Community leaders urge Eugene Springfield to join nationwide shutdown

Speaker Community leaders ask Eugene Springfield to join a nationwide shutdown of work, schools, and nonessential government services this Friday, Jan. 30. At a press conference Jan. 28, Rob Fisette:

Rob Fisette I’m Rob Fisette, I’m an organizer with the Lane County Immigrant Defense Network. Many of you saw last night at the Federal Building, protesters, the singing faith vigil in the afternoon, attacked by militarized goons at the Federal Building, which just was kind of the start of a long day, which included an attack on a vigil last night by the Oregon Nurses Association in honor of ICU nurse Alex Pretti who was killed on Saturday by Customs and Border Patrol in Minneapolis. 

So I think we’re all experiencing this rising level of violence, the rising level of chaos that’s being brought against our people who are standing up for what’s right for our neighbors. and there’s a really seething rage that is just coursing through our society right now. 

And this kind of manifested on last Friday, the 23rd in Minneapolis, as a total shutdown of the entire city, transit union, teachers unions, a lot of other unions on board, airport union. They shut down a terminal in the airport. There were 100,000+ people in the streets of Minneapolis that day. Nothing was happening in Minneapolis that day, actually, a really historic, truly historic shutdown of a U.S. city, the first time in over 80 years that there’s been a general strike, even for one day in one city.

And so this is the kind of fightback that I think we’ve seen building from the No Kings movement with, you know, 7 million to 10 million people in the street around the country, people understanding that there’s no election—we can’t sit by and let this happen, and wait for an election to happen before we do something. Political action is what we do in the street, using our power as workers to shut it down if we’re not getting what we need.

So on the heels of that, the Somali Student Association and the Black Student Union and other student groups at Minneapolis put out a call this week for a nationwide shutdown on Friday, Jan. 30. And so we’re here today because Eugene and Springfield are heeding that call, and especially on the heels of what we saw last night.

We’re going to be out here on Friday saying ‘No business as usual. We’re shutting it down.’ Eugene and Springfield on Friday, we’ll be out here at the Springfield City Hall starting at 2 p.m. And we invite you all to join us…

I want to call up Johanis Tadeo, a long-time organizer with the Springfield Alliance for Equity and Respect (SAFER).

Johanis Tadeo We are standing in Springfield today because of what is happening across the country. It’s not distant. It reaches into our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces, and our families. Right now, communities everywhere are being told to carry on like nothing is wrong—to keep working, to keep shopping, to keep quiet.

But when people are being taken from their homes, when families are living in fear, when lives are lost for speaking out and protecting people, there’s no such thing as business as usual.

What happened in Minnesota shook the nation, but it also showed us something powerful. When people act together, when workers, students, families, business owners refuse to normalize harm in cities, cities can become places of protection instead of silence, instead of pain.

That matters here in Springfield. Our community has felt the pressure for a long time. Immigrant families are afraid to drive, to report crimes, to go to work, to send their kids to school. Workers are being told to keep showing up while their neighbors disappear. Small businesses depend on the very communities now living under that fear.

So today we are calling on Springfield to stand with its people. We are asking local businesses to shut down on Friday, not out of disruption, but out of solidarity with the community that sustains them. If your customers are scared, if your workers are hurting, if your neighbors are under attack, then closing your doors for a day is an act of care, not loss.

We are asking city leadership to do what is within their power. We know cities can’t control federal agencies, but cities can choose not to normalize fear. They can shut down non-essential operations. They can speak clearly. They can show residents that their safety and dignity matter more than appearances.

Leadership is not about hiding behind limits. It’s about using every tool you have to protect its people. Springfield has a choice: to look away, or to lead. We’re done waiting. We are done being told to stay silent until the next election. We are done being asked to accept fear as normal. This Friday, we ask Springfield to stand still so our community can move forward.

Shut down in solidarity. Shut down out of respect. Shut down for the people who make this city what it is. Shut it down on Friday. 

Rob Fisette We’re going to be canvassing businesses in Eugene as well. And we already know of a few businesses in Eugene that are planning to shut down. We’re making a big push today and tomorrow. So just to echo Johanis’s call, anywhere you go, bring up the shutdown. Ask if they’re planning to shut down. Tell them at least nine businesses have already agreed to do this, in Eugene and Springfield and that that’s what it takes. That’s what it took in Minneapolis to shut it down. It’s happening regardless.

Speaker Local media asked why the violence by federal agents is escalating now. From the Lane County Immigrant Defense Network, Rob Fisette: 

Rob Fisette I think, you know, it comes down to that we’re winning, that’s why (applause). They didn’t—the shutdown of Minneapolis on Friday, as I tried to highlight earlier, is an absolutely historic event. 

The total shutdown, supported by labor, this is like a historic moment in U.S. history, given the rising level of resistance that people are showing, and it’s finally settling in on that shutdown tactic that is absolutely terrifying to the millionaires and billionaires whose agenda this really is. 

And so I think that’s the short answer, is that there was a show of how much power we can have when we’re united. And really that’s been building—that’s been building in all the resistance that we’ve seen all around the country—but in Minneapolis on Friday, they really, really showed that we can actually do it.

The fact that we’re winning and they’re scared of our winning and want to try to continue to intimidate us—it’s the only tactic in their toolbox. But we have all the knowledge, we have all the creativity, we have all the tactics. So we can show up at the Federal Building and demonstrate and we can also figure out how to shut down our own cities, to show that kind of same level of unity and solidarity we saw in Minneapolis. 

Speaker Community leaders ask Eugene Springfield residents to join the shutdown this Friday in a nonviolent protest of escalating federal violence.