By: David Elsila

Labor theater returns to Detroit this Fall with a revival of the show ‘Forgotten: The Murder at the Ford Rouge Plant.’

Open auditions: Anyone who likes to sing or act can come to auditions for “Forgotten” July 11–12 at St. Matthew’s-St. Joseph’s Church on Woodward at Holbrook. Nine leads and nine chorus members will be cast, and all positions are paid. Contact davidelsila@gmail.com for more information.

One night in November 1937, Lewis Bradford was found seriously injured in an isolated section of the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn. A few days later he died.

Bradford’s voice was well known in Detroit. He hosted a radio show on WXYZ called “The Forgotten Man’s Hour” where he interviewed jobless and homeless workers. It was a counterpoint, he felt, to the right-wing antisemitic priest Father Charles Coughlin, whose “Hour of Power” radio show on WJR was beamed nationwide.

Now nearly 90 years later, the story of Bradford’s mysterious death and the struggle of workers to organize unions during the Depression will be told on stage in the play “Forgotten: The Murder at the Ford Rouge Plant.” It will run for three days at Marygrove Theatre in Detroit October 10–12. DSA members are involved on the production team or are helping raise funds to mount the show, which features 22 songs in a jazz/bluesy genre performed by a cast of more than 20 actors, singers, and musicians.

Bradford was also an assistant pastor at Detroit’s Central Methodist Church. He had taken a job at the Rouge to pay for medical care for his young daughter, Ella, who was seriously ill. There was no health insurance in those days, and a pastor’s salary alone couldn’t pay the bills. While at the Rouge, Bradford tried to interest Henry Ford in developing better relationships between workers and management. Ford rejected his overtures; indeed, earlier that year Ford security guards had attacked UAW organizers at the Battle of the Overpass.

For years, Steve Jones, Bradford’s great-nephew, had listened to family stories of his great-uncle’s life and mysterious death. In 1991, he traveled from his home in Maryland to Detroit to find out more. Weeks of research led to the discovery of Bradford’s 1937 autopsy report. Jones took it to the Wayne County Medical Examiner, who said Bradford’s death should likely have been classified as a homicide — not an accident.

That became the genesis for “Forgotten.” Jones, an accomplished composer and a member of the American Federation of Musicians union, wrote 22 songs for “Forgotten” that tell the stories of the Ford Hunger March, the Battle of the Overpass, the Flint sit-down strike, and the struggles of workers like Bradford to organize.

In 2004, the Michigan Labor History Society sponsored the premiere of the show and revived it in 2005 and 2010 to sold-out audiences. This fall will bring another opportunity for Detroit-area audiences to see it.

Tickets for “Forgotten” are $35 and available through EventBrite. Read more about “Forgotten” at MichiganLaborHistorySociety.com and get tickets here.

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David Elsila, a long-time Metro Detroit DSA member, is a producer of “Forgotten.”

Events & Actions

Wednesday, July 9 (6:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.):  July General Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, July 10 (5:50 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Socialist in Office + Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, July 10 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, July 11 (7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Comrade Karaoke (In person at The Roar Shack, 34 7th St)

Sunday, July 13 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Sip ‘n’ Stitch (In person at The Nosh Box, 1116 Folsom St)

Sunday, July 13 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Physical Education + Self Defense Training (In person at William McKinley Monument, Panhandle Park)

Monday, July 14 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)

Monday, July 14 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Tuesday, July 15 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom)

Tuesday, July 15 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Reading Group: The Housing Question by Friedrich Engels, Part 2 (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, July 16 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): What Is DSA? (In person at Potrero Branch Library, 1616 20th St)

Wednesday, July 16 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) Training Workshop (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, July 17 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, July 17 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Office Hour (Zoom)

Saturday, July 19 (10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.): No Appetite for Apartheid Training and Outreach (Meet in person for training at 1916 McAllister, then head out to do outreach in the Bayview)

Saturday, July 19 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group (HWG) Food Service (In person in the Castro)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates. Events with a are especially new-member-friendly!

Say NO to Seizing Homes!

