was a low-key event. Some store patrons didn’t even realize that a protest was happening. Under a cloud of black balloons, the Greenpeacers stuck posters on the store’s front windows, pretended to clean the store, and handed out stickers and chatted with store patrons as Apple staffers looked on. Greenpeace volunteer Jessica Serranti put in a good 30 minutes of mimed window washing and Apple-store cleaning (get it: “clean our cloud”?) before Apple Store Leader Jason Veilleux pulled down the Greenpeace posters and asked her to clear out. She complied. “It was super cordial,” Serranti said outside the store. Veilleux said he welcomed the opportunity to “engage in dialogue,” with Greenpeace, but declined to comment further. A half-hour after they’d released their balloons, the activists had left the building.   

Thankfully, the extent of the protests today seem to be limited to lots of people dressed in black releasing black balloons inside Apple Stores.

Greenpeace protests dirty energy use at Apple stores: Greenpeace has decided to demonstrate outside a number of Apple Stores around the world today. It’s a protest against what the environmental organization is referring to as dirty energy. With our growing reliance on data centers to power the cloud, the big tech companies have a responsibility to use as much clean and renewable energy as possible. Not only will that reduce the impact such locations have on the environment, it also helps ensure those company’s futures as traditional energy sources continue to rise in cost. Greenpeace points out that Google, Yahoo!, and even Facebook are either pursuing green energy or already using it in ever greater quantities. Apple, however, is not, according to environmentalists, and Greenpeace believes us, the users are the ones that can force Apple to “Think Differently.”

Protesters Arrested For Trying To Wash Windows

Four Occupy Asheville demonstrators, part of a "corporate clean-up crew" were arrested for trespassing this afternoon after picking up litter and wiping windows on the Merrill-Lynch building in downtown. Starting around 11 a.m., the protesters, with about seven others observing, recording and (via a hand-held megaphone) commenting on their activities.

The protesters asserted that the action was meant to highlight the need to clean-up corporate control and government corruption, while highlighting that a building occupied by Merrill-Lynch, a recipient of bail-out funds, couldn't keep its own space clean. "We want to see a world where, instead of money ruling everything, people actually have some power, like democracy," demonstrator Victor Ochoa said through the megaphone. "Apparently, they can't clean up their own trash, whether it's foreclosure documents, or what resulted in economic collapse and billions in bailouts. They're getting arrested for trespassing and cleaning up trash; someone has to do it."

Starting around 12:15 a.m., Asheville Police Department officers arrived to arrest the "clean-up crew" for trespassing. "It was public spectacle, this was to be expected," Martin Ramsey, part of the clean-up crew, said. "They said there's a line here between public and private property, but it all looks outside to me. I don't really care whether they say it's a public or private sidewalk, because that distinction seems ridiculous, especially considering our current situation."

When APD officers instructed him to come over to a nearby police vehicle, Ramsey slowly put down his sponge and walked over to be handcuffed. "There's a lot of things in Asheville that need to be cleaned up," Amy Hamilton told Xpress of her reasons for participating in the clean-up, as she sat handcuffed on the curb, awaiting transport by the APD. Earlier, she'd shouted "welcome to Asheville" to passerby as she was being arrested, her cleaning gloves still on.

Occupy Asheville protester Amy Hamilton is arrested Tuesday on trespassing charges after washing windows of the Merrill Lynch building downtown.

"There's a lot of trash around here, and a lot of clean-up to be done," Hamilton said. Demonstrator Olof Pohlson said the protesters had issues with a private security guard earlier, who he claimed had threatened to pepper-spray demonstrators. However, Pohlson praised the APD's conduct throughout the incident. After the arrests, an APD sergeant told Ochoa that, according to city ordinance, he couldn't use the megaphone, though he was free to talk in his own voice.

Full names and charges of all the demonstrators are forthcoming, but an APD officer on the scene said charges of second-degree trespassing are most likely. The arrests are the first associated with an officially endorsed action by the Occupy Asheville demonstrators, as representatives released an announcement of the "clean-up crew" earlier this morning.

The protests began Oct. 1, in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests, and have continued with regular "moving pickets" and general assemblies. The announcement earlier today mentioned. Currently the city of Asheville has permitted the demonstrators to camp in a parking lot under the Lexington Avenue overpass, pending the negotiation of a more permanent spot.

Occupy Asheville protesters arrested for trying to wash windows: Asheville — A group of about 10 people were attempting to wash the windows of the Merrill Lynch offices on Pack Square on Tuesday, and four were arrested for trespassing. The protesters said they were demonstrating against the Merrill Lynch corporation, which has offices in the building.

“We were just cleaning up the Merrill Lynch building,” said Amy Hamilton, of Asheville, who was one of those arrested. “There’s a lot of trash around here to clean up.” About six Asheville city police were on the scene just after noon. Four of the demonstrators were handcuffed and taken away. Police on the scene declined to comment.

One of those arrested, Fox Black, said he was being arrested for second degree trespassing. “We were washing the windows,” he said. “The corporations need a big cleanup, and we were just keeping it local.” Another protester, Olof Pohlson, who was not arrested, said a security guard in the building had threatened to pepper spray the protesters if they did not stop trying to wash the windows. Pohlson said the guard backed off once he saw Pohlson’s video camera.