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Victory

Striking Tenants Withhold Rent For 247 Days And Win

Tenants in Kansas City are declaring victory after eight months on rent strike—the longest such action in the city’s history. Residents of Independence Towers, an 11-story building with a troubled history, won a contract with their landlord that stabilizes rents and imposes deadlines to complete plumbing and other major repairs. To reach the deal, tenants formed a union, waged a months-long pressure campaign and, ultimately, negotiated through an elected bargaining committee — an outcome that lends momentum to efforts to adapt labor union strategies for housing fights.

Afro-Indigenous Man To Receive Nearly $7 Million For Wrongful Conviction

Milwaukee, Wisconsin — On May 13, the Milwaukee Common Council approved a $6.96 million settlement for the wrongful conviction of an Afro-Indigenous man who spent 18 years in prison. Danny Wilber, an Oneida Nation of Wisconsin citizen, was convicted for first-degree intentional murder in Milwaukee County for an incident that occurred in Jan. 2004. The wrongful conviction settlement is the second largest in Milwaukee’s history, and is the result of a federal lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee and nine former Milwaukee police officers alleged to have violated Wilber’s constitutional rights. “The Milwaukee Police Department knew Danny Wilber was innocent—and they framed him anyway," said Lacey Kinnart, Wilber’s partner for more than a decade, in an interview with the LRI Native News Desk.

Students Achieve Israeli Divestment Victories On US College Campuses

Two significant US campus divestment victories were hard-won by students and community activists in San Francisco, California, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On 19 April, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Graduate Student Union democratically adopted a resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for the MIT community to cut all research and financial ties with the Israeli military. According to the MIT Coalition for Palestine, along with BDS Boston, the Industrial Liaison Program of MIT officially cut its ties with Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.

Long Strike Yields Big Gains For Kaiser Mental Health Workers

The 196-day strike of Kaiser Southern California mental healthcare workers is over. The 2,400 therapists, psychiatric nurses, social workers and psychologists won significant gains not just for themselves but for their patients in a time of an acute national mental healthcare crisis. They are members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers. They outlasted Kaiser, the huge California-based health maintenance organization, with six and a half months of picket lines from Modesto to San Diego. They held rallies at Kaiser’s Southern California medical centers. They blockaded the Sunset Strip. They held a hunger strike, putting their own health on the line to improve care for patients and reverse Kaiser’s record of misconduct.

Workers In Samsung India’s Chennai Plant Win A Significant Pay Raise

The workers of the Samsung India’s Chennai plant secured a landmark wage revision agreement after a long battle with the company management on Monday, May 19. Samsung management was forced to agree to revise the wages of all workers at the plant, increase leave, and improve the overall working conditions at the factory. The agreement was negotiated by the newly formed Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) with the company management, under the mediation of the Tamil Nadu state government, where the plant is situated. Announcing the agreement, A. Soundararajan, president of the Tamil Nadu Center for Indian Trade Union (CITU), with which the SIWU is affiliated, congratulated the workers and the SIWU leadership for the victory.

Powerful Three-Day Strike Wins New Contract For Transit Engineers

On May 18, Locomotive Engineers at New Jersey Transit (NJT) won a new tentative contract with an improved wage offer after a solid three-day strike that halted the vital passenger rail service statewide. A message on the union’s strike website said it all: “Thank you members. We did it.” The NJT engineers were forced out on strike after midnight May 16 when transit bosses walked out of contract negotiations. This was the second round of bargaining with the Locomotive Engineers union, representing 450 engineers and trainees, after 87 percent of voting members overwhelmingly rejected a previous proposal.

Courts Force Release Of Detained Students; Campus Activism Reignites

Since the last installment of this newsletter, two students detained by the Trump administration have been released on bail. Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student who was kidnapped by agents during a citizenship interview, was released from a Vermont correctional facility on April 30. “The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford. Mahdawi addressed a crowd of supporters and reporters upon his release. “For anybody who is doubting justice, this is a light of hope and faith in the justice system in America,” Mahdawi told a crowd outside the courthouse after his release.