Join DSA SF in writing the Board of Supervisors to oppose Mayor Lurie’s RV ban, which threatens to seize the homes of poor and working San Franciscans. Demand real, permanent solutions for our neighbors living in their vehicles. Email homelessness@dsasf.org with any questions.

Summer Social(ist) Events!

Mark your calendars for our Summer Social(ist) event series! Our next event is coming up this Friday, July 11th @ 7:30PM – Comrade Karaoke at the Roar Shack (34 7th Street) – Come hang out and do some FREE karaoke with your fellow DSA SF comrades or cool people you want to impress with your incredible singing voice! No songs refused, no entry denied! Suggested Donation: $10. Drinks: Wine + Beer Available / BYOB

Later this month on July 27th @ 1:05PM we’ll be going to the Oakland Ballers vs Northern Colorado Owlz baseball game + “Halloween in July Night” (at Raimondi Park) – RSVP here by July 13th so that we can put in a group order of tickets! Group tickets are are $15 per ticket, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds!

Reading Group: “The Housing Question” by Friedrich Engels

Join us in reading the seminal text on the political economy of housing. Written in 1872, The Housing Question is Friedrich Engels’ critique of the housing market and the solutions promoted by his contemporaries. 150 years later, his work resonates just as much, if not more, with tenants’ current struggles.

This two-part series will have readers discuss the various historical attitudes and debates around housing and apply those lessons to our modern housing crisis.

Join us for session 2 at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St. on July 15th at 7:00 p.m. A full PDF of the book can be found here.

EWOC: How to Talk About Organizing

EWOC (Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee) is a project of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and DSA working to build a distributed grassroots organizing program to support workers organizing at the workplace. To learn more about the work EWOC does, come by the DSA SF office to pick up a copy of Unite and Win or tune into the Labor Board’s weekly meetings every Monday at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

The next EWOC event hosted by DSA SF features EWOC staff members conducting a training on generating workplace leads and conducting organizing conversations on July 16th from 6:30 p.m to 8:30 p.m. Let us know if you can make it! Hope to see you there!

Tenant Organizing Canvass in the Mission

Help us build tenant power in SF! Tenant Organizing Working Group is hosting a canvass the Mission, in partnership with Tenant and Neighborhood Councils. We’ll meet July 19th at 3:00 p.m. at Chan Kaajal Park, near 16th St. BART station, and we’ll walk the neighborhood together, talking to tenants about their housing conditions and how collective action can help. This is a powerful way to build organizing skills and relationships within the community. We will start with a training, so no prior experience is required. Sign up here so we know you’re coming. See you there!

Social Housing Reading Group

What could social housing look like in San Francisco, and how do we get there? Join DSASF for a reading of the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report on how the city can build its own publicly owned, deeply affordable housing. We will also read the SF Berniecrats report, Housing for the 99%, which lays out a vision for social housing for all in San Francisco. Join us at 1916 McAllister Tuesday, July 22 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

DSA SF Tech Reading Group

On July 23rd from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., come join DSA SF and Rideshare Drivers United tech workers for our next monthly tech reading group.

We’ll be reading an excerpt from You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Marcotte. This event is hybrid with food provided at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St.

RSVP here to access the link to the reading! See you there!

Support the Blue Bottle Independent Union

Nestlé is one of the biggest corporations in the world charged with decades of human rights violations in the global south. They’re now in our backyard intimidating baristas with surveillance, firing, and bad-faith bargaining. Last week, baristas in four Bay Area locations of Nestlé-owned Blue Bottle presented management with a super majority of union cards and demanded voluntary recognition. Instead, Blue Bottle fired one of the organizers, B.B. Young. This comes at an especially bad time for B.B. since their husband was also recently laid off.

Blue Bottle workers are asking for our support

• Donate at this GoFundMe page 
• Sign the petition to demand that the company voluntarily recognize the Blue Bottle Independent Union
• Join the Blue Bottle Independent Union email list  or follow on Instagram to stay in touch
• If you are an employee of Blue Bottle, fill out this intake form to get involved with organizing the union at your own store

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.

With DSA’s National Convention right around the corner, our host Dylan C. talks with three delegates from Maine DSA to discuss their preparation and hopes for the upcoming event.

