By Jeremy Sitarek

On March 8th, 2025, Mahmoud Khalil was put in handcuffs and taken from his home in New York City by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Mahmoud moved to the U.S. in 2022 on a student visa while pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University. He married his U.S. citizen wife in 2023 and became a legal permanent resident in 2024. Mahmoud’s wife, Noor Abdalla, is pregnant with their first child and is expecting in April 2025.

When ICE agents detained Mahmoud, they were acting on orders from the State Department to revoke Mahmoud’s student visa. Mahmoud’s wife presented his green card, proving he was a legal resident and ICE agents informed Mahmoud and Noor that they were also revoking his green card.

Five days ago, on Tuesday, March 25th, 30-year-old Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to a friend’s home when she was detained by ICE. Rumeysa has a valid F-1 visa, which allows her to pursue full-time academic studies at Tufts University where she was enrolled in a PhD program. Facing the same accusations as Mahmoud, the State Department deems Rumeysa a threat to foreign policy for her vocal support of Palestine.

Mahmoud and Rumeysa have no criminal charges against them.

“The detaining of a legal U.S. resident for their political activism should terrify U.S. citizens because the rebirth of McCarthyism has arrived.”

The detaining of a legal U.S. resident for their political activism should terrify U.S. citizens because the rebirth of McCarthyism has arrived. In the 1950’s, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy helped initiate a nation-wide witch hunt for suspected communists. McCarthyism or the Red Scare resulted in the repression and persecution of individuals with left-wing ideologies and spread fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions. It was this historical period of paranoia and political oppression that allowed the passing of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The exact act that is being used to detain Mahmoud and Rumeysa.

Eventually it came to light that McCarthy’s witch hunt was unsubstantiated, and he was criticized by colleagues and the public at large. McCarthy was on the wrong side of history, and if this administration continues to detain and deport legal residents for their political views, they will be on the wrong side of history as well.

We call for the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk.

The post Batavia Rally for Palestine first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Portland Democratic Socialists support Councilor Novick’s Park Plan

Increasing the existing CEO surcharge Novick championed in 2016 equitable move to fund parks

The Portland Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America supports Councilor Novick’s move to increase the surcharge on companies with highly skewed ratios of CEO to worker pay. Portland DSA recently launched a new campaign for a Family Agenda for Portland, to fight for concrete public investments in Portland families, children, and communities. We appreciate Councilor Novick’s bold proposal that will protect programs families rely on. We also support DSA member Councilor Green’s PCEF loan proposal as a vital part of this package. Novick’s complement to Green’s plan is an example of the creative policy-making this city desperately needs.

An increase in taxation aimed at the city’s vast wealth inequality is an appropriate way to pay for infrastructure vital to working Portlanders’ lives. Parks are some of the few remaining publicly shared free spaces; third spaces where we can exist in community. They function as oases when heat waves hit the city, and provide connections to nature that we depend on. They are places of solace in a too-hectic time.

Parks programs and community centers are the cornerstone of Portland communities, and anyone who attended the public listening sessions on the city budget that were held in every district in Portland this spring heard personal testimonies of how much parks programs had transformed the lives of Portlanders and their families. Parks programs also provide jobs and support livelihoods. They must be defended.

Portland DSA Co-Chair Olivia Katbi testified at the District 2 listening session accompanied by her family, urging the council to raise revenue by taxing the rich, and to keep open the community center where she brings her daughter. “At a time when Trump and Musk are gutting critical services at the federal level, the response from our city government cannot be to turn around and do the same thing. Do we want to have a nice city that families with children want to live in, or do we want to just have a shell of a police state with shitty services and abandoned parks? What is going to be left for us? The billionaire class is growing while the rest of us are fighting for scraps. We need to present an alternate vision forward.”

Socialists understand that austerity always functions to the detriment of working people, and we believe strong progressive tax measures targeting the wealthy are good for the economy, and a sign of independent, uncaptured political leaders. We also understand that the underlying issue is the limitations of capitalism’s ability to provide for full lives. We cannot afford a market-driven neoliberal urbanism, which privatizes and undermines public goods in the name of profit, at a terrible human cost.

Councilor Novick proposed, championed, and helped pass the first CEO surcharge in any city in the US in 2016; another reason Portland is a leader in public policies.

Portland DSA urges City Council to pass Councilor Novick’s CEO surcharge increase. We urge the people of Portland to contact your district Councilors and speak in favor; to protect our communities, our parks, and our future!

WORCESTER, MA — Dozens of union organizers, labor activists, and organized working class supporters gathered at University Park on May 1 to celebrate May Day, organized by the Worcester chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Speakers covered the often violent history wielded against the burgeoning labor movement by the capitalist class of the 19th and 20th centuries in America, from the Haymarket Affair to the Palmer Raids, the central impetus for May Day. Then, they knit together the struggles of the past to the struggles of today in central Massachusetts.

Worcester Labor History

Worcester is no stranger to contentious flashpoints of class struggle.

