Worker Solidarity Action Network

1 week ago

Federal Spies Hunt Minnesota Unions in Search of Conspiracy, But Find Solidarity
labornotes.org/2026/08/federal-spies-hunt-minnesota-unions-search-conspiracy-find-solidarity

August 14, 2026 / Luis Feliz

Federal agents stood on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis on the morning they killed union nurse Alex Pretti. Photo: Luis Feliz Leon
Yesterday news broke of a sweeping undercover investigation by the Department of Homeland Security in Minnesota early this year to infiltrate and surveil meetings and obtain the financial records of nonprofit groups and two of the country’s largest unions, the Communications Workers (CWA) and the Service Employees (SEIU). This investigation was behind the indictments of 15 people in June.

The news should unite the labor movement in defense of constitutional rights and democracy as its members face what one defendant’s attorney calls “political prosecution.”

“CWA 7250 has learned that we have been subject to an illegal and aggressive federal investigation that used undercover agents to enter our office, infiltrate meetings we co-sponsored, subpoena our finances, and surveil one of our officers,” said CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson.

“We know that this is because our members, from across the workplaces we represent,
were active in the fight against the federal occupation and racist campaign of terror by ICE. CWA 7250 members joined neighborhood rapid-response groups, distributed warning whistles, protested at the Whipple Federal Building, marched in the streets and the snow, and helped build the January 23rd Day of Truth and Freedom.

“We are proud of our work and will never apologize or back down because of these dirty tricks and intimidation.”

“The most notable revelation to me was their infiltration of the February 15th Workers Assembly to Defeat ICE, a great event that brought over 300 unionists and community members together to democratically debate on next steps for the movement,” said UFCW Local 663 executive board member Paul Kirk-Davidoff, a meat cutter at Cub Foods supermarket.

“I helped put this together, and multiple unions sponsored the event. Four undercovers attended, and made sure to take detailed notes of all the speakers and political positions. This, along with the surveillance of unions, leads me to believe that the feds were frightened by the January 23rd mass strike and the possibility of more labor action.”

BOGUS CONSPIRACY

Federal Deputy Attorney General Brian Lynch participated in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Now he is leading a taskforce dedicated to prosecuting left-wing activism, which the administration calls political violence. The taskforce is using Trump’s National Security Policy Memorandum (NSPM-7) to investigate the funding sources of the president’s opponents.

Lynch is casting a wide net to go after Trump’s perceived enemies. The investigation targets, among others, the AFL-CIO, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, and the Minneapolis Federation of Educators. A slide that prosecutors showed to a grand jury portrays the unions, along with some nonprofits, left groups, and a bike shop, as part of an antifa conspiracy.

Minnesotans are responding with solidarity.

“This winter, Minnesotans stood together in rejecting the Trump regime’s occupation of Minnesota,” said a statement from a broad coalition of unions and nonprofit organizations, including many who had not been targeted in the investigation so far.

“Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol agents broke countless laws while kidnapping Minnesotans based on racial profiling, violating our constitutional rights, and murdering our neighbors… Across the state, Minnesotans joined with community, faith, labor, and neighborhood organizations to build networks that protected our neighbors and defended our constitutional rights.”

“Minneapolis educators worked in union to exercise our constitutional rights to peacefully protest Operation Metro Surge and other discriminatory policies of the president—and we will continue to do so,” said Minneapolis Federation of Educators Teacher Chapter President Marcia Howard in a statement. “For now, we have no further comment about this so-called investigation into whatever they’re calling ‘Antifa’ today.”

FOLLOWED TO CHURCHES, PARKS, AND UNION HALLS

In January, after federal agents killed Renee Good and union nurse Alex Pretti, investigators with the Department of Homeland Security launched the undercover mass surveillance and infiltration campaign, called “Operation Puppet Master,” targeting the widespread community and labor organizing against ICE and Border Patrol agents.

“These agents surreptitiously recorded dozens of conversations with ordinary people who were simply exercising their First Amendment rights to protest ICE’s lawless rampage in our state,” wrote attorney Kevin Riach in a brief as part of a discovery filing on behalf of Isaac Sant, one of the “Minnesota 15” who were charged in June with conspiracy to impede federal officers.

“These wild conspiracy allegations are born from the fantasies of political retribution that animate the Trump Administration,” wrote Riach. Undercover agents followed protestors to public meetings at churches, parks, libraries, schools, and union halls.