The post Maine Mural: Looking Forward to the DSA National Convention appeared first on Pine & Roses.

For our July Chapter Meeting, we’re having a Picnic Potluck! The Chapter will be providing hot dogs and beverages. We are asking folks to bring a side or dessert. (And camping chair if you have one.)

We’re working on securing a backup location in case of bad weather. We’ll make that decision on Saturday. Please RSVP below to receive email updates.

We’re meeting in the evening of Saturday, July 12, at Riverside Park (near the Guild St entrance). Arrive at 3pm, the meeting will start around 4pm. After the meeting, we’ll keep hanging in the park. Feel free to bring a frisbee, hacky sack, or other park activities.

We encourage you to also attend Unionizing: Escalation & Recognition, a part of our Worker’s Power Teach-in series earlier in the day, 12-2pm. The teach-in will be at Fountain Street Church, Room 109.

NOTE: Because we’ll be meeting in the park, we will not be offering a hybrid option. This will be an in-person only meeting. If you cannot attend but want to share your opinions on the agenda items please email info@grdsa.org or post to the GRDSA slack.

The post July Chapter Meeting & Picnic Potluck appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

By: Frederick Reiber

BOSTON, MA – While the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 11.1 percent of the workforce is covered by a union, nonetheless, support for unions remains at a 70-year high. Over half of American workers indicate they would vote to unionize their workplace if given the opportunity. Public opinion is similarly strong: labor’s approval rating polls in the high 60s to low 70s. 

Half of American workers may vote to unionize if given the opportunity – but since unionizing is a result of organizing with one’s coworkers, what stops workers? What tools lie in the master’s house that ensure support for labor remains trapped in a poll instead of expressed through collective action? 

One force is technology. Organizing in 2025 requires not only confronting the boss; it means contending with a growing arsenal of digital tools designed to disorganize and disempower, optimizing bosses’ own class struggle against workers. Now more than ever, workers are inundated with digital technologies, many of which can—and often have been—weaponized against labor organizers. Workers must understand the digital systems shaping our workplaces to leverage that knowledge to craft new, creative strategies to organize around—and against—them.

Management and Predictive Data

“Smart” technology has changed the corporation from the top down – starting with changes in management styles.  Today’s workers operate in environments saturated with digital surveillance. In many large companies, employees are monitored not only through traditional managerial oversight but through automated systems: sentiment surveys, productivity dashboards, keystroke monitors, and algorithmic risk assessments. In Boston, Blank Street Coffee has 70 workers with only three managers in the entire metro area. The digital systems that enable this create asymmetries that allow employers to know more about workers than workers know about each other or their own managers, making marching with demands more challenging, while also giving bosses information to predict and prevent collective action.

Amazon has made immense progress in anti-worker tools to this effect – finding ways to stop organizing in advance. Leaked internal documents reveal the company’s development of a “heat map” tool to anticipate which Whole Foods locations were most at risk of unionizing by analyzing area income, recent raises, and proximity to active unions. These insights allow Amazon to proactively intervene to disrupt organizing efforts. Instead of letting the conditions for organizing to ripen, employers have numerous tools to subvert labor law like subtly reassigning ringleaders, offering last-minute benefits to diffuse momentum, or illegally firing organizers with little consequence. For instance, in the lead up to the election in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon reduced its enforcement of its famously brutal quotas and provided employees with temporary, marginal benefits. Amazon has also used technology to make moves like raising the workload of key workers, creating a firing pretense for “failing to perform.”

Amazon went so far as to change traffic lights preventing organizers from reaching workers.

There are corporations whose entire business is predictive anti-worker action. As journalist Sarah Kessler has reported, numerous other corporations like Perceptyx and WorkTango now advertise the ability to detect early signs of organizing. Combining data from internal work surveys and demographic studies, employers can now estimate the likelihood of certain shops unionizing, or create surveys to assess how likely employees are to favor unionization. Union-busting firms like Littler Mendelson and Jackson Lewis, central to massive corporate control, have also started discussions and advertising the usage of similar tools.