Peter Fay, a movement elder, longtime labor organizer, and member of Rhode Island DSA, talked about Worcester’s role in labor suppression. He recalled his friend and prolific labor organizer Anne Burlak. Burlak, known as “The Red Flame” and “Seditious Anne” was at the forefront of the labor movement in the early 20th century. She began organizing as a teenager in the textile mills of Pennsylvania, worked to organize multiracial unions in the South, where she was jailed for insurrection.

Burlak continued to live up to her nicknames, leading textile strikes in early 1930s Rhode Island, before settling in Massachusetts where she faced more persecution from the federal government during crackdowns on communists. In one of her many clashes with Worcester police in 1937, Worcester banned Anne from speaking in the city.  She remained an icon of Massachusetts labor for decades.

“Not only was her speech banned, but according to the chief of police, all speech by anyone in any foreign language was banned, all singing must be in English, no literature could be distributed, and no bandstand could be used,” Fay said. With a wry note, the labor organizer said:

It’s pretty clear that no one in the history of Worcester has scared capitalists so much as that little Ukrainian woman with red hair who told workers to join together to overthrow capitalism.

The Hope For Labor

While speeches often noted the grim state of the labor movement and U.S. politics, all May Day speakers used this context to galvanize action and remind people of the power of the labor movement. They pointed to the labor ferment in the heart of the Commonwealth today.

Speakers noted graduate and undergraduate workers’ ongoing campaign to unionize at Clark University. Student workers went on strike for about ten days in March. Backed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the workers fought for card check neutrality, a legal agreement that would have made forming a union easier, without an election. Clark University roiled with “We are the Teamsters! And if they forget it, they’ll live to regret it!” from the lips of workers across campus during the strike.

May Day speakers also shouted out the units of the Massachusetts Nursing Association (MNA) that led successful strikes this year, bending hospital administrations to better contracts and defending important community medical centers and the immense number of nurses’ union jobs that arm those vital service providers. Zach Wright, a Registered Nurse (RN) and rank-and-file worker, spoke on MNA’s victories.

The Democrats vs. the Might of Labor

Worcester DSA’s James L. stepped up to call for more from U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA). McGovern expressed interest in a general strike about two months ago, as a means to combat the Trump administration, yet McGovern also voted to approve a bipartisan bill in 2022 forcing rail unions to accept a deal and avert a strike. The crowd boos showed that Worcester labor believed workers deserved more.

James L. also spoke to the Democratic Party’s facilitation of US-Israeli genocide in Gaza:

Most of the so-called opposition party is happy to collaborate, sign off, or roll over.

That was particularly on May Day. Israeli news outlet Channel 13 and the Middle East Monitor had both reported the Biden administration knowingly allowed the genocide in Gaza to continue without ever approaching Israel about a ceasefire deal. Biden’s vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris infamously shut down Gaza protesters with “I’m speaking” at a rally early on in her campaign.

But labor had far more power than the figureheads of resistance. “When we organize —  when we stand together —  we can bring the whole damn system to a stop,” said Cayla Dodd, a bus driver and union activist with Local 170 of the Teamsters. Dodd asked the multigenerational crowd to organize, join a union, start a union, and demand more from unions.

Don’t settle for a union that plays defense, build one that goes on the attack!

James Niedzinski is a member of the Worcester DSA.

All across the US, students at colleges and universities have spent over a year organizing to protest the ongoing ethnic cleansing Israel is currently committing in Gaza. The killing and maiming of over 100,000 men, women, and children. The forced relocation of hundreds of thousands. The targeted attacks on schools and hospitals. The blockade of food, water, and medicine to civilians. To billions around the world, if it walks like a genocide, and talks like a genocide, then chances are, well, you get it. In light of this, students across the country have organized sit-ins, encampments, pressure campaigns, and more to try and get their respective institutions to stop any sort of direct or indirect support of the Israeli war machine.

In response to these student efforts, institutions such as Columbia, Harvard, Swarthmore, and Michigan have cracked down hard against anti-genocide protests. They’ve taken drastic measures like creating new rules to tighten students’ right to protest, banning students from libraries, suspending or expelling students, firing faculty, and calling in cops to make arrests. 

Here in Maine, we feel like we’re kept safely away from much of what happens nationally, but that is a myth we feed ourselves. At Bowdoin College in Brunswick, there has been a lively organizing effort to get the school to divest from arms companies and denounce the scholasticide taking place in Gaza. In May 2024, with a supermajority, students passed a referendum demanding the school take action. The administration refused to act. In February 2025, students organized an encampment on campus to pressure the administration to take the referendum results seriously. After five days, the encampment came to an end, with 40 students put on probation, 8 temporarily suspended, and the college’s SJP chapter banned.

All of this happened under the new Trump 2.0 administration, which has ramped up pressure on colleges and universities to crack down even harder on anti-genocide protestors. The administration has investigated and threatened to withhold funding from a number of schools deemed to be too soft on student organizers. And, in a move that has sent shockwaves across the civic and legal world, has sent in ICE to detain and attempt to deport a number of students here on Visas who have allegedly attended pro-Palestinian actions on campuses. 

