Talk:January 23, 2026 Minnesota protests against ICE

Involvement of "Organizing for America"

I have been looking for sources on this but cannot find any involvement for Organizing for America or Barack Obama. I will remove this being mentioned in the side bar until evidence can be provided. Dobulexyz (talk) 17:24, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Merge Day of Truth and Freedom

adding the discussion here for merging Day of Truth and Freedom

• Support what is the difference?

User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 20:11, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

did the bold redirect. these are both the same. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 20:15, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you! This was a good improvement. Bill Heller (talk) 03:10, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Not a general strike

This was more of an economic shutdown and doesn't meet the conditions for a proper general strike. I would like the article to be correct to reflect that. ~2026-52360-6 (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Do you have reliable sources to include such content? CNC (talk) 19:07, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

The sources for calling this a "general strike" are the NYT article , the Reuters article , and three articles from Jacobin, The Stranger, and Monthly Review (yes, linked for a reason). The NYT talks about the general strike only as a portion of the wider protest movement and in the context of businesses closing and labor union support. Reuters uses the term by way of parroting unnamed organizers. So it seems fair enough to say that something is going on which RS are calling a "general strike," if in an attenuated fashion.

But at the very least it seems like a stretch to use these sources to implicitly attribute leadership of a general strike to Tim Walz, Peggy Flanagan (the lieutenant governor) and Jacob Frey via infobox, none of whom have called for a "general strike"; or even to co-opt the entire protest movement as a "general strike" the way the article presently, implicitly does. Algebra-de-Borel (talk) 16:02, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

I think the claim that Tim Walz is a "lead figure" in a general strike needs to be defended. Algebra-de-Borel (talk) 17:17, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Agreed, labor organizations endorsed the protest but called on members to not strike. It would seem to be more of a sick-out/call off work rather than organized labor taking action. Other general strikes have labor unions officially calling members to strike, so there has to be some sort of distinction. Per official union posts and media:

Teamsters 638: “The collective bargaining agreement that applies to you includes a no-strike provision, so you are not legally permitted to strike on January 23.”

SEIU Healthcare MN: “The collective bargaining agreement that applies to you includes a no-strike provision and you are an essential healthcare worker, so you are not legally permitted to strike on January 23. In fact, your participation in a strike may result in being terminated from your job.”

MNA: “While supporting participation in the day of action, MNA is not calling for a work stoppage or walkout. Nurses hold a unique and essential role as caregivers and patient advocates, and MNA encourages members to honor the no-strike provisions of their contracts and report to work as scheduled."

IATSE Local 13: “We are not and cannot call for a strike at our venues. However, you as workers have the right to choose if you want to work that day. We will support your choices. You will not receive any sort of discipline if you choose to work, or if you choose to be activated. To help the call office, please make your choice before we dispatch the next batch of offered work.”

The AFL-CIO regional board explicitly avoided calling for strike action as well. ~2026-61928-4 (talk) 22:42, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

As the article stands now it is explicitly stated that no general strike occurred and then further down that there was "no significant labor stoppage" component, both times without citations. If you're going to explicitly state that something did NOT occur you still need citations for that. MusicalCartographer (talk) 19:12, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 31 January 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: There is clear consensus that a general strike has not occurred in Minnesota last 23rd of January, and that claims of a general strike is not supported by reliable sources. The article linked by "Frannastar" doesn't describe the action as a general strike, and only uses the word "strike" once for an image's caption (it wasn't repeated elsewhere). For consistency with January 30, 2026 protests against ICE I will be renaming this article to January 23, 2026 Minnesota protests against ICE. (non-admin closure) pandakekok9 (talk) Resist internet censorship in the Philippines! 05:36, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

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2026 Minnesota general strike → 2026 Minnesota ICE protests2026 Minnesota ICE protests – Wikipedia defines a general strike as "a strike action in which a substantial proportion of the total labour force in a city, region, or country participates. General strikes are characterised by the participation of workers from a multitude of workplaces across different industries, and tend to involve entire communities." A strike action is defined as "a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work."