Fragmented Workplace, Privatized Public Forum 

The modern workforce is far more geographically dispersed than in the heyday of labor. During the Thirties, organizing efforts were nestled in communities: steel towns, mining villages, industrial corridors. Unions were embedded in the social and civic life of workers. While successful organizing campaigns today still often activate their communities, from 2025 Fitchburg educators to the famous cases of Jane McAlevey’s whole-worker organizing in Stamford and Las Vegas, remote work and digital-first employment models fragment social networks. 

Gig-work’s invasion into several markets also has created fractured work environments for large swathes of the most precarious workers, which has led to a pivot to digital organizing. In a recent paper, we found that digital organizing in these fragmented environment struggles to replicate the relational density of place-based movements. No shared space makes solidarity harder to build. Most unions don’t host or facilitate vast sports leagues and union halls that anchor their community and the labor organizing projects that benefit from shared space, compared to previous militancies. Both workers in remote environments and in fragmented in-person ones often find themselves first developing a social layer at their workplace before being able to think about collective demands.

Both workers in remote environments and in fragmented in-person ones often find themselves first developing a social layer at their workplace before being able to think about collective demands.

Digital communication tools deepen this problem. In many tech workplaces, platforms like Slack have become the primary channel for internal communication. But discussing unionization over Slack—owned and monitored by the employer—is risky. Admins can often view supposedly private conversations, and some companies actively scan for keywords related to organizing. In other cases, companies, like Apple, restrict access to certain communication tools altogether to limit organizing. And as workers who have been through organizing campaigns with companies on Slack before know intimately, bosses are one click away from removing access to Slack. This requires developing a medium communication platform that suits the needs of workers, which may be more difficult the more diverse the membership of the union. After all – social media and messaging apps have also fragmented in recent years. Signal, Whatsapp, listserv, Messenger, Discord, text, WeChat – these and more are all possible answers. And all of them are subject to the whim and whimsy of corporate and digital surveillance, as well. 

Worse still, employers increasingly use these same digital communication tools to push active anti-union messaging. During the New York Times Tech Workers Guild campaign, workers were bombarded with directives to vote no. At Amazon, the company’s internal app, “A to Z,” sent anti-union notifications directly to workers’ phones, framing the union as a threat rather than a tool for empowerment. 

The Digital Panopticon

Technology enables a deeper, more ambient form of control: fear. We recently found that many workers are deeply anxious about employer surveillance, especially in moments where it wasn’t clear whether they were being watched, which informs what workers do. Participants mentioned co-workers being worried that their employer might hack their personal phone or that their private emails were being monitored.

Fear is a broader condition. Under contemporary workplace surveillance regimes, workers can no longer take privacy for granted.

In Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault highlights the panopticon — a theoretical prison used to illustrate how control has shifted in modern societies. No longer are we controlled by force and police. Instead, we internalize our own policing, a requirement due to the consistent but obfuscated threat of surveillance and its associated fallout. This constant fear of retaliation, a reality of surveillance and union-busting, along with the immaterial fears of employers hacking personal phones, is a symptom of this dynamic.

 The Digital Scab

Finally, even when workers succeed in unionizing, digital tools limit workers’ power to disrupt. One way they do this is through the automation of workers. This is not new – the Typographers Guild, one of the strongest American unions in the 20th century, was essentially decimated by advances in computers. Dockworkers held a multi-month battle over the introduction of automation. Here in Boston, Fenway Park concessions workers with UNITE HERE Local 26 were galvanized to authorize a strike in June 2025 for the first time in their 113-year history partly in response to the automation of their jobs. Most grimly, in 2023, National Eating Disorders Association workers were replaced by a chatbot two weeks after voting to unionize.

Many of the digital tools used to automate labor rely on data and insights generated by workers themselves. As scholar Trystan S. Goetze argues, these systems often constitute a form of unethical labor theft, extracting and repurposing human labor to destroy it.

Even strikes are affected by digital scabbing. In education, college deans have suggested using AI to substitute striking grad workers. In logistics and manufacturing, bosses reroute orders to other warehouses. All of this makes it increasingly difficult to materially impact an employer’s bottom line—a critical ingredient for winning strong contracts.

