Cleaning workers’ campaign for justice met with violence (yesterday + video)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4813

16 March 2011

MINNEAPOLIS - A Cub Foods security officer assaulted supporters of workers who clean metro-area grocery stores when they conducted a nonviolent protest Tuesday, organizers said. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGJaMAX33xY&feature=player_embedded

Allies of CTUL, the Center of Workers United in Struggle, spoke out in the Cub Foods store on Lake Street in Minneapolis, but were “met with violence, aggression, and indiscriminate pepper spraying of protesters, shoppers, and even reportedly two small children, by a security guard at the Cub Foods store,” CTUL said. “Several people were physically assaulted and one woman was sent to the hospital as a result of this violent reaction.”

Members of CTUL work for contractors hired to clean Twin Cities grocery stores. They are calling on Lunds & Byerly’s, SuperValu (parent company of Cub Foods), and Target to partner with workers to create a code of conduct guaranteeing fair wages and working conditions for the cleaning workers.

“We will continue to organize nonviolently until all retail cleaning workers gain justice!” CTUL said in a statement.

For more information
Visit the CTUL website: http://ctul.net/