At one meeting organized by Sunrise Movement at Minneapolis Public Library, where participants learned about the history of peaceful sit-ins and de-escalation tactics, an undercover agent posing as construction worker tried to entrap a speaker, saying he “could build items that might assist with more ‘direct action,’” according to newly disclosed documents. The agent told the person “going to jail did not bother him.”

Federal agents also used facial recognition softwarecalled Clearview AI to compile photo dossiers of activists and protestors. In one diagram shared with Labor Notes, the federal government mapped faces of union leaders, members, and staff to their affiliations into an organizational chart as evidence of a conspiracy.

Homeland Security agents used administrative subpoenas to obtain the financial records of SEIU, CWA, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, as well as the climate group the Sunrise Movement and the nonprofit Voices for Racial Justice.

When they pored over SEIU’s wire transfers looking for alleged “domestic terrorist financing,” a release of information filing showed, all that Homeland Security investigators could find were “various types of debits and credits to include annuity payments, strike payments, strike supplies, investigations, union member dues, retiree dues, medical expenses, and pension fund expenses.”

A PROUD TRADITION

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham called the targeting of the labor movement an “unhinged conspiracy theory.”

“Instead of holding federal agents accountable for shooting and killing Renée Good and our union brother Alex Pretti, or addressing the dangerous and deadly conditions within immigration detention facilities,” Burnham said in a statement, “the Trump administration continues to weaponize our federal government to intimidate our unions, our communities, and anyone who peacefully opposes their radical authoritarian agenda…

“They are now bringing back McCarthyism to paint unions and organizations that advocate for workers and families as threats to the nation. “It didn’t work in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy accused anyone he didn’t like of being unamerican and it won’t work for Donald Trump.”

“We are part of the proud tradition of ordinary Americans who join together in union halls and church basements to make this country better,” CWA President Claude Cummings, Jr. said in a statement. “But our values of unity, of community, are under attack by a president and his Department of Homeland Security that sends government spies to surveil community meetings in church basements…

“CWA is a union with a long history of standing up to bullies and billionaire bosses. We will not be intimidated, and we will not be silenced in our solidarity with our members, with our communities, and with our neighbors.” … See MoreSee Less

Federal Spies Hunt Minnesota Unions in Search of Conspiracy, But Find Solidarity

labornotes.org

Yesterday news broke of a sweeping undercover investigation by the Department of Homeland Security in Minnesota early this year to infiltrate and surveil meetings and obtain the financial records of n…

Worker Solidarity Action Network

3 weeks ago

Healthcare Is A Human Right: No More Profiteering On Healthcare! CA Statewide Conf For Single Payer
youtu.be/Rg4STvX7rrg
At a statewide meeting for single payer in San Francisco on 8/8/26, workers and trade unionists talked about the growing healthcare crisis with millions threatened with losing their healthcare and the ongoing attack by healthcare bosses using AI and chatboxes to get rid of healthcare workers. There was also discussion about the massive use of AI and chatboxes to replace healthcare workers particularly with the NNU CNA and NUHW
where workers have been laid off and replaced with AI and chatboxes. Unionists also discussed the SEIU 1021 leadership and negotiators allowing the destruction of San Francisoc public health clinics while allowing the continued contracting out to non-profits by the City a County
of San Francisco.
Also participants talked about the support by the AFL-CIO and many union leadership of medicare advantage which through United Healthcare is privatizing the entire medicare system and the fact that union officials are on healthcare insurance boards for workers comp and are getting paid by the insurance industry to deny injured workers to increase the profits of the insurance companies.
Participants discussion having a national day of action on September 4th against AI in healthcare and for single payer nationally.
The conference was co-sponsored WorkWeek, Californians United For Single Payer, National Campaign for
Single Payer and United Front Committee For A Labor Party.
Additional Media:
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nuhw.org/kaiser-dont-deny/kaiser-strike/
MLK Day Strike By NUHW Kaiser Mental Healthcare Workers To Stop Systemic Racism & To Provide Care
youtu.be/c-be9pAQAQs
Kaiser still in denial over patient suicides
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rzGA1XWxgI&t=5s
nuhw.org/kaiser-still-in-denial-over-patient-suicides/
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youtu.be/6bno55gGmps
Don't Deny My Patients! 4,000 NUHW CA Kaiser Healthcare Workers Start 5 Day Strike
youtu.be/es_9jkSXdUA
Kaiser Suicides And Murders From Profiteering & Cost Shifting: Justice For Patients & NUHW Workers!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3JCz2gbEow&t=47s
NUHW 2019 CA Kaiser Strike & NUHW President Sal Rosselli
youtu.be/z5oL7rN7wmo
Kaiser NUHW Workers Strike Against Short Staffing Threatening Healthcare
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8SjlVXpmAI&t=12s
Kaiser, Don't Deny Patients need access to timely and consistent mental health services
nuhw.org/kaiser-dont-deny/kaiser-strike/
MLK Day Strike By NUHW Kaiser Mental Healthcare Workers To Stop Systemic Racism & To Provide Care
youtu.be/c-be9pAQAQs
Kaiser still in denial over patient suicides
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rzGA1XWxgI&t=5s
nuhw.org/kaiser-still-in-denial-over-patient-suicides/
SEIU UHW Kaiser Workers Join IOUE 39 Members On Picket Line In SF
youtu.be/6bno55gGmps
Don't Deny My Patients! 4,000 NUHW CA Kaiser Healthcare Workers Start 5 Day Strike
youtu.be/es_9jkSXdUA
Kaiser Suicides And Murders From Profiteering & Cost Shifting: Justice For Patients & NUHW Workers!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3JCz2gbEow&t=47s
NUHW 2019 CA Kaiser Strike & NUHW President Sal Rosselli
youtu.be/z5oL7rN7wmo
Kaiser NUHW Workers Strike Against Short Staffing Threatening Healthcare
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8SjlVXpmAI&t=12s
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net … See MoreSee Less

