This article is a joint publication of The American Prospect and Workday Magazine, a nonprofit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of workers.
If it were up to Mauser Packaging Solutions management, there would be nothing in their contract with the union to stop federal immigration authorities from walking into the company’s Chicago plant whenever they want, maintenance mechanic Arturo Landa tells me as we sit under a navy blue tent with “Teamsters Local 705” printed on the canopy.
That’s alarming to the roughly 140 people who work there, about 90 percent of whom are Latino, many of them most comfortable speaking Spanish. The workers are acutely aware that in the present political climate, “even with proper documents, just based on the color of their skin, they could still get targeted,” says Landa, who is 45 years old and has worked for Mauser for 12 years.
We are across from the gray, brick face of the Mauser plant, where the ovens have stopped and the large industrial drums the company reconditions sit in stalled trucks, 11 weeks into an open-ended strike. The stillness of the plant contrasts with the bustle of the picket line, where striking workers grill meat for street tacos, and others use large shovels to clear rubble left in the street by a storm the previous night.
The strike at the factory in Little Village, a predominantly Latino area, began on June 9 over what workers say were unfair labor practices when the company allegedly spied on workers while they talked with representatives of the union, and allegedly refused to bargain in good faith. Workers are in a contract battle, and they’re demanding improved pay, safer working conditions, guaranteed breaks, and affordable health care. The work is notoriously difficult; they use high-powered tools to clean and repaint the drums, often sanitizing them in an oven that can make temperatures in the building soar to 130 degrees, according to workers.
Amid these conditions, workers say they don’t want the added concerns about a potential immigration crackdown. They want, at minimum, for Mauser to agree to invoke private property rights to turn away federal immigration authorities unless those authorities present a signed judicial warrant. While this is no guarantee that workers won’t be targeted, it could provide another layer of protection, as the Trump administration goes after workers—both labor leaders and non-union—in its crackdown on immigrants. These deportations often have no due process whatsoever and even have sent away American citizens.
By going on strike, in part, for protections for immigrants, workers are showcasing a strategy to use workers’ most powerful weapon to protect union members. And if they win, they’ll be the first Teamsters local in the country to adopt such protective language.
Landa, who is on the bargaining committee and is also a steward, says such protections are critical for workers, who often have multiple family members depending on them. His in-laws live with him and his wife, and one of his adult children counts on him for support. “Behind every worker,” he says, “there’s a family that depends on them.”
DANTE WOOD IS 22 YEARS OLD and has been working for Mauser for a year, painting the top and bottom lids of the drums, and helping move and prepare the lids once they are burned as part of the cleaning process. When I show up to the picket line, he greets me with a handshake and a broad smile.
He, too, shares concerns about federal immigration authorities. “We would like to not have it so anyone at any time can just come in, because that’s what they were offering us at the moment,” he says. “It brings a lot of fear to our workplace, with the chance of people getting detained.”
Yet numerous workers told me the employer is being recalcitrant. The packaging company says it employs 11,000 people at 117 sites internationally, and it sells its drums to big businesses, like the paint company Sherwin-Williams. “The company’s response is that they don’t want to break the law, but we’re not asking them to break the law,” Landa says. “We’re asking them to give us language to protect their workers.” Landa says the contract demand emerged from members’ concerns, and has strong support.
Nicolas Coronado, an attorney, is leading Local 705’s negotiations with Mauser. He says Mauser is being far more accommodating to federal immigration authorities than it would likely be to other federal entities, like OSHA. “It’s not likely they’re letting in OSHA without a judicial warrant,” he speculates.
Mauser did not respond to a request to comment on this statement, or on any of the allegations in this piece.
The experience of Mauser workers in Seattle raises concerns that the company could use the threat of immigration authorities for more sinister purposes. According to Coronado, his local learned recently that “three or four years ago,” Mauser threatened to call in ICE and DHS on Local 117 in Seattle to chill the union’s bargaining over a successor contract. Local 705 wants to ward off any potential tactics by going on the offensive, which is part of the motivation for prioritizing strong protections for immigrants from the beginning.