The actions taken on January 23rd do not fulfill these definitions and thus cannot be classified as "general strikes". Over 700 small businesses closed, and an unknown amount of people called off work, but the existing labor unions that represent employees have explicitly rejected strike action. This can be seen here:

Teamsters 638: “The collective bargaining agreement that applies to you includes a no-strike provision, so you are not legally permitted to strike on January 23.” (https://www.instagram.com/p/DTvvcLICSQM/?hl=en)

SEIU Healthcare MN: “The collective bargaining agreement that applies to you includes a no-strike provision and you are an essential healthcare worker, so you are not legally permitted to strike on January 23. In fact, your participation in a strike may result in being terminated from your job. (https://www.seiuhealthcaremn.org/news/urgent-statement-to-seiu-hcmnia-members-from-the-executive-board/)”

MNA: “While supporting participation in the day of action, MNA is not calling for a work stoppage or walkout. Nurses hold a unique and essential role as caregivers and patient advocates, and MNA encourages members to honor the no-strike provisions of their contracts and report to work as scheduled." (https://mnnurses.org/minnesota-nurses-association-encourages-participation-ice-out-of-minnesota-a-day-of-truth-and-freedom/)

IATSE Local 13: “We are not and cannot call for a strike at our venues. However, you as workers have the right to choose if you want to work that day. We will support your choices. You will not receive any sort of discipline if you choose to work, or if you choose to be activated. To help the call office, please make your choice before we dispatch the next batch of offered work.” (https://www.iatse13.org/?zone=/unionactive/view_article.cfm&HomeID=980238)

The Minnesota AFL-CIO board makes no mention of striking and frames it as a protest endorsement. (https://mnaflcio.org/news/minnesotas-labor-movement-endorses-123-day-truth-freedom)

Existing articles that describe general strikes such as the 1934 Minneapolis one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_general_strike_of_1934) have labor unions explicitly calling on members to strike and a substantially larger participation in work stoppage as opposed to workers calling off the job sporadically. The distinction is clear; there was action taken to refuse to work, but it was not a "mass refusal" that encompassed a large enough proportion of workers. For a more recent example, we can look at the 2025 Italian general strike (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Italian_general_strikes_and_protests_for_Gaza) which had strike action endorsed by workers organizations. While reliable sources label this as a general strike, they are repeating what non-worker organizations are saying while ignoring the fact that no labor union called for a strike. If we were to continue calling this a general strike, then every day of action (no shopping, no work, etc.) no matter the participation would qualify. ~2026-61928-4 (talk) 23:09, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

No need to be pedantic around the title. That is because the Minneapolis Labor Council and other union locals endorsed a coordinated wildcat strike rather than a formally sanctioned economic strike. Both can lead to general strikes in effect, as long as multiple worker organizations are acting in coordination. 700 businesses is a lot of businesses, and the regional Labor Council represents 175 unions altogether.

Each union is locked into their contract cycles, so you won't see a general economic strike unless unions coordinate their contract expirations over the course of years. Still, strikes don't need to be officiated for them to have the impact of widespread and generalized economic disruption. This is still a general strike in effect, even if not in procedure. Like with ULP strikes, this one was short, but impactful in the sense that it was demonstrably disruptive, and it activated unactivated people, allowing for more organizing to be done later.

Around the question of if the size of the strike was large enough to be truly economically disruptive for the state economy, it is truthfully too early to tell. There will certainly be scholarship later studying the Minnesota economy, attempting to isolate the strike action from surrounding protests occurring throughout the state. In the mean time, we know that the strike action combined with surrounding protests were disruptive as combined forces.

Maintaining the title of this article to isolate the wildcat as a tactic pursued in the Renee Good protests, even if it was combined with a general disruptive protest, has its benefits. It documents this moment accurately, and it motivates further inquiry and practice around general strikes in the future. Inside of our Labor Council, where I live in Southern California, wildcat general strikes have been a large point of discussion over the past week because of the wildcat we saw in Minneapolis. ~2026-70572-9 (talk) 00:00, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I think the claim that "the Minneapolis Labor Council and other union locals endorsed a coordinated wildcat strike" needs to be sourced. From what I can see, all labor organizations either did not mention striking or walking off the job, tepidly said employees could call off sick, or outright said they should not strike. A wildcat strike is defined on Wikipedia as a "strike action undertaken by unionised workers without union leadership's authorization". That typically means breaking with exisiting labor law and going against the directives of union leadership. What comes to my mind is the 1970s postal workers strike and Red for Ed in the late 2010s, where workers went against union leadership instructions and illegally struck. I don't think a lot of workers did that in this instance. Also, if unions endorsed a wildcat strike, it would no longer be taken "without union leadership authorization", thus no longer making it a wildcat strike.