Resistance, Sabotage, and Winning

Historically, workers amidst labor struggles against workplace technology have engaged in sabotage. Maybe the most famous example is the Luddites—workers in the English textile industry—who systematically destroyed and sabotaged specific machines which threatened to deskill and disempower them. In the United States, the Industrial Workers of the World engaged in a similar fight. During the early 20th century, labor disputes over Taylorism and scientific management—modes of labor often compared to contemporary algorithmic and computation tools—resulted in workers sabotaging production by engaging in slowdowns. To quote an anonymous Boston DSA member who has engaged in sabotage for collective action:

Sabotage is just any kind of direct action to decrease production in the workplace, a lot of the time. If the boss can’t prove something, any action can bring workers together. That includes everything from traditional destruction to destruction of the data the boss uses.

A number of tech activists, scholars and authors have also suggested numerous ways of combating these abusive tech regimes on multiple fronts – for example, as workers operating on the side of consumption. In Nicholas Vincent et. all’s article Data Leverage: A Framework for Empowering the Public in its Relationship with Technology Companies. The authors encourage everyday users to understand the leverage or power they have against large tech companies, arguing that while it may be more difficult to see the connections, users of tech do have power to reduce or stop the oppressive usage of their data. To do so, we need to shift our practices not just as workers, but as users, recognizing and developing an understanding of how our practices outside of the workplace affect the practices inside. 

Today, the systems of control might not look like managers with stopwatches or spinning jennies, but the logics are similar. The goal is still worker suppression, even if the interface is now dashboards, wearables, and algorithmic management. Fighting back requires more than just nostalgia – it requires understanding and clarity. Workers and users alike must learn to recognize how power is embedded in technological systems and organize accordingly.

That may look like workers refusing to train their replacement by resisting the introduction of “pilot” AI tools; it might mean collectively slowing down work that’s being tracked; it might mean building alternative systems that prioritize worker autonomy. Sabotage today won’t always look like smashing a loom—it might look like transparency, refusal, or subversion.

The first step is the same as it was two centuries ago: recognize that the system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as intended. Organize to break it.

Frederick Reiber is a PhD student at Boston University researching collective action and technology. He is a member of SEIU 509 and Boston DSA.

The post Optimizing Versus Organizing: An Inventory of the Bosses’ Weapons appeared first on Working Mass.

There is a Democratic primary runoff for the Georgia Public Service Commission on July 15, 2025. If you were registered to vote in Georgia as of May 19, you are eligible to vote in this runoff, regardless of where in Georgia you are or whether you voted in the June primary, unless you voted in the Republican primary. We recommend voting for Peter Hubbard, as he is the most qualified candidate and is likely to seek reelection to the office next year, and then serve a full term. This recommendation is not an endorsement from Atlanta DSA.

What is the PSC?

Georgia’s five-member Public Service Commission (PSC) oversees utilities and has the power to approve or deny requested rate increases, among other things. Currently, all five members are Republicans, and they are quite friendly to Georgia Power and the other industries they regulate. After a voting rights lawsuit was thrown out, special elections for two seats were scheduled for this year. All PSC members are elected statewide.

The PSC is supposed to make sure that Georgia Power doesn’t automatically get everything they want. Yet time and time again, they have approved rate hikes exactly as requested by Georgia Power. We need a Public Service Commission that actually serves the public, rather than giving a rubber stamp to utilities. The PSC also regulates usage for high-energy facilities like data centers and handles some long-term policy planning. In particular, the PSC has repeatedly approved rate hikes to pay for the two new reactors at Plant Vogtle, even as the project’s estimated time and cost continued to balloon. The reactors are now operational, but the public would have benefitted from a PSC that was more willing to ask hard questions about Georgia Power’s plans early on.

Who is on the Ballot?

The July 15 runoff is between clean energy advocate Peter Hubbard and former Atlanta City Council member Keisha Sean Waites. Hubbard is the founder of the Georgia Center for Energy Solutions, a nonprofit that advocates for a transition to a zero-carbon future. Hubbard has served as an intervenor in PSC rate cases, meaning that he files and argues in front of the PSC for a position that otherwise would not have been represented. He says that he is running because the PSC has ignored the evidence presented in favor of “cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable renewable energy”.