There are already signs that the company could be trying to use the experiences of Seattle workers to undermine the current strike in Chicago. In April, Mauser locked out 20 members of Local 117 in Seattle in the middle of contract negotiations, and then shut down the plant in the early summer. As Luis Feliz Leon reported for In These Times, the company appears to be using the closure to try to intimidate its workers in Chicago, and imply they could face a similar fate. The company sent messages to Local 705 workers in Spanish that “the Teamsters have their own agenda, highlighting the lockout and shuttering of the plant in Seattle, and telling workers to tell the union they want to accept the contract offer,” Feliz Leon reports.
But workers don’t appear to be backing down from their immigration demands. They’re also calling for advance notice for I-9 audits, often referred to as silent raids, which would allow the union to have a labor representative present. Other unions, including Local 117 in Seattle, have won related protective language around such audits.
But the demand for a judicial warrant remains the top priority, Coronado says. The Chicago-area worker center Arise has done a few know-your-rights trainings on the picket line, so that workers are prepared if they have an interaction with ICE or DHS.
“The Mauser strike is important because it’s led by working-class immigrants—the people directly under attack by our federal government—who are taking seriously their power to protect themselves on the job, and their power in the anti-fascist movement,” says Laura Garza, the incoming executive director for Arise.
ACCORDING TO CORONADO, EVERY WORKER at the plant has honored the picket line, as have the roughly 20 drivers who do delivery and pickup, and are also members of Local 705. One of these drivers, Roderick Gray, stopped by the picket line while I was there. Gray told me he supports the immigration demands of the workers. “I think it is not right for them to come in and take someone out,” he said. “I never believed in it, from day one.”
Around 10:30 a.m., about 50 strikers held a small but boisterous rally and picket line next to the plant, much of which is surrounded by fencing and razor wire. They waved picket signs in the street and chanted in Spanish: “We’re here, and we’re not leaving.” The morning was cool, and the mood was cheerful. Workers patted each other’s backs, and chatted in between chants.
The strike comes amid growing scrutiny of anti-immigrant remarks by Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, who told Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on his podcast in January, “I think the biggest problem is people are trying to protect illegal aliens that come over here and commit crimes, and that’s unacceptable.” O’Brien has also been building relationships with some MAGA leaders, like Hawley, who have been instrumental in advocating harsh crackdown on immigrants, even as immigrants are numbered among the membership of the Teamsters.
I asked every worker I talked to whether they would like to comment on O’Brien’s remarks, and they all declined, and Feliz Leon got a similar response, he reports. Landa told me he doesn’t “know anything about Sean O’Brien,” but at Local 705, he’s “very appreciative of all the support we’ve been given.”
In mid-August, workers voted down the company’s last, best, and final offer, and no one could tell me exactly how long they expect the strike to go on. The stakes are high, as workers face daunting conditions; they work with acetone, ammonia, and paint, and they say they do not have adequate PPE or cleaning systems in place to protect them from hazards, as the reporting of Natascha Elena Uhlmann in Labor Notes shows.
Stakes are high on the federal level, too. The Trump administration’s budget bill, signed into law on July 4, earmarks $170 billion toward the immigration crackdown. This amount is more than the funding of most countries’ armies. At the same time bosses continue to depend on the labor of immigrants, there are also increasing reports of harsh—and even deadly—crackdowns on workers at their job sites.
But Wood says the experience of being on strike has given him the confidence that workers do not have to take abuse passively, whether it’s from the federal government or from the boss. “With us going on this strike, everybody’s starting to get to know each other more,” he says. “It’s unifying, for sure, and also knowing that we also still have a union behind us.”
“We have people, and we don’t have to just put up with anything. There’s a way to make a change.”