Labor Media – Labor Media

www.labormedia.net

The Rise of Fascism, Racism & General Strikes laborfest.net/2026/event/the-rise-of-fascism-racism-general-strikes/ July 12 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm PDT The fascist racist agenda to re-segregate t…

Worker Solidarity Action Network

1 month ago

California Biofuel Refinery Workers Say Understaffing and Fatigue Threaten Their Safety and the Community

insideclimatenews.org/news/23072026/california-biofuel-refinery-worker-safety/

After a catastrophic fire at a Bay Area renewable fuel refinery nearly killed a worker, his union colleagues fought for stronger protections. Now they’re locked out.

Liza Gross
By Liza Gross
July 23, 2026
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Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, who represents the county where Marathon’s Martinez Renewables operates, visits striking workers in early May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, who represents the county where Marathon’s Martinez Renewables operates, visits striking workers in early May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
MARTINEZ, Calif.—Shortly after midnight on Nov. 19, 2023, while a processing unit at the Marathon Martinez Renewable Fuels refinery was starting up for the first time, hydrogen and diesel leaking from an overheated metal tube ignited into a massive blaze that engulfed Jerome Serrano, leaving the father of four in a months-long fight for his life.

Now Serrano’s co-workers have been locked out of their jobs at the refinery northeast of San Francisco after striking to improve what they describe as dangerous conditions caused by understaffing, relentless overtime shifts and a contract with fewer benefits than those offered to their union colleagues at other refineries.

Marathon Petroleum, the largest U.S. oil refiner, stopped operating processing units at its Martinez facility in 2020 while its plan to convert the facility from a petroleum refinery to one for renewable fuels underwent environmental review. Two years later, after county supervisors signed off on the project in a unanimous decision, Marathon started retrofitting machinery in the 113-year-old plant, and began processing vegetable oil and animal fats into renewable fuels the next year.

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As operators tried to get a renewable diesel hydroprocessing unit up and running, no one knew that a startup valve was open when it should have been closed. That allowed fuel combustion to continue to generate heat, testing the limits of a metal tube in the furnace. Field operators were summoned to close fuel gas valves that fed the furnace, but the tube became “dangerously hot,” federal investigators determined, and failed. The breached tube released 200,000 pounds of highly flammable renewable diesel and 2,000 pounds of hydrogen, which quickly ignited and nearly burned Serrano to death.

Workers hoped a new contract would help prevent similar accidents in the future.

The National Oil Bargaining Program (NOBP) represents more than 200 United Steel Workers bargaining units in contract negotiations across the petroleum and renewables industry, and reached an agreement in February. Marathon was the lead company in national negotiations, so Martinez’s union representatives didn’t expect trouble bargaining terms for their refinery, said Jim Payne, secretary-treasurer for USW Local 5.

Instead, the Local 5 bargaining team found themselves sitting across the table from a “union-busting attorney” who wasn’t interested in compromise, Payne said. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years and I’ve never had an attorney sit at the table for bargaining.”

Workers came to the table with only two proposals to retain agreements they already had with the company, Payne said. They wanted to continue earning double-time pay for working the sixth or seventh 12-hour shift in a row, and time-and-a-half to be on standby before or after a shift in case another employee didn’t make it to work.