I do not believe multiple worker organizations were acting in coordination as the actual calls for people to walk off the job were initiated by "ICE Out of MN" in coalition with various political parties and activist groups that explicitly are not organizations that represent employees on the job. In fact, ICE Out of MN states in their toolkit that union workers have a no-strike clause (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GtKS_EdTeiuxphhRIxyOWyhSJNsTxx3Oc8IYc2eW8JE/edit?tab=t.0). This does not seem to be endorsing strike action against union leadership. Protest endorsement by multiple unions and labor organizations happens frequently, but we do not call those strikes even if other groups call for more serious economic disruption.

700 businesses is a lot, that is true, but again strike action is specifically defined as a "work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work". Employers (small business owners) do not satisfy this definition. I agree that strikes do not need to be officiated necessarily to count, but they at least need coordinated employee action, whether or not that's legal or illegal, or sanctioned or not by union leadership. Hypothetically, we could see a general strike in which union workers break the legal contract system and go against the no-strike clause.

Every strike is necessarily economic; it is the employees going against the employers precisely because of their economic relation to one another. ULP strikes have unions behind it that call on (and usually have) a substainal portion of their membership stop working. If it was not an economic strike, then it was no strike at all and would be much better categorized as a protest. ~2026-61928-4 (talk) 07:48, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Is this not a bunch of synthesis? Where in the RS about this does the term "wildcat strike" appear? Algebra-de-Borel (talk) 15:30, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

• Support per well reasoned nomination. Evidence is insufficient that a general strike occurred. Srnec (talk) 21:03, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
• Question: Aside from the notion of a general strike, there are clearly protests happening in Minnesota against the ICE deployment there (and elsewhere). Some of the people protesting are not part of unions and are not engaging in a labor strike. Is there no article that discusses the protests that are not part of the labor movement? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:46, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

  The protests that have been happening these past year or so usually have some sort of union endorsement if they are big enough, so it is hard to separate the labor movement from it all. For example, the "No Kings" protests recieved the endorsement of several unions and had a lot of labor presence (no striking though). This article details protests that have happened during the second Trump presidency, only mentioning labor when it comes to Minnesota: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_mass_deportation_during_the_second_Trump_administration

  All Wikipedia articles talking about Minnesota protests mention a "general strike" and the labor movement's involvement. Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_general_strike

  If we achieve consensus that what happened was not a general strike here, then these articles should recieve the same treatment for consistency. ~2026-61928-4 (talk) 00:58, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

  Although labor unions and strikes might be part of what is happening in these protests, I suspect they are not the central and defining element of the protests. Even if a general strike is part of what has been happening in Minnesota, labor unions and strikes don't seem to need to be part of the title. These are primarily anti-ICE protests with a labor component, not primarly labor union protests that happen to be against ICE. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:32, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

  Right, I agree. They did not take a central, defining, or leading role in these events. ICE Out of MN and other linked political groups were the primary organizers under which the unions gave an endorsement. The maximum extent of employee action was calling off sick in various different workplaces with sporadic levels of participation across employees that went directly against the boss. In fact, the toolkit specifically asks people to appeal to their boss to allow them to not go to work or close for the day as a first step. If the boss doesn't agree, then it encourages an NLRB protected strike by handing the boss a strike notice. There is no evidence that this occurred in any significant way. I am for a more thorough removal of strike language and using the terms "sick-out" or "business closures" as tactics under the broader term "economic slow down". ~2026-61928-4 (talk) 05:23, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

  Support. Although labor unions and strikes might be part of what is happening in these protests, they do not appear to be the central and defining element of the protests. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:21, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

• Keep There is now polling afterwards that suggests that 1 in 4 Minnesotans had someone in their family that participated in the general strike.

Frannastar (talk) 05:22, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Mass participation alone is not enough to qualify this action as a strike. I think we have to look qualitatively at the data given. Per the linked article: "Of those participants, 38% percent stayed off the job, either because they did not go to work, or because their employer closed for the day of action. The data does not distinguish between those who made the choice to stay out, and those who saw their workplaces close. (Some workplaces were shuttered that day due to worker pressure.)"

