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Detroit

You’re Already On Strike; How to Turn Up the Heat

Teamsters at Marathon Petroleum in Detroit have been on the picket line since September 4, their first strike in 30 years. Tankers filled with gasoline regularly exit the massive, belching refinery on a main Detroit artery, as Marathon continues production with supervisors brought in from other facilities. Workers have handbilled gas stations, as well as sometimes following Marathon trucks and picketing them when they make deliveries. They’ve gotten support from the Detroit City Council and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, as well as other unions like the UAW who have joined their picket lines.

Agricultural Design Studio Working To Build A Food-Sovereign Detroit

Driving down Monterey Street on Detroit’s westside, there are more abandoned and vacant houses than occupied ones. Sidewalks are overgrown with grass, and stretches of land as long as football fields separate the homes that remain. About midway down the block, between Wildemere and Lawton streets, is Fennigan’s Farms. You can’t miss it from the tall towers of bright yellow sunflowers waving in the wind. As you walk up, there’s a table with tomatoes and a sign that reads “Free Produce.” Amanda Brezzell is the co-founder and creative director at Fennigan’s Farms. Brezzell says the farm and design firm’s mission is to be a resource to the community, helping Detroiters achieve food sovereignty by providing fresh, accessible food, some at no cost.

Raising Chickens, Ducks, And Bees Allowed In Detroit

Detroiters will soon be able to keep chickens, ducks, and honeybees in their backyards under a new ordinance passed by the Detroit City Council on Tuesday. The council voted 5-3 in favor of the measure, which goes into effect in January 2025, marking a shift in urban agriculture regulations and allowing residents to raise certain animals for fresh food production, including eggs and honey, within city limits. Advocates see the new ordinance as a way to combat food insecurity and improve access to healthy, local food. Urban agriculture can also raise property values and encourage homeownership in surrounding areas, they say.

Marathon Oil Teamsters Strike

For the first time in 30 years, Teamsters at the Marathon oil refinery in Detroit are on strike. Close to 300 workers walked out September 4. Welders, firefighters, and heavy equipment operators in the union are demanding a raise that keeps up with cost of living, along with better hours. Above all, refinery Teamsters are trying to win a guarantee against outsourcing and to strengthen their union for the future. Although Michigan repealed its "right-to-work" law in 2022, Marathon managers are refusing a clause that requires every worker covered by the contract to pay their share, and they have aggressively expanded subcontracting with non-union labor.

Detroit Marathon Refinery Workers Strike For Better Pay

On September 4, following a 95 percent strike authorization vote, Teamsters Local 283 in Detroit, representing over 250 Marathon refinery workers, walked off the job. The Teamsters have been in negotiations with plant management since November 2023 and workers have been on the job without a contract since January 1, 2024. After the company halted negotiations, workers at the refinery went on strike for the first time in 30 years. Their main demands include cost of living raises that recoup the spending power lost to inflation since the COVID pandemic began, better healthcare, a requirement that all refinery employees be union members, and an end to the use of non-union subcontractors.

The Delta Disparity: Flight Attendants Rally For Equal Pay

Detroit, MI - On Monday, August 5, Endeavor flight attendants represented by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) held an awareness picket at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) to highlight the significant pay disparities between flight attendants working for Endeavor, Delta’s wholly-owned regional subsidiary, and those working for mainline Delta Air Lines. Led by Oscar Ochomogo, president of Endeavor AFA, Council 46 DTW, the flight attendants sought to draw attention to the need to end Delta’s two-tier pay system, referred to by workers as the “Delta disparity difference.” On average, Endeavor flight attendants make 45% less than their counterparts at mainline Delta Air Lines.

Detroit Wayne State U Faculty/Staff For Justice In Palestine Formed

On June 4, hundreds of students, faculty, alumni and community members rallied on the campus of Wayne State University located in the Midtown District of Detroit. The purpose of the gathering was to send a clear message to the recently appointed President Kimberly Andrews Espy who ordered a Palestine solidarity encampment raided and destroyed by campus police on May 30. Metropolitan Detroit embodies the largest population of people of Arab and Middle Eastern descent in the United States. Consequently, many people within this community have direct familial and linguistic ties to the people most impacted by the settler-colonial regime occupying Palestine.