The NOBP negotiated a four-year contractwith Marathon for workers employed by dozens of oil companies. But the $88 billion company offered the local union a three-year contract, arguing that they’re not part of the national program anymore since they process renewables—even though workers at another company’s renewables refinery are covered.

Plus, Payne told the company, the union gets to decide who’s covered by the contract, not them.

What’s more, both petroleum and renewable feedstocks are processed into highly flammable products like gasoline, jet fuel and diesel, USW Local 5 leadership argued when it petitioned California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to include renewable facilities under petroleum refinery safety regulations.

The board agreed and granted the request two years ago. The state Legislature followed suit a few months later with a law that required a similar change. But while Cal/OSHA agreed that the principal hazards of refining renewable and petroleum feedstocks “are nearly identical,” it still has not updated its rules.

Cal/OSHA is developing proposed amendments to expand the scope of state refinery regulations to include qualifying renewable fuel refineries, said Denisse Gómez, a spokesperson for the agency. “The proposed amendments are currently under review before they can proceed through the formal rulemaking process,” she said.

After months of negotiations, Marathon imposed the three-year agreement, which they called their “last, best and final offer,” Payne said.

That resulted in a strike, he said, because the offer didn’t comply with the national agreement. In June, workers made an unconditional return-to-work offer. The company rejected it, he said, “which turned a strike into a lockout.”

Refinery workers strike outside Marathon’s Martinez Renewables in May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
Refinery workers strike outside Marathon’s Martinez Renewables in May. Credit: Courtesy of USW Local 5
Marathon spokesperson Jamal Kheiry said the company is committed to reaching an agreement that is satisfactory to all parties.

“We decided to not accept their offer to return to work at this time, and instead continue negotiating in good faith toward an agreement that will support the long-term success of the facility, our employees, our customers and the communities we serve,” Kheiry said in an emailed statement.

The company continues to staff the Martinez Renewables facility with highly qualified Marathon personnel, Kheiry said. “Our team includes supervisors, engineers and technical experts with extensive experience and training in safe, reliable plant operations.”

Marathon did not answer questions about how many safety technicians are currently working in the plant who have the expertise to respond to an accidental release and prevent another potentially catastrophic incident.

Negotiations are scheduled to resume Friday.

Skeleton Crew

Employees at the Martinez refinery redoubled their long-time efforts to fight short-staffing and safety concerns after Marathon implemented massive layoffs when it shifted to renewables, said Nick Plurkowski, USW Local 5 president.

The company laid off 700 workers in 2020, including 350 with Local 5, and had only about 220 workers in 2023 when it resumed operations as a renewable fuel refinery.

The entrance to Marathon’s biofuels refinery in Martinez, Calif. Credit: U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
The entrance to Marathon’s biofuels refinery in Martinez, Calif. Credit: U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
The skeleton crew lacked the safety technicians who used to roam around the plant monitoring conditions, and included a lot of new people working with flammable materials, Plurkowski said. “The safety aspect of that is huge.”

The company is doubling down on problems that are making the plant unsafe, Plurkowski said, like turning four days of mandatory 12-hour shifts into five, six or more days of 16- and 18-hour shifts to compensate for understaffing.

“It’s just not good for the workers and for the public to be having workers working these 18-hour days when you’re running a highly volatile chemical facility,” said Josh Sonnenfeld, senior policy researcher with the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center.

“At one point they did recognize that they were overworking us,” said striking refinery operator Bob Bulman, standing on the picket line on July 16, the 81st day of the strike.

That’s why management and the union crafted a letter of agreement that workers would receive double-time pay for the sixth and seventh day, said Bulman, who has worked at the plant since 2008, most recently monitoring tank levels for raw feed and finished products. But the company found that arrangement costly.

Bob Bulman, a field operator at Marathon’s Martinez Renewables refinery, stands on the picket line on July 16, the 81st day of a workers’ strike for safer conditions. Credit: Liza Gross/Inside Climate News
Bob Bulman, a field operator at Marathon’s Martinez Renewables refinery, stands on the picket line on July 16, the 81st day of a workers’ strike for safer conditions. Credit: Liza Gross/Inside Climate News
“They saw how much they were paying because we’re understaffed. Now they want to take that away. But that’s not the reason why we’re out here on strike,” he said. “Our main concerns were that we were overworked and understaffed.”

Workers are exhausted on the job, and many face an hour-plus commute, Bulman said. “You don’t want to put these guys not doing just 12, but now doing 16 and 18 hours working their butts off, driving on the road next to you and falling asleep, taking you out.”