On March 27, those efforts hit Maine when a congressional committee sent Bowdoin a letter announcing that they were looking into whether the college had adequately addressed “antisemitisim” on its campus, specifically referencing the recent encampment that called for an end to scholasticide in Gaza. They demanded to know what disciplinary actions had been taken against students who partook. That committee considers “antisemitism” not only as actions that target Jews and Judaism, but also absurdly extends it to anything that targets the nation-state of Israel and “Zionism”.

Although Bowdoin unjustly punished anti-genocide activists, and refuses to take any concrete measures to stop a genocide in which they admit they are financially invested, they have also not followed other institutions that have happily acquiesced to outside demands to viciously repress the college community. Moreover, Bowdoin’s president, Safa Zaki, signed onto a letter from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) on April 22 openly challenging the Trump administration’s attempts to stifle academic freedom. 

And on May 2, the Bowdoin chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a letter, signed by over 180 current and former Bowdoin faculty and staff, encouraging the college to continue standing up to threats to the community. Among other things, they pledged support to all efforts to challenge threats to higher education, refuse to comply with demands for names, affirm fundamental civil rights, and “reject cynical invocations of antisemitism that undermine democratic norms, stifle critical dialogue, and strip individuals of their rights.”

What comes next, no one is sure. We know that the Trump administration is not as strong as it seems, and that it is vulnerable to resistance. But we also know that it will not give up without a fight. The government is still committed to destroying higher education, and there’s always the risk that college leaders might succumb to the onslaught and throw their community under the bus – especially now that summer is coming and students and staff won’t be as present to hold the administration accountable.

Which is why Mainers and Bowdoin alumni need to keep making their voices heard. People can contact the Office of the President at Bowdoin to show support for her decision to sign onto the AAC&U’s letter. This is a time of great pressure on schools, and it’s important that we encourage administrators and presidents who have shown courage and pushed back against Trump’s efforts to silence educational institutions. We must call on them to continue the fight and keep our students and teachers safe and free from unjust and potentially illegal interference.

The post Bowdoin, Trump, and the Battle for Academic Freedom appeared first on Pine & Roses.

Savannah DSA opposes the Urban Camping Ordinance Amendment, which empowers police to displace unhoused residents instead of offering real solutions. We call on the county to implement Housing First policies that provide unconditional, permanent housing and uphold the human right to shelter.

R.K. Upadhya

Over the past two decades, the housing market has emerged as a powerful means by which capitalism can exploit the working class. At our workplaces, capitalists profit from their ability to control our labor; and then we go home, where we are exploited by the landlords who profit from their control over housing. And if the answer to our oppression in the workplace is labor unions, the answer to our oppression in our homes is tenant unions.  

From early 2022 to early 2024, I was involved with a tenant union campaign at a large apartment complex in north-west San Antonio, via the now-dormant Tenant Union San Antonio (TUSA). While the campaign failed in its overall goal – to organize the tenants of the complex into a self-sustaining, democratic, and militant union – the efforts nonetheless secured some improvements for tenants, and provided organizers with an important and fulfilling learning experience. 

The apartment complex in question was Vista Del Rey Apartments (VDR), a massive 453-unit complex in Leon Valley, located near the intersection of 410 and TX-16/Bandera. The property was first built in 1979, and by testament of some long-time tenants, was a beautiful and well-run property. But in recent years, as the housing market heated up and real estate capital grew increasingly predatory, things started falling apart. Ownership was repeatedly swapped between increasingly greedy firms looking for fresh ways to cut costs and extract more rent. In April 2021, VDR was bought by Shippy Properties, a firm run by an Austin tech executive turned real estate speculator, which quickly turned out to be the worst landlord yet for VDR tenants..

By pure coincidence, a core TUSA member had just moved into VDR in late 2021, and quickly realized it would be an excellent place to start a tenant union campaign. So a handful of us got to work, and over the next two years helped instigate class conflict between the tenants of VDR and their corporate slumlord. Our overall vision was informed by the strategies and tactics developed by socialist-aligned autonomous tenant unions like Tenants and Neighborhood Councils (TANC) in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU), Stomp Out Slumlords (SOS) in Washington D.C., and Houston Tenants Union (HTU).

A quick run-down of what the campaign looked like: we door-knocked across the complex, inquired about conditions and experiences, invited interested tenants to meetings, and saw the formation of the Vista Del Rey Tenants Union (VDR-TU). More canvassing was done; petitions were passed around and protests and rallies were held; a kind of spontaneous rent strike emerged, with many tenants across the complex refusing to pay rent. The city of Leon Valley got involved in a lawsuit against Shippy Properties, demanding that they fix the numerous code violations across the property. Key tenant leaders were targeted for eviction, but we successfully fought back against most of the initial eviction attempts. Shippy made various concessions, even as they caused more problems in the process and escalated repression. A tenant leader’s apartment burned down due to bad electrical wiring, along with the other eleven units in her building. More canvassing, more meetings; attendance and enthusiasm waxed and waned. Finally, after many cycles of ups and downs, by the end of 2023, people had burned out and key leaders had left VDR, and the campaign came to an end. VDR-TU was dead – but if nothing else, the mailboxes had been fixed, wider renovations had been implemented, two people got married, David Shippy’s name was mud, and dozens of people had experienced an interesting and unique attempt at building an autonomous and militant working-class organization.