Of roughly 25%, 38% of that number (9.5%) did not go to work. The data does not distinguish between methods of how people did not go to work, which is a very important blind spot. Recall that a strike is defined as "a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work" by Wikipedia. This discounts activities like asking or forcing the boss to close the workplace; this implies the agreement (however coercive) between worker and boss to close the workplace, i.e. not the refusal of employees to work when expected to by the boss and the resultant class conflict. 700, and probably more, small businesses closed, meaning it was company policy to not have work on that day. This tactic cannot count as a strike action.

The data is further compounded by the factor of weather, which had closed entire school districts and daycares (https://krocnews.com/weather-closings-january-23-2026/).

There is no evidence I've seen of wildcat strikes, NLRB protected strikes, or mass refusals to work coming specifically from employees. We cannot determine the proportion between those who chose not go to work and those who had their workplace close, but we have solid evidence of mass business closure. The method promoted by ICE Out MN of calling out sick is likely what some other people in this statistic did if their workplace didn't close. To satisy the definition of a "[mass refusal of employees to work] in which a substantial proportion of the total labor force participates," we need to see data on how many workers no-showed or called off and determine if it's a big enough number to constitute a strike. Evidence seems to indicate that this number would be a fraction of the total participants, thus not making it a mass refusal with a substantial proportion of the total labor force. ~2026-61928-4 (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

• Support because this is the principal article about these protests, but the characterization of them in sources as a "general strike" is either attributive/minor (Reuters, NYT) or fringe (Jacobin et al.). Algebra-de-Borel (talk) 14:55, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

• Speedy support - this is clearly not about a general strike, but rather protests Red Slash 23:41, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

• Conditional Support - I've heard the arguments and agree. However, I think the strike should be made a dedicated section of the article, that specifically focuses on the labor movements, regardless of success. The rest of the article can be expanded to be more broad in scope.

Minnastronomer (talk) 02:09, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RE: Requested move 31 January 2026

Since one of the participants of the above RM discussion questioned about restricting the scope of the article's title I've reverted back to the original proposed target title of 2026 Minnesota ICE protests2026 Minnesota ICE protests. I was trying to apply WP:CONSISTENT, but I don't really have strong feelings on whether the article title should be only 2026 or the full date. pandakekok9 (talk) Resist internet censorship in the Philippines! 09:40, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

It seems worth discussing whether the scope of the article should be limited to January 23. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:17, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. I think it's a debate on splitting this article if anything. Red Slash 17:17, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

Requested move 11 March 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. CoconutOctopus talk 11:58, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

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January 23, 2026 Minnesota protests against ICE → 2026 Minnesota ICE protests2026 Minnesota ICE protests – The person who closed the previous RM initially moved the article to a different title than what the nominator had proposed, which no one had suggested in the discussion, and then reconsidered it after a User talk page query and used the name that had been proposed, and provided an explanation on the article talk page. Then someone else disagreed and moved it again. The result limits the scope of the article to the events of one specific day, which I don't think was agreed or even discussed. I'm not submitting this as a Move Review, because the person who closed the move moved it to the title I am suggesting, so I have no complaint about what the closer did. The problem I perceive is what happened next, which was done by someone else. I could perhaps have simply reverted the most recent move, but I don't want to get into edit warring, and the way the previous RM was closed could be a bit confusing. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:00, 11 March 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:51, 18 March 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 09:30, 30 March 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 10:02, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Oppose The current name is consistent with January 30, 2026 protests against ICE. Guz13 (talk) 21:15, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

TBF I think this proposal would necessitate a merge Red Slash 05:08, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Question: Is there a MOS:DATECOMMA issue with the original name (and the name of the consistently titled article mentioned above)? – Reidgreg (talk) 12:26, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, there is (and I wouldn't necessarily refer to it as "the original name"; it has only had that name briefly and AFAIK it is a name that was not suggested in the recent RM discussion). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:45, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject United States History, WikiProject Politics/American politics, WikiProject Sociology, WikiProject Organized Labour, WikiProject Disaster management, WikiProject Law Enforcement, and WikiProject Minnesota have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 09:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Oppose The January 23rd "ICE OUT Protest" merits its own article because the event was notable. Since multiple significant protests occurred before and after this date, especially after the killing of Alex Pretti on January 24th, a separate 2026 Minnesota ICE protests article should be created to cover these broader events. The article on the January 23, 2026 Minnesota protests against ICE should specifically focus on the events of that day, while general or overarching content about ICE protests should move to the new 2026 Minnesota ICE protests article. Myotus (talk) 15:10, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.