If workers are walking around “basically intoxicated” because they’ve been sleep-deprived over many days while supervisors pressure them to go faster, Plurkowski said, it’s just a matter of time before another disaster strikes.

Inherent Risks

Plurkowski started out as a refinery worker years ago at the old Shell refinery (now Martinez Refining), a few miles west of the Marathon facility. As a newbie, he shadowed an experienced operator doing all the tasks he was hired to do, then did them himself while someone checked his work and answered the inevitable questions that arose.

But since Marathon laid off so many employees when it transitioned to producing renewable fuels, inexperienced workers have fewer opportunities for safety training or advice from senior colleagues, which is even more important during inherently risky operations like starting or shutting down a unit, Plurkowski said.

The fire that nearly killed Serrano happened when “they were just fighting the unit to get it started,” Plurkowski said. “They just kept at it, they didn’t back off to re-check what was happening. And that led to him being burned over more than 80 percent of his body through no fault of his own.”

The vast majority of the people who were starting up the new unit had been there less than six months, said Payne, the Local 5 financial officer.

Surveillance footage of the furnace fire at the Marathon Martinez Renewable Fuels refinery in 2023. Credit: Marathon via U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Surveillance footage of the furnace fire at the Marathon Martinez Renewable Fuels refinery in 2023. Credit: Marathon via U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Serrano was helping someone who was too busy to deal with the overheated equipment. That worker, who found Serrano first, used to be a medic. Payne believes the only reason Serrano survived was because of that worker’s medical training.

The seriousness of the accident prompted the county’s Contra Costa Health staff to commission a third-party evaluation of the refinery’s management system and safety culture. The report, released last year, found “a potential polarizing disconnect” between operators and administrators in the refinery.

Operators consistently provided more negative ratings regarding both safety prioritization and resource allocation, the report found. It highlighted the need for a policy that not only allows workers to report safety concerns without fear of retaliation but also prioritizes safety over production demands and pressures to work quickly.

A report released 27 years ago found similar problems after a catastrophic accident at the same site, when it was a crude oil refinery run by Tosco, a company that no longer exists. The independent audit flagged “an adversarial relationship between managers and workers” as a contributor to a fire that killed four workers and seriously injured one.

The 1999 disaster was caused by an accidental release of naphtha, a highly volatile hydrocarbon mixture that Marathon now produces from biofuels at its Martinez plant.

Rescuing Stranded Assets

Renewable refineries leverage existing infrastructure from crude operations by using hydrogen to remove oxygen from biobased oils and fats. In petroleum refining, hydrogen is used to lower the sulfur contentof diesel fuels.

The furnace that Serrano was trying to turn off had been used to remove sulfur to make diesel from petroleum before it was turned into a hydrodeoxygenation unit to remove oxygen from oils and fats.

Hydrodeoxygenation processors make diesel that’s functionally identical to petroleum diesel.

“Renewable facilities may be even more prone to explosions and fires because converting renewable feedstocks into fuels relies on hydrogen-intensive reactions that release substantially more heat in processors already prone to overheating,” according to an analysis by Greg Karras, an independent scientist who runs the clean-energy advisory firm Community Energy reSource.

“There’s definitely a relationship between the hydrogen intensity, the hydrogen flaring and the number of hydrogen-related fires and explosions in the refining industry,” Karras said. “Switching to processed vegetable oils and animal fats is going to increase those hazards.”

After Marathon started its biofuel project, it flared almost every day, said Karras, who has spent decades studying pollution and environmental justice issues. After seeing flaring at the facility for about six months, Karras reported the problem to the Interagency Refinery Task Force that was formed after a catastrophic accident at Chevron’s Richmond Refinery north of San Francisco released a massive toxic cloud over nearby cities and sent 15,000 people seeking medical care.

“People are going to be hurt or die, and you need to shut it down until this is fixed,” Karras told the task force at a public meeting.

“Then it blew up,” Karras told Inside Climate News. “And then their records disappeared.”

California officials did not answer questions about why the task force didn’t retain minutes of public meetings or what it did with the information Karras provided.

Marathon staff could have shut down the overheated furnace from the control room, reported experts with the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), an independent federal agency. But the high temperature alarms didn’t initiate a shutdown in production, the report noted, because their activation initiated troubleshooting efforts instead, per Marathon policies.

“Marathon did not adequately ensure that the Martinez facility met the company’s minimum safety expectations before it started up as a renewable diesel facility,” the CSB concluded.

“Mad as Hell”

Plurkowski appeared before the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors July 14 to warn the board, which approved Marathon’s renewable conversion permit, that fatigue and understaffing was at an all-time high. His two minutes for comment were up before he was able to tell the supervisors his main point.