A full accounting of the day-to-day and month-to-month of the campaign would make for a very lengthy report. But here are some major lessons and take-aways, to paint a picture of what it was like organizing at VDR, and how socialists should think about tenant organizing.  

Big corporate landlords are the scum of the earth – and people love chatting at the door about it

That landlords are parasites shouldn’t be a surprise to socialists – but there is a difference in understanding this in the abstract, versus coming face-to-face with the depths of criminal deprivation and immiseration that landlords subject people to. 

Conditions at Vista Del Rey were abysmal in almost every possible way. A non-exhaustive list of issues at VDR included:

• Constant and unannounced water shut-offs and major water main leaks – the bill for which was passed on to tenants
• Mailboxes that had been broken for over a year, forcing people to pick up mail at the post office (if the mail didn’t get lost)
• Air conditioners being broken for weeks, if not months, during the summer
• Broken and unusable laundry machines
• Endemic cockroaches and mold 
• Crumbling staircases and weak railings, which routinely broke 
• Covid-era rent relief checks getting stolen by management, who then demanded more rent money
• Widespread electrical wiring problems, which in one case resulted in an entire building of twelve apartments burning down
• Arbitrary fees and fines for whenever maintenance was performed (even if temporarily and poorly)

These problems weren’t just incidental. The profit-making strategy of Shippy Properties was overtly about cutting maintenance and services, while simultaneously raising fees and levying fines. As an article in San Antonio Report in January 2022 described: 

The stated strategy of David Shippy, the company’s founder and CEO who wrote a 2019 book detailing his wealth-building formula, involves buying up working-class apartment complexes, slashing maintenance costs and charging tenants new fees. “I like to think of each apartment complex as a cash machine,” wrote Shippy in his book Money Matters for Financial Freedom: The Fast Path to Abundance in Life and Business.

But there is a silver lining to the depravities of landlords, which is that tenants are generally more than happy to talk to a stranger at the door about their issues and experiences. Of course, there is always an initial suspicion (“ugh, what do these people want to sell me…”), but once they realize that you’re not a salesman or missionary, and mainly want to hear about their experiences, the barriers vanish. And a key aspect of this is to, in fact, not be trying to sell some grand organizational plan or political ideology (at least, initially), but to show up to have a genuine conversation with somebody. The 80:20 rule is key – a good initial conversation at the door should have the tenant talking for 80% of the time, and the canvasser mainly asking questions and learning. Ask people about how long they’ve been there, what their experiences have been like, if they know their neighbors, if they’ve tried to get management to address problems, what their thoughts are on why things aren’t being solved and how they feel about that. Ultimately, none of this should be that complicated; talk to people and take a genuine interest in who they are! 

Door-knocking, surveying about problems, and collecting contact information was probably the easiest aspect of organizing at VDR, and made for many memorable conversations. During one canvassing session, me and another DSA/TUSA member met a mother and her daughter who were in the process of moving in, and were already livid about management not having prepared the apartment at all for move-in. We then helped her move a dishwasher up the stairs. Then her neighbor, a pudgy older guy with no shirt came outside and told us that his own dishwasher had backed up a month ago and had never been fixed. Another time, a guy invited me into his apartment to see the massive hole in his living room ceiling, and the leak in the bathroom. His upstairs neighbor, meanwhile, was furious about the impact of persistent mold on his young son’s health. Not all of the people we talked to were immediately excited about getting involved in a tenant union campaign, or organizing in general; but at a minimum, they were happy to chat about how bad the complex was, and their desire to see things change.     

Disorganization is the default mode of existence for working-class people

One thing you realize very quickly when canvassing across apartment complexes is that people are highly atomized – a reflection of the wider problem of “proletarian disorganization” and the fact that whatever working-class institutions and networks that once existed in this country have withered away under neoliberalism. People don’t really talk with their neighbors, beyond waving at them (if that). Tenant unionism thus must overcome an obstacle that labor unionism doesn’t have to deal with: that people tend to lack basic knowledge about one another and their shared problems. Despite the serious and widespread issues at VDR, many people didn’t realize that they had the same problems as their neighbors, which pushed them toward individual solutions (calling management themselves, trying to find a lawyer, or deciding to move out) or just a sense of apathy (“what can I do, I just gotta get used to it”). One tenant who became an early member of the VDR organizing committee told me that when we first knocked on his door, he was happy to chat about his problems, but he was also a bit suspicious about what we wanted and why we were even interested. But once he realized just how many other tenants had the same exact problems as him, it finally clicked that he didn’t have to fight these issues alone.  

Another consequence of social disorganization is that people may tend to identify other tenants as the main source of problems, rather than landlords. The issue of crime, in particular, can be a difficult question for socialists to grapple with. One on hand, we have our standard abolitionist principles that rejects the police as a viable solution to social problems; on the other hand, it can be difficult to articulate – let alone implement – abolitionist solutions to immediate issues around crime. At VDR, there were undeniable problems with anti-social behavior, theft and robberies, and even murders; and for many tenants, the obvious solution for this was more police presence. It’s important for tenant organizers to be prepared to discuss these issues and propose solutions that don’t rely on police; meet people where they’re at, but don’t stay where they are at. TUSA and VDR-TU were somewhat successful in this, insofar as whenever complaints about other tenants came up, these were sidelined in favor of focusing on problems caused by the landlord, which most people agreed were more egregious and easier to directly address.  

