Union members under fire for booting National Guard from St. Paul Labor Center

[sarisataka]

Union members under fire for booting National Guard from St. Paul Labor Center

Union members in St. Paul kicked out Minnesota National Guard soldiers who were using the St. Paul Labor Center on West 7th Street as a temporary staging area Wednesday night.

In a video posted on Facebook by a registered nurse and member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, union members can be seen and heard mocking the soldiers and telling them to 'get out' and 'go home.'

It happened as the National Guard was mobilizing in the aftermath of the killing of Daunte Wright by a Brooklyn Center police officer.

'We came down here to confront them,' Cliff Willmeng, a registered nurse, says on the video he posted. 'The labor movement and the National Guard has had a river of blood between the two institutions.'

https://kstp.com/politics/union-members-under-fire-for-booting-national-guard-from-st-paul-labor-center/6077931/

It was reported elsewhere that one of the unions that shares the center had invited the Guard to use the facility.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. One of the leaders of one of the member unions had handed the keys over; the issue is whether that

kind of action should be voted on by the body. (I believe it should be.) Leaders are now loudly defending the Guard, which has a history of breaking strikes and busting unions all across the country. Rank-and-filers are reminding their leaders of the Guard's history.

[sarisataka]

2. In more recent history,

they have filling in to staff nursing homes, helped distribute Covid vaccine and protected the Capitol after Jan.6

I would agree in a shared facility one group should not unilaterally choose to turn it over to an outside group without consulting other members

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Their good works are certainly remarkable, but their relationship specifically with Labor has always

been touchy.