“Now we have Marathon basically locking us out until we agree to even more hours than we’re already doing there,” Plurkowski wanted to say.

The board should encourage Marathon to return to the bargaining table in good faith and negotiate a fair contract, he told Inside Climate News. He also wants the board to add specific, enforceable rules to the county’s industrial safety ordinance on fatigue and minimum staffing requirements.

People who live near these refineries know all too well that safety problems inside the plant threaten surrounding communities.

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These accidents and issues keep getting repeated, said Heidi Taylor, who co-founded the watchdog group Healthy Martinez after another local refiner, the Martinez Refining Company, showered her community with 24 tons of heavy metals and other chemicals four years ago on Thanksgiving. Investigators cited poor fatigue management as a contributor to the accident.

The refinery apologized to the community “for dust releases” and other incidents and said it had implemented nearly a dozen corrective measures.

Regulators say they are learning from all the accidents, but they’re not, Taylor said.

“That is what is so scary about living in Martinez,” she said. “You never know when the next big event is going to happen.”

Multiple reports conclude that refineries need to be properly staffed to avoid fatigue, but no one’s holding them accountable and community members are “mad as hell,” Taylor said. “I want to see more aggressive enforcement and follow through from our regulatory agencies.”

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, a Democrat whose district includes most of Contra Costa, told Inside Climate News he’s spent over 30 years dealing with the oil industry in an effort to protect the interests of consumers, workers and the environment.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier
There is a pervasive culture in the industry that prioritizes profits over safety, said DeSaulnier, who has visited workers on the picket line at Marathon’s Martinez Renewables refinery. “I’ve been to too many funerals of refinery workers due to corporate negligence.”

DeSaulnier fears he will have to go to more funerals if Marathon doesn’t change its practices.

Marathon’s Martinez refinery has received nearly 70 notices of violations from the air district for flaring and other infractions as a renewable fuels facility over the past three years.

“That’s a big red flag that plant operations are not smooth inside, that conditions are likely unsafe,” said USW’s Plurkowski.

“The thing that we hear all the time from steel workers on the picket line is that refinery safety saves lives,” said Marie Choi, strategy director for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a California environmental justice organization.

“When they say that, they’re not just talking about the lives of the workers in the plant,” Choi said. “They’re also talking about the lives of community members that live on the fencelines of these big, 100-year-old, polluting refineries.”

Having people managing dangerous processes on aging equipment on three or four hours of sleep, Choi said, “is really a recipe for disaster.”

Choi, who has visited workers on the picket line often since the strike started, thinks the company is trying to break the union.

Without a union in a refinery, who’s going to speak up when conditions are unsafe? she asked.

A lockout is “an extreme and harsh tactic,” said UC Berkeley’s Sonnenfeld.

If workers lose their union in a facility like this, they lose their voice and ability to speak out on safety issues, which affects the whole community, he said. “We’ve seen this over and over again.”

Where’s the Accountability?

California recognized the critical role workers play in preventing accidents when it approved “landmark” refinery safety rules in 2017. But the Western States Petroleum Association, a leading industry trade group, sued the state, arguing that the rules “grant unions new and unbargained-for authority over employers’ safety processes and safety-related expenditures.”

The state settled with the oil lobby group and proposed amending the law in January 2025, a month before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed rescinding key requirements for worker participation in safety plans in federal rules designed to prevent chemical accidents.

A coalition of union and public interest groups said the amendments would “significantly endanger” employees and communities near refineries by weakening the power of front-line workers to influence safety plans, among other provisions. The coalition called on California regulators to retain its landmark safety rules “as the current federal administration seeks to roll-back essential environmental, community and worker safety protections.”

“Marathon is really at the center of these issues,” said Sonnenfeld.

As a facility that receives public subsidies and taxpayer dollars through the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, he said, “policymakers and really everyone in this region of the state should be concerned about what’s the standard that we’re setting for refineries in California.”

California paid nearly $20 billion throughLow Carbon Fuel Standard credits to biofuel suppliers, including Marathon, a February analysis from The Climate Center, a clean energy think tank, found. The subsidies allowed gasoline and diesel refiners to comply with the LCFS by producing biofuels or buying biofuel credits. Because biofuels use the same infrastructure as gas and diesel—which would otherwise lose market value—they outcompete zero-emission vehicles and “lock in a commitment to future carbon emissions,” the report noted.