In addition, atomization overlaps with and exacerbates racism and xenophobia. This did not become a particularly large obstacle at VDR, but the complex had a number of cultural and linguistic divisions that created challenges to get people together. Unsurprisingly for San Antonio, the majority of the complex was Latino, with smaller numbers of Black and white people. There were also several immigrant groups, specifically Afghans and Indians, typical for apartments in the Medical Center area. This meant there were small populations of monolingual Pashto, Dari, and Hindi speakers, in addition to the typical group of Spanish speakers. And perhaps most unusually, there was a sizable Romani community – an Eastern European ethnic group with a traditionally nomadic culture, descended from South Asia – many of whom were allegedly squatting in one of the buildings. It was this Roma group, as well as other South/South-West Asian families, who attracted the most animosity from certain tenants, who were suspicious of “refugees” who couldn’t speak English, and who blamed them for vandalism and petty crime.  

All of this comes back to the point that one of the most important aspects of tenant organizing is  simply to get people to know each other, to break down the default atomization of neoliberal existence. Prejudice in working-class neighborhoods like this can sometimes be very superficial; simply attending a meeting or social with a person you were suspicious of, could be enough to cure you of any wrong-headed ideas. And simply building a sense of community can be enough to provide a greater sense of security, with the knowledge that you know your neighbors, and you have each other’s back. 

Despite atomization and exploitation, resistance is widespread

One of the best things about tenant unionism is the consistency with which you’ll come across sudden and unexpected sources of radicalism. Acts of resistance – ranging from individual and spontaneous, to broader and more organized – are already happening, all over the place, in all kinds of ways, and militancy can accelerate faster than an activist is prepared for. People are constantly pushing back individually against their landlord; VDR tenants constantly called in or barged into the office, demanding appliance repairs or an explanation for the latest water leak. During canvassing, a constant theme was tenants wanting to connect with legal resources and sue Shippy Properties. But it is in group discussions with other tenants, that people’s natural instincts about collective action and power can emerge. At the first general event we held at VDR in May 2022, a Know Your Rights training, one older lady almost immediately brought up the idea of a rent strike, talking about the need to hit the landlord in the pocketbooks. The dozen or so other tenants largely agreed that this would be morally justified and strategically sound. 

Another memorable moment, fusing individual and collective resistance, happened during a protest VDR-TU held later that summer. As “luck” would have it, during the protest rally held outside the management office, the water was abruptly shut off yet again. A man then came around the corner, still damp from his interrupted shower, and made a beeline to the office and started banging on the door and yelling about the water shut-off. If he wasn’t planning on attending the protest before, his ruined shower made his mind up for him. And this wasn’t the end of the story; his spontaneous passion impressed one of the main tenant leaders of VDR-TU, and they got to talking afterward – and two years later, they got married!  

But the most stunning example of spontaneous resistance was something we learned shortly after the protest – that upwards of half the complex was already on a de-facto rent strike. Ironically, we learned this when management sent out an e-mail asserting this mass non-payment of rent, and that this was the reason why they couldn’t do necessary repairs. As it turned out, many people were willing to act on the basic notion that if they weren’t being given habitable apartments, then they shouldn’t have to pay rent – a righteous position, albeit illegal. But the illegality of individual rent strikes were of little concern to many – as they told us themselves, who cared about getting evicted or taking a hit to their credit score, when they already had multiple evictions on their record and no credit score to speak of? At a complex like VDR, filled with the most oppressed layers of the working class, taking risky actions can be an easy choice – there is little left to lose anyway.   

Tenant unionism requires high levels of commitment and consistency

Despite the atrocious conditions at VDR and the relatively combative spirit of VDR tenants, the tenant union campaign ultimately fizzled out after about two years. There are a number of reasons for this, some outside of our control; but if I had to pick the biggest shortcoming, it was that those of us in TUSA weren’t able to give the campaign the necessary amount of consistent effort. 

A tenant union campaign should have a solid overall plan, and a rapid cadence; if you knock on somebody’s door, you should have an upcoming meeting or action you can invite them to, or at least a 1:1 follow-up if they seem like a potential leader. And more broadly, tenant union campaigns are about relationship-building; quality is better than quantity, especially at the beginning of the campaign. It’s crucial to spend time doing 1:1s with tenants you’re trying to bring into an organizing committee as potential leaders, to get on the same page about the project and the political and social principles of tenant unionism, and to understand their own background, experiences, and ideas. Talking to somebody once at the door and then dropping them into a group chat or Facebook group is not going to get them involved or lead to a functional organizing committee.

