The Twin Cities Workers' Defense Alliance is a network of working class people and autonomous councils organized on the job and in the streets to practice militant rank and file labor struggle and community self defense. We are an anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian organization committed to building and maintaining autonomous worker and tenant councils, defense bodies, and mutual aid projects. We are an anti-racist and anti-sexist network that recognizes that an injury to one is an injury to all, and that the liberation of each is bound up in the liberation of all. We set out to unmake this nightmare world we’re inheriting, and make a new one in the ashes of the old.
Resources
Know Your Local Transphobes
Printable PDF guide to some local Proud Boys and other far-right agitators to look out for at Drag Story Hour events.
SALUTE / ALERTA mnemonics for actionable information
We help protect one another by sharing useful and actionable information.
ALERTA: Activity, Location, Equipment, Request aid, Time & date, Appearance
SALUTE: Size, Activity, Location, Uniform, Time, Equipment
Apo's Guide To Tekmîllin' Like A Villain
This Zine is a short guide, condensed from two articles originally published at the Komun Academy website--"Tekmîl: Creating a Culture of Constructive Criticism" by Philip Arges O'Keeffe (2018) and "Struggling Against the System in Ourselves: Criticism and Self-Criticism" (2020).
The Defender: Winter 2020/21
‘zine of the Workers Defense Alliance, Twin Cities, Winter 2020/21.
In this issue: We Build Solidarity, Not Pipelines • Politics Without Proud Boys • Reflections on Action Tactics • Copwatch in the Twin Cities • Recuperation, Collaborators, and Informants • Five Fascist Fuckers • Sanctuary: How I Came To Find a Home • A Powderhorn Neighbor on Solidarity • Housing and Racial Justice • A Summer of Militant Action for Housing Justice • Behind the Barricades at 18th Avenue • Frontline Fight Against Allina Workplace Retaliation • When The Man Tries to Tell You About Racism
Blog
Anti-Drag Campaign Attacks Queer Community, Art, and Workers; Antifascists Fight Back
Visitors to St Paul public libraries in recent weeks may have found an atmosphere quite different from the usual quiet and calm among the bookshelves. On two separate occasions since September, our libraries have played host to competing rallies - on the one hand, members of a hate mob gathered to oppose queer cultural events, particularly Drag Queen Story Hour. On the other hand, antifascists and other community members there to defend queer people and freedom of expression.
Although the far right street presence in the Twin Cities has been beaten back multiple times in the last five years, it is undergoing a resurgence - and its target is the queer community, through a manufactured outrage around drag events.
cw: mentions of CSA, transphobic & racist violence, anti-trans and antisemitic conspiracy theories
Build-your-own portable air filter to reduce COVID-19 and airborne pollutants this Saturday Oct 22 1pm
Join Hackers Without Borders, Freedom Street Health, and Northsiders for an afternoon of building box-fan filters that can protect people from air pollution and reduce COVID-19 transmission in homes, classrooms, and gathering places.
1pm–3pm, Saturday, October 22, 2022
Cleveland Park (North Russel Avenue & North 33rd Avenue, near North Penn & North Lowry Avenues, behind the Lowry Avenue Post Office)
Filters and masks sponsored by Agaric Technology Collective.
Proud Boys Try to Start Violent Confrontation at Children's Event at Public Library, Fail
A joyous Saturday morning of story telling by beloved local drag performers for children and families was in danger of being disrupted by a group of Hold the Line MN and Proud Boys. A coalition of counterprotesters ensured the event proceeded as planned, thwarted the Proud Boys in inciting violence, shielded families and children from pornographic images displayed by Hold the Line MN and the Proud Boys, and made sure all attendees were able to leave safely.
cw: virulent transphobia, queerphobia, transphobic rhetoric
Statement on Ukraine
We express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine struggling against the attempt by the Russian state to re-colonize them. We condemn both the invasion, and the long campaign of aggression that Russia has waged against Ukrainians.