Sonnenfeld believes California policymakers need to explain how they expect these publicly subsidized renewable facilities to treat their workers and ensure their facilities run safely.

Cal/OSHA did not respond to questions about how it will guarantee the safety of employees at renewable fuel refineries that receive billions in taxpayer subsidies if it does not ensure workers have a meaningful voice in safety plans.

If there had been a proper process-hazard analysis in place when Marathon restarted its operations in 2023 as required by the code regulating petroleum refineries, USW’s Plurkowski said, they would have checked every single part of every piece of equipment with a worker to map out all the potential scenarios that could cause problems.

But they didn’t do that, he said.

As workers approach nearly three months without a paycheck, Plurkowski wants to see them get back to work. But with negotiations set to resume Friday, safety has to be a priority, he said.

And with even fewer people keeping the refinery going since the strike, he said, “it just scares the hell out of me to think that these guys are going to go back in the plant once again after a prolonged period of time outside of the plant.”

Who knows how many valves could again be in the wrong position, just waiting for the right conditions to cause another fire like the one that injured Serrano, Plurkowski said.

“I’m really scared that it’s going to happen again.” … See MoreSee Less

California Biofuel Refinery Workers Say Understaffing and Fatigue Threaten Their Safety and the Community – Inside Climate News

insideclimatenews.org

After a catastrophic fire at a Bay Area renewable fuel refinery nearly killed a worker, his union colleagues fought for stronger protections. Now they’re locked out.

Worker Solidarity Action Network

2 months ago

Lessons of Minneapolis Teamster General Strike For Today
laborfest.net/2026/event/lessons-of-minneapolis-teamster-general-strike-for-today/
Wednesday July 8 @ 5:00 pm pst/7:00 pm cst/8:00 pm est
78-Mineapolis-Teamsters-GSx600.jpg
Zoom event
With Professor Bryan Palmer
The 1934 Minneapolis Teamster general strike was a pivotal point in national organizing particularly for Teamsters. The lessons of how that strike took place and how it was successful despite the role of the employers, thugs, the government and National Guard which was brought into break the strike.
Bryan Palmer has written one of the most important histories of this strike titled Revolutionary Teamsters, The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strikes of 1934 and will talk about the lessons for today. … See MoreSee Less

Events for July 2026 – LaborFest 2026

laborfest.net

With Professor Bryan Palmer The 1934 Minneapolis Teamster general strike was a pivotal point in national organizing particularly for Teamsters.

Worker Solidarity Action Network

2 months ago

Jim Crow 2, Redistricting, Labor the Fight Against Racism & The New Confederacy
laborfest.net/2026/event/jim-crow-2-redistricting-labor-the-fight-against-racism-the-new-confeder…
Friday July 10 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm PDT
Zoom event
The open move to disenfranchise the Black people and remove Black representatives is part of the effort to sanitize Black history and return to the Confederacy.
This panel will look at what this means to Black people and the Black working class and the role of unions and the working class as a whole.
Initial speakers:
Steve White – Teacher In CTA
Barry Anderson – IBT 856 Steward, Musician
George Wright – Professor CSUC & Skyline College
Akua Holt Houston – Houston Texas KPFT
C.C. Cambell – Independent Jounalist New Orleans, Louisiana
Cheryl Thornton – SEIU 1021 SF Community Healthcare Chapter
Brena Barros – SEIU 1021 SF General Hospital Chapter
Orlando Tolbin – SEIU 1021 SF Mental Health Mission Mental Health Clinic

www.laborfest.net … See MoreSee Less

LaborFest 2026 – LaborFest 2026

www.laborfest.net

The massive industrialization of Vietnam and the conditions of women migrant workers is a serious issue and the focus of this report.

Worker Solidarity Action Network

2 months ago

“An Attack on All of Us”: Labor Rallies at Courthouse for the Minnesota 15

workdaymagazine.org/an-attack-on-all-of-us-labor-rallies-at-courthouse-for-the-minnesota-15/

MINNESOTANEWSUNIONS

Ahead of the first hearing for the 15 activists and community defenders charged with conspiracy by the federal government, a crowd full of supporters gathered and demonstrated in solidarity.
BY AMIE STAGER | 18 hours ago
Tony LaRose, a member of IBEW Local 110, has been deeply disturbed ever since two of his coworkers and union brothers were arrested and had their houses raided by federal law enforcement on June 16. “This has been an attack on one of us, which makes it an attack on all of us,” LaRose said to a crowd of demonstrators rallying in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday at noon.