Unfortunately with the VDR campaign, most of us didn’t really understand this at the time. After door-knocking sessions, we would try to create big group chats with all the contacts, which would fizzle out over and over again, other than a couple of busybodies who would spam the chat and annoy everybody else. We did few 1:1s, even with people who were enthusiastic about organizing. There were often long gaps of time between talking to somebody and getting their contact info, and actually reaching back out to them. In retrospect, it’s a bit surprising that an actual organizing committee of about a dozen VDR tenants emerged at all, but that may be a testament to just how many people we talked to. But less surprising is that outside of this core group of people who spontaneously and by their own will began organizing, there was little success in building out a wider layer of “cadre” at VDR; the energy required for genuine relationship-building and rigorous onboarding just wasn’t there.

Our inconsistency wasn’t just a result of our relative inexperience, either – a general problem, especially toward the latter phases of the campaign, was the split attention of core TUSA organizers, who were trying to keep the campaign at VDR going while also being in leadership roles in other spaces like San Antonio DSA, Black Rose Anarchist Federation, and labor union campaigns. In retrospect, it was impossible to give the campaign the necessary attention while also being a key member of other campaigns and organizations. A tenant union campaign needs at least a couple of people who are completely focused on finding and developing tenant leaders into an organizing committee, and connecting these leaders with resources, training, and support.  

Tenant unionism is worth it, even in failure

Despite the eventual failure of the Vista Del Rey Tenant Union to develop into a mass, militant working-class institution, I would still consider my involvement in the campaign to be the most interesting, educational, and fulfilling project I was ever involved in during my five years living in San Antonio. I met and organized with people who were far outside the typical left-wing activist and organizing spaces – but who nonetheless had deeply radical instincts and ideas. And despite the long-term failure, there were still short-term victories; the mailboxes, broken for years, were fixed after our campaign started. Many organizers had long-standing maintenance issues resolved by management, who hoped this would pacify them. The campaign pushed the city of Leon Valley to engage in their own lawsuit, which forced even more repairs. And one of the main tenant leaders found a husband through the campaign, and invited the core TUSA members to the wedding. Can’t be a total loss if a great party came out of it!

In conclusion, I would encourage all socialists and fellow radicals to engage in tenant organizing. Many of us already rent our homes in the first place; thus, tenant unionism isn’t something that has to make us go “somewhere else” to organize, but instead can be about us building institutions where we are already at, with our own neighbors. And just like with workplace organizing, oftentimes the best way to engage in socialist politics and organizing is to “organize where we are at”, and to radicalize the networks and communities we are already embedded in.  

If you’re in Austin, join other Austin DSA members in Greater Austin Tenant Organizing (GATO) to help spread autonomous tenant unionism. Follow and support other local tenant organizing groups, like BASTA. And sign up for the DSA Housing Justice Commission’s upcoming four-part training series on tenant union organizing, scheduled for June! 

The post Lessons from a Tenant Union Campaign in North-West San Antonio first appeared on Red Fault.

Since we launched our print edition just before the 2024 election, each edition has marked a deeper, darker descent into a made-in-America authoritarian hellscape.

Since our last issue, the whole world watched in horror as Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk was grabbed by unmarked police lurking outside of her home. It was immediately clear that Rümeysa, whose research focuses on child welfare, was targeted because she had co-authored an article in the Tufts student newspaper calling for the university to do more to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Trump’s attacks have escalated, and they will escalate more. We know that labor has the power to stop Trump. But where will labor fall?

In this issue we look back at labor’s fight against apartheid, largely kicked off in Massachusetts. And we also look at the development of labor reformers, including Boston local Sean O’Brien, who moves rapidly to the right, and the UAWD caucus, which has dissolved itself after long infighting.

Not all is bleak. We are also happy to reflect (deliciously) on the success of the Carnation Revolution on its 51st anniversary. You’ve heard of bread and roses… but what about cod and carnations?

If you’re not a subscriber – subscribe today or check out the free digital version below.

In solidarity,

Managing Editor

Henry De Groot

We, the Greater Grand Rapids Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, are disappointed the jury failed to convict former police officer, Christopher Schurr, and the case was declared a mistrial. We demand that a new trial be held as soon as possible. We also demand that County Prosecutor, Chris Becker, recuse himself and let someone who hasn’t received political donations from Schurr’s Police Union try the case.

The Lyoya family has been waiting three years for this trial to take place and are now being forced to wait longer while Christopher Schurr is still walking free. While this case has been about Justice for Patrick, this mistrial means the Lyoya’s civil case against Schurr and the City of Grand Rapids must also wait.

Christopher Schurr clearly showed intent to kill. Once he drew his weapon, he offered no warning, never said, “stop or I’ll shoot,” and shot Patrick in the back of the head. Schurr testified on the stand that he didn’t know what he was shooting at, he just fired at Patrick Lyoya. But the physical evidence showed the gun was pressed against the back of Patrick’s head when he fired.

We are disappointed that the GRPD Captains testified in defense of Schurr. There are still people on the police force who believe murdering civilians out of frustration is “reasonable” behavior. The GRPD remains a threat to our community.

We are thankful to the many community members who stood up to participate in marches, rallies, and other outcries for justice for Patrick. We are disappointed in the outcome of this trial and acknowledge that our efforts for police accountability are not over.

