Fridley's Home Depot among 10 Twin Cities Stores Targeted in 1-Day Strike

Retail cleaning workers who work for companies that are hired to clean Target and other stores in the Twin Cities were on strike Tuesday at a handful of locations.

The work stoppage is being coordinated by Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha, (CTUL), a Twin Cities workers center that has been attempting to organize the retail cleaners for the past two years.

The labor organization said the workers were waging a one-day strike for what it is alleges are unfair labor practices by the cleaning contractors. The CTUL alleges that employers have, among other things, threatened to fire workers if they signed petitions to organize.

The group has had protesters at the downtown Minneapolis Target  store as well as, among other places, the Burnsville Kmart, a Target in Woodbury, a Home Depot in Fridley and a Target in Shakopee, according to Veronica Mendez, a CTUL spokeswoman.

Mendez gave this account by email Tuesday to Fridley Patch.

Today, we focused on 10 stores, at those 10 stores the majority of workers went on strike. this is about adozen workers. they work for Eurest, Diversified, and Carlson. At the Home Depot in Fridley, only one worker cleans the whole store and the company is Eurest. he was on strike today; He will return to work tomorrow. He is legally protected from being replaced or fired as this is a one day unfair labor practice strike. We expect that Eurest will follow the law and allow workers back to work their normal shifts tomorrow.

Eurest and Home Depot didn't immediately return messages.

For background on the retail cleaners group, see this Patch report.