The crowd of around 300 was full of people wearing shifts with their union logos and colors, and some held signs that said, “Community, not conspiracy!” They gathered in front of the Diana E. Murphy federal courthouse to call on the government to drop the charges against fifteen anti-ICE union and community activists ahead of their first hearing. After the indictment in June of 15 Minnesotans, many of whom are union members, the state’s labor movement and community organizations are continuing to stand in solidarity with those who were targeted with charges of criminal conspiracy for activity related to protesting ICE. The speakers were overwhelmingly from the labor movement, and they argued that the charges are a form of political repression for the widespread response to Operation Metro Surge, are intended to silence dissent, and are an attack on unions’ and workers’ rights to freedom of speech, protest, and organizing.

Olga González is a professor at Macalester College in St. Paul who read a statement from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). “The Macalester chapter of the AAUP condemns the federal indictment of professor Erik Davis and 14 others for exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest the actions of the federal government during Operation Metro Surge,” she said, addressing the crowd. “The citizens of Minnesota, including Professor Davis and co-defendants, participated in a broad, popular movement to protect their communities against an indecent assault by our government.”

Educators in Minnesota have been active in that response, raising funds for families and basic needs such as groceries and rent money. Treasure Thoreson is a special education teacher in Minneapolis and member of Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59 who spoke in support of the Minnesota 15 and denounced the targeting of public schools during Operation Metro Surge. “ICE snatched parents who were dropping their kids off in the morning. They followed school buses to school drop-off zones, and people’s homes to kidnap them in front of their own children, sometimes leaving them alone. School staff responded by being good neighbors,” she said at the rally. “Don’t stop being good neighbors.”

Speakers pointed out that the federal government has not yet brought charges against the officers who shot and killed two Minnesotans. “Instead of holding federal agents accountable for shooting and killing Renee Good and our union brother Alex Pretti, the Trump administration continues to weaponize the Justice department to settle scores and intimidate citizens for being good neighbors and exercising our constitutional rights,” said Todd Dahlstrom, the organizing and growth director at the Minnesota AFL-CIO, which represents 300,000 union members in the state. The national AFL-CIO just held its 30th convention in Minneapolis, where the anti-ICE resistance was celebrated.

Organizers say around 100,000 people marched downtown on January 23 in the economic shutdown against ICE. This included graduate workers at the University of Minnesota, according to President of Graduate Labor Union-UE Local 1005 Ben Lewis. “Fifteen people were indicted. Something else was indicted as well, our ability to organize,” he said to the crowd. “It is very clear to me that the feds looked at the wave of organizing that swept this city and they’re now working very hard to criminalize and warn us against building on that.”

Samantha Diaz Powell is deputy chief of staff at SEIU Local 26, which represents janitors, security officers, airport workers, and rideshare drivers, many of whom are members of communities targeted by Operation Metro Surge. “Over 100,000 of us peacefully marched in minus twenty degree weather. We stood up to the attacks on our state,” she said. “Ahead of our midterm elections, the Trump regime’s weaponized Department of Justice is lashing out in hopes of intimidating people who challenge their corruption, their abuses of power, and attacks on our freedoms.”

The government is trying to make an example out of the Minnesota 15, according to Chris Rubesch, president of Minnesota Nurses Association. “What happens in that courthouse is happening in our name. I don’t consent to these actions,” he said. “If this stands, it endangers every one of my members’ future ability to use their union rights, and that is not acceptable.”

A line of people in front of a grey, red, and blue entrance to a government building. In the bottom right corner on a patch of grass lies posters, one reads “10,000 un-indicted co-conspirators"
People line up to pack the courtroom in support of the Minnesota 15. Photo by Amie Stager.
Monique Cullars-Doty is co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota and one of the protestors who was charged with conspiracy against religious freedom for disrupting a service at Cities Church in St. Paul where an ICE field director works as a pastor. “I want to encourage everyone to continue to stand up for them, encourage them and their families, let them know they are not alone and that the work they have done here is important,” she said at the rally.

The energetic crowd and speakers say they remain committed to standing in solidarity with the Minnesota 15. “This past winter, the Trump administration tried to break Minnesota solidarity,” said Dahlstrom at the rally. “They failed. Now they will try to break us in the court room. They will fail again.”

By Amie Stager
|
18 hours ago
Amie Stager is the Associate Editor for Workday Magazine. … See MoreSee Less

“An Attack on All of Us”: Labor Rallies at Courthouse for the Minnesota 15

workdaymagazine.org

Ahead of the first hearing for the 15 activists and community defenders charged with conspiracy by the federal government, a crowd full of supporters gathered and demonstrated in solidarity.