The post Statement on the Mistrial of Former GRPD Officer, Christopher Schurr appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

At the January 2025 general meeting, Cleveland DSA voted to begin a priority project in support of transgender liberation. 

In our chapter structure, the passage of a priority project indicates a commitment to putting the full weight of the chapter’s resources behind the initiative. Our bylaws impose a limit of 2 priority projects at any given time. As of this writing, the trans liberation project is Cleveland DSA’s only priority.

As socialists, we believe that every person should be able to express and develop themselves fully as human beings, including trans people. The struggle for trans liberation is connected to the broader struggle for the liberation of the working class. 

The mission of the Trans Liberation Project is to create an environment in Northeast Ohio where all transgender people feel supported and free to express themselves without fear of persecution or marginalization. The project aims to achieve this mission locally through a three-pronged approach:

1. Building Community 
2. Taking Local Legislative Action 
3. Providing Access to Affirming Services

Building Community: To provide a safe haven for trans people, we need to form a base in Northeast Ohio dedicated to fighting for trans liberation that can be mobilized for community defense and campaigns. DSA’s objective is to develop our capacity to turn out large numbers of people in a militant way. 

Taking Local Legislative Action: DSA aims to enact legislation that will make Cleveland a sanctuary city for trans people. Inspired by work of DSA chapters across the country, we will draft a trans sanctuary city policy and advocate for it to be passed by Lakewood city council.

Providing Access to Affirming Services: DSA will assist trans people in gaining access to gender-affirming services.

1. Name change clinic: DSA will host a name change clinic to make it easier for trans people to update their birth certificate with gender affirming details. 
2. Gender-affirming clothing: DSA will host clothing swap events to provide trans people free access to gender-affirming clothing.

This is not the first time our chapter has engaged in organizing around trans rights. In a 2024 non-priority activity, we organized a public pressure campaign against HB68 and Governor Mike DeWine’s administrative rules restricting gender-affirming care. We targeted state representatives and senators, the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, the Ohio Health Advisory Board, the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health with public comment, phone banking, emails, and a demonstration outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Health. After receiving thousands of public comments and testimony, the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review blocked the implementation of the administrative rule Reporting Gender-Related Condition Diagnoses and Gender Transition Care which would have required medical professionals to report diagnoses and treatment related to gender-affirming care to the Ohio Department of Health but allowed several other rules restricting care for minors to move forward. Lower courts in Ohio blocked the implementation of HB68. Interest in mass action over the restrictions quickly diminished.

Since January, the Trump administration has issued a series of anti-trans executive orders, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and a policy barring trans people from obtaining federal identity documents aligning with their gender identity. These policies are an escalation of the attacks on trans people by the right-wing in the United States over the last decade and further encourage discrimination, harassment, and violence. As the right-wing has scapegoated and attacked the transgender community, the Democratic party has failed to take meaningful action to protect us when it has had the power to do so.

Transphobia, like other forms of oppression, divides the working class and prevents us from building collective power by targeting the human rights of those who are particularly vulnerable. We can’t rely on the two capitalist parties to save us. Winning reproductive rights and trans liberation will require an organized, independent, working class movement with the ability to fight back.

Our chapter has experienced considerable growth in recent months, and we are excited to organize our membership into this priority project. Join Cleveland DSA today to organize for a better world!

You can sign up for a one-on-one meeting with an organizer from our chapter here and join the chapter here. 

The post Announcing Trans Rights as DSA Cleveland’s Priority appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Hundreds of thousands of workers marched and rallied on May Day—International Workers Day—making it the largest International Workers Day since 2006 when two million immigrant workers left work to demand their rights. Protests were organized in 1,300 locations, large and small; no doubt the first May Day protest in most of these sites. Maine stood out with more than 5,000 participating spread over 26 towns and cities, from Madawaska to Orono to Portland, where almost 2,000 marched and rallied. And in Wayne—population 1,000—seventy people turned out for both morning and evening rallies, one of the highest per capita demonstrations in the country. 

Memory and sacrifice play a role in sustaining working-class culture. No 1886. No Haymarket Martyrs. No May Day. More recently, the 2006 May Day protests provided a living link to the past. And UAW president Sean Fain’s call for unions to align contracts and lead a 2028 general strike has introduced May Day to a whole new generation of labor organizers.

As the saying goes, the best organizing tool is a bad boss and Trump is one of the worst bosses possible. Repression and mass layoffs do not always provoke resistance, but this time targeted workers put up a critical mass of opposition. For instance, thousands of teachers from across the country responded to a call by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers for walk-ins in March to protest Trump’s destruction of the Department of Education, including teachers at Deering High School and Rowe Elementary in Portland.

And many unions have been fighting the bosses all along, linking struggles in specific workplaces to the more general need to defend working-class rights today. The Maine State Nurses Association led a rally to protest Medicaid cuts in March, organized a mass town hall meeting to prevent the closure of the obstetrics department in the small town of Houlton, and saw some of its most active members take a leading role in May Day. 

