“Listen, we already know they’re already coming after union rights. I mean, they’re coming nationwide, in legislation and Congress, they’re always coming after organized labor,” Michelle Maese, president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1107 in Nevada said. “Just better wages and benefits means that the billionaires have to be accountable, so of course they’re going to come after us.”
The Trump regime made multiple actions against workers and organized labor, including an executive order in March that would prevent government workers in national security agencies from collective bargaining, according to the Associated Press.
Despite the president touting his budget bill as a win for workers by adding additional tax deductions for overtime pay, his regime also reduced the amount of workers in the country that qualify for overtime thanks to a reversal of a Biden administration overtime change, according to the National Employment Law Project. The rule expanded the number of workers that would qualify for overtime pay, and was blocked by a Texas judge, then the Trump Department of Labor paused all appeals to that decision.
These administrative actions were compounded by Trump’s Immigration Customs Enforcement police force detaining David Huerta, president of SEIU’s California branch. On June 6, 2025, Huerta was thrown on the ground and taken into federal custody by ICE agents for peacefully observing workplace raids by the police force.
Huerta was hospitalized due to injuries inflicted by the ICE agents that detained him then was taken into federal custody, according to multiple news sources. He was released later.
“Although he has been released from custody, like he was pushed down, disregarded like he was nothing, just standing up for his brothers and sisters, just trying to stay in the fight, just demanding that people are treated with dignity, and have the ability to exercise their First Amendment right. And to watch him just be pummeled and have no regard was disgusting. Very disgusting.”
After Huerta was detained, SEIU branches across the country sprang into action, with multiple protests throughout the country, including Maese’s branch in Nevada. Maese said that even though she and many of her colleagues were in Washington DC when Huerta was detained, they immediately organized protests across the country to respond to the Trump regime’s actions.
“We just go into fight mode because we’re used to fighting our employer, or fighting big corporations,” Maese said.
SEIU plans to continue standing up to the government going forward, and Maese said that her branch is partnering with multiple community partners, including the ACLU, to help both their own workers and members of the Latino and immigrant communities.
She said that SEIU Local 1107 has participated in programs that teach people their rights when faced with ICE officers, and some events to help immigrants to secure their legal papers. She also said that SEIU will continue to attend rallies standing up to the Trump regime’s agenda, like how the union attended the No Kings Protests in June.
Maese said the public needs to support organized labor and resist the expanding tyranny of the Trump regime, because they will continue targeting more people if not.
“One day it’s going to be you,” Maese said. “because today they’re saying immigrants. Today, they’re saying people who are undocumented. Tomorrow, they’re going to say you, someone who looks just like you. It’s always something else the next day, and it gets bigger and gets bolder. Then we have to be bigger and bolder to let them know that we’re not going to back down.”
Mark Credico is an independent journalist working in Southern Nevada. He covers subjects including government accountability, homelessness, workers' unions and the environment.