Detroit’s Wayne State University Encampment Shut Down By Police

After seven full days of an encampment at the center of Wayne State University in Detroit, campus police raided and removed the encampment which has demanded the complete divestment from corporations which have interests in the State of Israel. The encampment began with a demonstration on Thursday May 23 starting on Woodward Avenue and West Warren, which is the location of the WSU Welcome Center. Hundreds of students, faculty and community members then marched to the campus where the encampment was constructed right across from the Undergraduate Library (UGL).

Lessons From The Wayne State University Encampment

Amid the latest military offensive in Rafah, the movement in solidarity with Palestine has remained active. Students across the country have been at the vanguard, setting up encampments and demanding that their universities divest from the Israeli war machine. The response from university administrations has been repression so intense that it has sparked broad outrage and condemnation because of its chilling effect on the right to protest and dissent. The intense crackdowns have led sectors of the movement to take up the issue of repression as a central part of the fight for Palestine.

Unity Through Resistance: 3,000 Pro-Palestine Activists Converge In Detroit

With 3,000 people and hundreds of pro-Palestine organizations converging in a metropolitan area with the largest concentration of Arab Americans, amidst the largest movement for Palestine in US history, the People’s Conference for Palestine feels nothing short of historic. “Eternal glory to our martyrs, speedy recovery to our wounded, and freedom for our steadfast prisoners,” Mohammed Nabulsi, leader in the Palestinian Youth Movement in Houston, Texas, opened the conference with these explicitly revolutionary invocations on the first day on Friday, May 24. “In the last eight months, we, the Palestinian people, have demonstrated to the entire world, that the only way we can author our own history, and transform our present reality, is the path of unity through resistance.”

Activists Arrested At Protest Of Biden In Detroit

Detroit police arrested protesters, including members of Left Voice and Detroit Will Breathe (DWB,) at a demonstration outside of “Genocide” Joe Biden’s speech at the NAACP dinner. The protest was organized by several different Detroit based activist organizations and stood in solidarity with the people of Gaza against Biden’s continued support for the genocide. 

Detroit: $1,700 Duplex Is Now One Of The City’s Most Energy-Efficient Homes

In 2016, the home Kendal Kuneman’s grandmother grew up in sat abandoned in Detroit like so many others. Its doors and windows were gone, the roof was failing, part of a stairwell was missing, and scrappers had stripped the home of its metal. But the family connection drove Kuneman to buy the duplex for $1,700 from the Detroit Land Bank with the notion of transforming it into a green home. Seven years later, the Faust Street house is something else entirely: It is among the most energy-efficient homes in Detroit, fully electrified, and on the path to becoming net zero.

‘Move The Money’: Detroit Votes For Slashing Bloated Pentagon Budget

Detroit, Michigan - Following in the footsteps of neighboring Hamtramck, Detroit has become the biggest U.S. city so far to pass a “Move the Money” resolution. The measure, approved unanimously by City Council on Tuesday, calls on the U.S. Congress and the president to shift public money away from the military to fund social services. The Michigan Peace Council, a major backer of the campaign to win the resolution, praised the council vote, which came on the same day that nearly 101,000 Michiganders voted “Uncommitted” in the Democratic primary to oppose President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s brutal war against Gaza.

Detroit Casino Workers On Strike For The First Time In History

For nearly a month, the casino workers at Detroit’s three casinos, MGM Grand, Hollywood at Greektown, and MotorCity, have been on strike. This coincides with the strike wave that is happening in the Metro Detroit area, including workers at Blue Cross Blue Shield, and following the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike at the Big Three auto manufacturers who recently reached a Tentative Agreement (TA). The casino workers represented by Unite Here Local 24, UAW, Teamsters Local 1038, Operating Engineers Local 324, and Regional Council of Carpenters that make up The Detroit Casino Council (DCC) have demanded the following: a wage increase to keep with inflation, lowering the price of healthcare, and job security with the guarantee that the casinos won’t replace their jobs with technology before the contract is up.

150,000 United Auto Workers Vote To Authorize Strike By 97% Majority

Detroit, Michigan - United Auto Workers (UAW) members voted overwhelmingly, August 25, to grant authorization to call for strikes during ongoing contract negotiations between UAW and General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis motors companies if needed to win their demands in bargaining. Union members voted to authorize the strike by an average of 97% of voters who work for the three companies. UAW President Shawn Fain said, “The Big Three is our strike target. And whether or not there’s a strike - it’s up to Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, because they know what our priorities are. We’ve been clear.” The UAW workers are fighting for a 46% wage increase, restoring their pensions, a 32-hour work week, and increased retiree benefits.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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