Pair these factors with decades of bi-partisan misery in necessities such as housing, health care, education, inflation, and union busting alongside escalating racism, misogyny, transphobia and homophobia, nationalism, genocidal militarism in Gaza, and anti-immigrant bigotry and it’s not surprising young workers are angry. But objective conditions do not create action on their own. Organized forces with the credibility and capacity to think through a strategy and then put it into practice are required. Fortunately, Chicago’s working class has created this necessary element. 

[Read next: The future of housing is public]

According to Jesse Sharkey, past president of the Chicago Teachers Union and lead organizer with the newly-formed May Day Strong coalition, “Chicago became a center of May Day organizing this year for two reasons—first, there was a local coalition that got a lot of people involved. Activists from the immigrants rights community were extremely important in initiating it, and they held open meetings. They invited anyone who wanted to help organize. That drew in trade unionists, and many others. On a second front, Chicago was in the middle of initiating a national call for May Day protests… The call for that effort came from the Chicago Teachers Union and a handful of allied organizations such as Midwest Academy, Bargaining for the Common Good, and the Action Center on Race and the Economy. The NEA also played an extremely helpful role. In late March, we had about 220 people from over 100 organizations join us in Chicago to start planning for May 1 actions. The reason we were able to initiate such a widespread effort was because we have a past practice of closely linking trade union fights to wider working class demands. In places where local unions have worked with community and activist groups, we had networks of communication and trust. Then, once that effort had reached a certain critical mass, some of the big national networks like Indivisible and 50501 got on board and that really grew the reach of the day.”

It’s not that the CTU and immigrant community organizers in Chicago were the only ones thinking about May Day, but their action provided a framework to draw together and amplify similar efforts across the country and to nationalize the protest by providing a framework and resources for labor and community organizers in hundreds of towns and cities. Chicago didn’t create May Day 2025, but it did open a door. Here in Maine, a broad group of organizers came together to walk through that door. 

Maine DSA’s Labor Rising working group began discussing May Day plans late in 2024 and we eventually decided to help initiate an organizing meeting open to all community groups and unions. UAW graduate students participated in a preliminary meeting to brainstorm ideas and leaders from the Maine AFL-CIO convened statewide union conference calls. On April 12, more than 70 people attended a meeting in the South Portland Teamsters’ Hall where the group democratically planned Portland’s May Day and adopted the slogan Strength in Solidarity. Working groups took up all aspects of the action and all important decisions came back to the coalition for votes. By the latter part of April, the Maine Education Association and AFL-CIO leaders called for actions all across the state, amplifying the Chicago May Day Strong call and dramatically broadening what the Portland May Day committee could organize on its own. 

May Day in Portland began with a rally at the University of Southern Maine to back UAW graduate students’ demands for a first contract, which the administration has stalled for more than 500 days. UAW graduate worker Miranda led the crowd chanting “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” We marched to the Post Office to hear from postal workers, including APWU president Scott Adams. “When our postal service is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” Members of the Portland Education Association led the rally at Portland High School and teacher Bobby Shaddox taught everyone to sing an updated version of Billy Bragg’s There is Power in a Union. “The union forever, defending our rights, down with the tyrants, all workers unite!” Headlining the stop, The Pelikanne, a trans high school student poet, shared their own revolutionary vision with all those assembled. From there, we went up the block to Monument Square to hear Jay Gruber, a member of the librarian’s union, and others at a brief rally before taking Congress Street to march to the final rally at Congress Square Park. Highlights at the final rally included Alana Schaeffer, president of the Metal Trades Council, representing 4,000 workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, members of the Maine Coalition for Palestine, Osgood from Portland Outright, Anthony Abdullah from the Maine State Nurses Association, and others. Twenty-five other towns held actions, bringing the total number of Maine participants to over 5,000, the largest Maine May Day anyone can remember. All in all, it was a good day for Maine workers.

[Listen to Maine Mural, DSA’s podcast, latest episode featuring Presente! Maine immigrants rights organizers]

We face a long, complicated road where political pressures to return to passivity and demoralization will persist. Trump is happy and he is strong. There’s no point in underestimating the damage he is going to inflict on working class communities in the coming years. We are not yet powerful enough to stop him. But May Day 2025 constituted a small step towards healing deep wounds in the American working class and it points us in the right direction. 

What did May Day teach us? Fittingly, the last word goes to Kirsten Roberts, a rank-and-file Chicago teacher. “The most important element of May Day 2025 is the explicit entry of organized and unorganized labor into resistance to Trump. Trump’s attacks are aimed directly at dividing the working class and turning ordinary people against one another while the billionaires rob and plunder us all. An agenda for working class unity can be built when we stand up for those most victimized and vilified by the right wing bigots AND when we stand together to fight for the things that the billionaire class has denied us—the fight for healthcare, education, housing, and good paying jobs for starters. For decades we’ve been told by both parties that funding war, incarceration, and border militarization are their priorities. May Day showed that working people have another agenda. Now let’s organize to win it.”

*Parts of this article will appear in an extended form examining May Day 2025 beyond Maine in DSA’s journal Socialist Forum.

The post Maine unions and community unite for May Day appeared first on Pine & Roses.