Hubbard combines the policy expertise and willingness to challenge powerful interests that we need on the PSC. In contrast, Waites openly admits she is not familiar with utility policy. Furthermore, this is the seventh office Waites has run for in the last ten years, and she has resigned from both of the offices she was successfully elected to in order to seek a different office (and lost). We would like to see a Public Service Commissioner who can be relied on to stay in the office and continue holding Georgia Power accountable for many years. We therefore recommend voting for Peter Hubbard.

When and How Can I Vote?

There is a Democratic primary runoff on July 15 and a general election on November 4. Early voting must begin in all counties by July 7, but some counties will start early voting earlier; it ends on July 11. At the polls, be sure to request a Democratic ballot. (In most of Georgia, there will not be any other type of ballot available.) 

Where Can I Vote?

Because of low turnout in the June primary, there may be a limited number of voting sites for the runoff. In all counties, early voting sites may be limited. In addition, counties where less than 1% of registered voters cast a Democratic ballot in June are authorized to open only a single polling place on Election Day for the runoff. County closures for the Atlanta Regional Commission area are as follows: 

• Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Clayton, Henry, Rockdale, Douglas, and Fayette: all Election Day polling places must be open on July 15
• Cherokee and Forsyth: only one polling place confirmed to be open in each county
• We have not examined whether any other counties have closures. If you do not live in one of the eleven counties listed above, we recommend checking with your county election office; it is unclear whether the Secretary of State will provide this information.

by Sean Arent

Background

1. In February of 2025 members of the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America approved a resolution stating “DSA membership encompasses a wide range of experiences, political perspectives, and projects. Adding a blog to our chapter website would be a fantastic way to showcase the amazing contributions our members bring to the table. Inviting members to submit articles would also provide an invaluable opportunity for them to develop their communication and writing skills. An elected editorial board would help solicit and review articles on topics such as local issues, political strategy, and chapter campaigns. Let’s put our best foot forward in 2025 by sharing our politics and perspectives with our members and community!” Since then members have met to continue to flesh out ideas and expand and define what else the Defiance can be. 
2. A five person Editorial Board was elected by the chapter membership in April of 2025. The current members of the editorial board are Asha Berkes, Caitlin Murphy, Tim Vega, Ryan Taylor, and Sean Arent. 

Purpose

3. The purpose of the Defiance is to provide a critical socialist perspective to local, state, national, and global events, capture personal essays, art, blog posts, DSA politics, provide coverage of local events and issues, and to create a digital archive of the work of Tacoma and Pierce County’s DSA chapter. We hope the Defiance will be the unabashed leftist news source that is missing from our local news ecosystem, creating a greater awareness as to what’s really going on in our community. 

Submission Guidelines

Submissions to the Defiance are now open! We are looking to platform the leftist and progressive perspectives that are underrepresented in corporate media. We are looking for writing and audio/visual content under the categories of News, Chapter Updates, Deep Dives, Opinion, and Arts and Creative Writing. Submissions can be pitched or sent in full to the Editorial Board at defiance@tacomadsa.org.

By: Nate Foster

PEABODY, MA – Over 400 sanitation workers across Massachusetts went on strike on Tuesday, July 2, amidst contract disputes with the waste disposal corporation Republic Services.

The workers are represented by Teamsters Local 25. The union statement on the strike has called out Republic for refusing to concede competitive wages and benefits to their employees. Republic, the second largest waste company in the U.S., now faces a work stoppage that has already affected waste collection in 14 cities and towns in the North Shore area. 

The Teamsters warned of potential nationwide strikes as over 3,500 sanitation workers across the country face similar negotiating difficulties with Republic; the strike expanded on Wednesday, July 3, to include workers of Teamsters Local 179 in Ottawa, Illinois. Sanitation workers in other unions across the sector are similarly embroiled in strike battles across the United States. In Philadelphia, 9000 municipal workers — including sanitation — organized with AFSCME DC33 went on strike on July 1.