Trans-Led Advocacy Wins Hard-Fought Victory In Colorado Legislature

On Tuesday, Colorado lawmakers passed a landmark bill aimed at strengthening protections for transgender people in the state. After the Senate passed the measure, the House quickly approved the amendments, clearing the way for the legislation to be signed into law by the governor. “In a time where trans people are feeling lost, alone, terrorized, and unsafe let this bill be a message. Trans people deserve to live,” Z Williams, co-executive director of Bread and Roses Legal Center, told Truthout. “Trans people can win. Trans people belong.” Named in honor of Kelly Loving — a transgender woman killed in the Club Q shooting — the Kelly Loving Act includes several provisions designed to make Colorado a safer, more affirming place for trans people.

Federal Judge Orders Release Of Palestinian Student Mohsen Mahdawi

Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi is free on bail after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release. It’s the first order mandating the release of a student detained by the Trump administration. The New York Times called his release “a defeat” for the administration’s “widening crackdown against student protesters.” “The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Judge Geoffrey Crawford at an April 30 hearing. “Mr. Mahdawi, I will order you released.” Crawford also compared Trump’s crackdown to the Red Scare and said that period of history wasn’t one that people should be proud of.

Trump’s Reinstatement Of Student Visas Shows Power Of Mobilizing

In the face of mounting opposition and outrage to his reactionary program, Trump has been forced to reinstate thousands of visas of international students that his administration has tried to revoke. This policy reversal puts important limitations on his administration’s attempts to repress dissent from universities (especially from the Palestine movement), and carry out mass deportations. It is a testament to the power and importance of mass resistance from below, and speaks to the fact that Trump never had a mandate for his reactionary agenda. Opposition to Trump’s authoritarian policies has been increasing ever since Trump began his second term.

Chicago Teachers Approve Contract With Remarkable Gains

This month, 85 percent of the Chicago Teachers Union’s 27,000 active members voted on a tentative agreement covering 500 public schools across the city. A record 97 percent voted yes. The contract will run from 2024 to 2028, expiring at the same time as the UAW’s contracts with the Big Three. The negotiation drew the greatest level of member participation and support in the CTU’s history and was achieved without a strike or a strike vote. The new contract addresses both bread and butter concerns and common-good demands. Said CTU president Stacy Davis Gates, a member of the union’s Caucus of Rank and File Educators: “It was the whole buffet.”

Jobs Back: Alamo Drafthouse Workers Force Sony To Reverse Layoffs

After nearly two months on strike, workers at Alamo Drafthouse, a dine-in cinema chain, have forced Sony to reverse course on its mass firings. Last Sunday, Alamo United members overwhelmingly ratified a tentative agreement that restores every illegally laid off worker to their job, reinstates stolen paid time off and sick leave, and honors each worker’s original hire date and seniority. The strike officially ends this Friday. Alamo Drafthouse, which was acquired by Sony in June 2024, started the year by trying to push through mass layoffs at multiple locations. At its non-unionized locations like its Slaughter Lane venue in Austin, the company laid off 25 percent of its hourly staff in January.

Landlords Fined $80K For Threatening To Call ICE On Chicago Tenants

An Illinois circuit court judge has ordered Chicago landlords to pay former tenants $80,000 after they threatened to report the tenants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in June 2020. The decision is the first under the state’s 2019 Immigrant Tenant Protection Act (ITPA), which prohibits landlords from using a tenant’s immigration status to harass or intimidate them. “This decision provides a measure of justice to a family facing a landlord willing to threaten to call federal immigration authorities in the belief that it would scare tenants,” Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, said in a statement.

Vermont Towns Vote To Cut Ties With Israeli Apartheid

On Tuesdays voters across the state of Vermont passed a number of non-binding resolutions declaring their towns and cities “apartheid-free communities.” The effort, organized by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), passed in Brattleboro, Winooski, Newfane, Plainfield, and Thetford. The question appeared on nine ballots on Town Meeting Day. Vermont is the first state in the country where municipalities have voted to cut economic ties with Israel. The pledge affirms a commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people, opposes all forms of bigotry, and pledges toward ending “support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.”

Yves Engler: We Won

After spending five days imprisoned, I was released without restriction on my ability to discuss the charges brought against me for criticizing Israel. It’s a small win for free expression and Palestine campaigning. In court on Monday the judge effectively forced the crown to drop its bid to block me from mentioning arch anti Palestinian Dahlia Kurtz. The crown wanted to restrict my ability to mention the name of the Jewish supremacist who instigated a police complaint against me. The outpouring of support has been heartwarming and helpful. On Thursday morning 30 joined an emergency rally to accompany me to the police station where I was detained.

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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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