Republic has called the strike “disappointing.” The company claims to already provide fair compensation and benefits. This opinion was not shared by the workers, the union, or experienced labor organizers such as Beth Kontos, Vice President of the North Shore Labor Council:

I know health insurance is part of the problem. I’ve been told that [the workers] make on average five dollars less per hour than people in the same industry in surrounding towns. [Republic Services] is not going to be able to hold talent… you’ve got to pay people to stay, you know.

In response to the work stoppage, Republic has brought in replacement workers, or scabs, to carry out a limited collection schedule while pressure and curbside trash mounts on the company for an agreement. Many picketing in Peabody on Wednesday, July 3, expressed doubt in the ability of the scabs to make up for the absence of over 400 unionized laborers of the Republic workforce, especially given the possibility of additional strikes breaking out in other areas, should corporate negotiation efforts continue to fall short of workers’ expectations. 

Affected towns and cities have created alternate waste drop-off points to accommodate residents’ needs during the strike. These present hurdles for people without cars, those with physical disabilities, or anyone with a packed schedule during a massive American holiday weekend, direct impacts of Republic Services’ refusal to meet the union’s demands.

As trash piles up in the July heat and North Shore towns scramble for solutions, the immediacy of the strike’s impact after just two days makes the essential nature of sanitation work blisteringly clear. When such important labor is taken for granted, the resulting consequences are felt not just in Republic boardrooms, but among the Massachusetts public as a whole. Making sure that workers are appropriately compensated in a North Shore area with serious affordability concerns is going to benefit a lot more people than the RSG listing being higher on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Kontos urged those affected by the strike to help towards a fair agreement between the Teamsters workers and Republic by calling elected representatives to drum up solidarity, as well as coming in-person to the picket lines. 

Anybody that lives in the cities that are affected by this, and anybody who cares about public health and safety, they need to call their city councilors, their mayors, and their state representatives and senator and ask them to call and put pressure on this [issue]… and anybody who wants to should show up here in person; if your trash is not getting picked up, you need to come walk this line with us.

The workers, the union members, and the solidarity of local labor organizers has put Republic Services between a rock and a hard place. It is pivotal for people in Massachusetts to support the strike, and those who do essential work in their communities, so that crucial social services aren’t undermined by the interests of a few shareholders. Collective action is what will yield collective results.

Nate Foster is a member of Boston DSA and contributing writer to Working Mass.

The post Sanitation Workers Strike for Fair Compensation Against Waste Disposal Giant appeared first on Working Mass.

Slightly different versions of the “Big Beautiful Bill” have passed in the House and Senate. Wildly unpopular among the American people, this bill has barely squeaked through Congress. Passing in both the House and Senate by only 1 vote. Now, it goes back to the House. Trump is calling for it to be on his desk for July 4th.

Time is short, act now! Use the form below to tell you reps to pressure their Republican colleagues to vote NO!

NO cuts to SNAP and Medicaid!
NO funding for ICE abductions!
NO handouts for billionaires!

Cuts to vital services are dwarfed by the handouts to billionaires. The “Big Beautiful Bill” would be one of the largest cash grabs by billionaires in world history.

ICE has terrorized communities by abducting people off the street. Masked men have grabbed people off the street and put them in unmarked vehicles. Holding them without charges, deporting them without due process. The “Big Beautiful Bill” will reinvigorate an agency that kidnaps our neighbors.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” makes massive cuts to vital programs. More than 40 million Americans will lose vital help putting food on the table. As many as 17 million poor and disabled Americans will lose their healthcare. Cuts to rural hospitals and nursing homes will leave many without access to medical care.

Many will go hungry and many will die because of this bill. Tell your representatives to use all their power to stop this Big Bullshit Bill!

The post Time is short, act now! Tell you reps to pressure their Republican colleagues to vote NO! appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

Author: Kevin N.

Teamsters workers at the Airgas plant in Valley View, Ohio, are on strike as of June 25th. After voting 13 to 5 in favor of forming a union a little more than a year ago, the location’s 23 workers still don’t have a contract. Large corporations, like Airgas, are known to stall negotiations with newly formed unions for as long as financially possible. What is surprising is the Valley View location is not negotiating the first contract between Airgas and Teamsters, and another Airgas facility less than ten miles away got their contract months ago. However, another Ohio Airgas location just a few miles from the Valley View plant already negotiated their union contract months ago.

“In a nutshell, our sister plant in Oakwood is about 5 or 6 miles down the road. They just got a contract last year,” explains Joe Most, one of the Valley View union’s chief organizers. “That’s a good, fair contract, which that’s all we want. We’re not asking for anything more than them.” Among other benefits and stipulations sought by the Valley View union, the Oakwood contract includes a modest raise of an additional $2 per hour for each of the plant’s 23 employees.

Regardless of the Oakwood plant’s within-walking-distance precedent, Airgas is still refusing to negotiate. According to Most, the legal team that negotiated and signed the Oakwood contract was fired by Airgas after doing so, and the new legal team has been far from cooperative with the union at Valley View plant.

Among the conditions that Airgas was trying to include in the contract was a provision that would allow Airgas to make medical determinations in the case of emergencies. “If you got hurt on the job, [the company would decide] whether you go to the hospital and whether to provide transport.” Most says that this controversial provision, among others, caused negotiations to unravel, so the Teamsters declared on June 25th that they will strike until the Valley View Airgas workers are given fair treatment.

Joe Most says that he was initially skeptical when his coworker approached him about asking the Teamsters to help their small plant unionize. At a previous job, Most was a member of a UAW union, and he was disappointed by the lack of support his plant received. “Because we were only 150 [workers at that location], they [UAW] practically ignored us because we were so small.” Most recalls that when they approached UAW about supporting them during a strike, the union’s leaders declined to do so, claiming that the plant’s small size made it “not worth it.” (Most also notes that his experience with UAW was more than 20 years ago, and suggests that their practices may have changed since then.)

In contrast, the Teamsters have agreed to support the far smaller Valley View Airgas location, despite having a staff less than one sixth the size of Most’s previous job where the union was UAW. Most said he’s been “shocked” by the level of support they’ve received. When the plant was initially fighting for the contract, Juan Campos, the Vice President of the Teamsters, came to the Valley View plant to personally oversee the negotiations. “When they told me the vice president was coming in from Chicago, I thought, ‘I mean, he’s going to ‘big-time’ us, right? There’s no way he’s going to talk to these peons,’ you know?” laughs Most. “But no, he went to each person, shook their hand, asked them, ‘Do you have any questions?’ and gave them his card.”

What’s more, when it became clear during the contract negotiations that the Airgas representatives were refusing to match the Oakwood plant’s contract, it was Campos himself who walked out of negotiations and declared that the tiny plant of 23 workers would strike with the full support of the Teamsters. That is what working class solidarity looks like.

The Teamsters are coordinating an escalating strike strategy across the country, which Most estimates could continue for a month. Airgas has tentatively agreed to return to the bargaining table on July 22nd. So far, Airgas plants in Boston, Erie, Pittsburgh, and others have gone on strike, with Teamsters drivers refusing to deliver any goods to those facilities. Further locations are slated to strike next week. “About 20 to 25 [locations] across the Midwest are setting up picket lines,” Most explains, mentioning locations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, among others. “And it’s not just going to be our guys from my place. If you noticed, we have some retirees and some of the trustees from the Teamsters here [on the picket line] with us.”

When asked about his personal reason for striking, Most explains, “I’m single. I’m basically fighting for the other people with wives and kids. Plus, I think our warehouse workers are underpaid big time for what they do. It’s hot, it’s laborious, I feel bad for them every day when I see them everyday. And I know how much they make.”

Most is confident that the strike will pay off. “If you think you can’t afford the strike, I would say the opposite. You can’t afford not to strike,” he declares. “This is your only way to nail the company. Especially an insanely profitable one like that one. It’s not like they’re filing for Chapter 11 [bankruptcy]. They’re a publicly traded company, so we can see their books.”

Joe Most is no stranger to the union fight. Despite his disappointment with his UAW experience twenty years ago, he acknowledges that it was far better than having no union at all. Most says after joining the UAW union, “I [had been] written up only one time in nine years, and all of a sudden I get fired six times in two years? It was obvious they were retaliating against me,” he recalls.

“But the union was there and I got reinstated with back pay and everything. Every single time.”

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