On November 3rd, voters will go to the polls and face nine ballot questions, some of which will have significant impacts on working people in Massachusetts. At the October General Meeting, RVDSA members approved the following slate of positions: Vote Yes on 1 to expand public records laws to apply to the Governor, State House, […]

by Vincent Lima

In our September General Meeting, members of ROC DSA wisely rejected a proposal that would restrict their right to vote on certain key decisions. The rejected proposal appeared to be part of a broader movement to shrink the voting base of DSA.

Our process for considering applications for the endorsement of candidates for elected office has been tweaked from time to time, but the main steps have remained:

1. The candidate submits an application signed by a certain number of ROC DSA members. The application includes a questionnaire. The signature requirement signifies some baseline level of support and at least hints at the candidate’s ability to collect signatures on a petition. In reality, the chapter does not passively await applications, but the application is what formally kicks off the process.
2. The Electoral Working Group vets the applicant. The group is open to all members. Thus, all members can engage on this level, but no member is required to do so. The EWG makes a recommendation regarding endorsement and forwards the package to the Steering Committee.
3. A candidate forum is scheduled. Every member is welcome to listen to and interact with the candidate. This process should include deliberation. In other words, members should be able to discuss their thoughts about the candidacy in light of the forum and in light of the chapter’s broader strategic goals.
4. The Steering Committee, which is the chapter’s elected political leadership, makes a recommendation.
5. A ballot is sent to all members to vote Yes or No on the endorsement. Crucially, the ballot includes links to the candidate’s application, the minutes of the candidate forum, and the recommendations of the EWG and Steering Committee.

The step that has been made contentious is the last. The proposal was to restrict voting on the endorsement to members who attended the deliberative meeting. This proposal to restrict the vote is made in the name of democracy.

I will turn to Marx for a moment—not because he is necessary for this argument but because some advocates for limiting the franchise claim to be Marxists and argue that a universal franchise is a mockery of democracy; it is merely “bourgeois democracy.”

Marx appreciated “bourgeois democracy” for extending the franchise (the right to vote) but noted accurately that not everyone has the time and inclination to engage in the democratic process.

“Universal Suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class,” Marx wrote in the New-York Daily Tribute in 1852. In Capital, vol. 1 (1867; trans. Paul Reitter, 2024), he added (p. 235),

A worker self-evidently lives [their] whole life as nothing but labor-power. Thus, by nature and by right, all [their] disposable time is labor-time that belongs to capital’s process of self-valorization. Time spent on human and intellectual growth or social functions and interactions or the free play of vital physical and mental powers, or even time spent resting on Sundays—it’s all just a waste!

Lenin, in State and Revolution (1917), elaborated: “Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that they ‘cannot be bothered with democracy,’ and ‘cannot be bothered with politics’; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.”

Thanks to organized labor and popular movements, many of us have more time for “public and political life” than the workers described above. Still, to say, “If you can’t make the meeting, you can’t vote,” is not to take a Marxist position.

The counterargument is that democracy is not just about voting; it is more about process than outcome. Indeed, it is crucially important to provide every opportunity for members to participate in the process. But voting is not a reward for participation; it is an element of participation.

How do we make it possible for comrades who have to engage in social production and reproduction to participate in the democratic process? Or, in normal-people language, if you have to make a living and take care of yourself or your dependents—by going to school, caring for a child, looking after an elder, going on vacation, or whatever you will—do we tell you, “Too bad; you are canceled”?

How do we include everyone? Our hybrid meetings are a great step. You can’t attend in person? Attend remotely and save the time and expense it would take to commute, or participate while keeping an eye on the baby.

Our Slack debates are not great; they often consist of walls of text dominated mostly by a handful of men with time on their hands. But Slack is still an available venue for debate.

Offline conversations, too, are part of member engagement. Say I pick up the phone and contact a fellow member to say, “Mary is running and I think we should back her. What do you think? OK. Don’t forget to vote when the ballot comes!” That is exactly what we should be doing to involve people in our campaigns!

Showing up to meetings is but one form of involvement. I do it. Maybe you do it. But it’s not for everyone. Some members may not have the time, as discussed above. Others may just not want to do it. Maybe listening to another speech “in favor” is more than they can bear. Maybe Robert’s Rules get under their skin and all they want to do is knock on doors and talk to their neighbors about socialism. I embrace them and welcome them and insist that they have a vote.

The post Expand or Contract? On Member Voting Rights first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Organized, researched, and drafted by Victoria B., Janna T., Cole S., Cay Lynn C., and Josh S.

Introduction

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in US history, with over 120,000 members nationwide. We believe that the people whose labor built the world should decide its direction and benefit from its resources. That’s why we fight for thriving working-class communities, working-class foreign policy, and working-class democracy.

The Portland, OR chapter is the 4th largest in the country. We have over 3,700  members spread across the City of Portland, Southwest Washington, Clackamas County, East Multnomah County, the Tualatin Valley, and Yamhill County. At the chapter’s October general meeting, members approved the publication of the following voter guide to inform DSA members and allies in the upcoming election.

How to Use this Guide

First, check your voter registration status! You can do that at the Oregon Secretary of State’s My Vote website here. The deadline for making updates is 11:59pm tonight (Tuesday, October 13).

Then, get to know the categories we use. Finally, look at your ballot and scroll down to the Recommendations section below to look for the candidates and ballot measures you’re voting on. Make sure to vote for our endorsed candidates and rank them #1 in ranked-choice races.

Our Categories

This guide places candidates into three categories: endorsed, green light, and red light.

Endorsed candidates have received a 2/3 endorsement vote from chapter members. Their campaigns coordinate with DSA, and they commit to coordinate with the chapter once they are elected. Vote for our endorsed candidates and rank them #1 in ranked-choice elections. Please sign up to canvass or donate to their campaigns as well.

The chapter has endorsed Portland City Council incumbents Angelita Morillo, Tiffany Koyama-Lane, and Mitch Green, as well as Multnomah County Commission candidate Nathan Ong Norris, Oregon HD 27 Democratic nominee Dr. Tammy Carpenter, and Oregon HD 35 incumbent Farrah Chaichi in this election. We have also endorsed the Your 2 Cents ballot measure in Portland and endorsed a No vote on IL 26-001 and IL 26-638 in Washington.

A green light means that a candidate supports some chapter priorities, although they are not endorsed. A candidate received a green light if they did not meet any of the red light criteria and met at least two of the following criteria:

• Supports:
  • State-level single-payer health care, such as that supported by Health Care for All Oregon
  • Universal Pre-K, such as Preschool for All
  • Taxing the rich and corporations
  • A moratorium and/or ban on data centers
  • The Renters’ Bill of Rights (either whole or in part)
  • Restoring and expanding funding for public transit
  • Lifting the state preemption on local rent control
  • The Your 2 Cents ballot measure

A red light means that a candidate is unacceptable to the chapter. Do not vote for or rank red-light candidates. Candidates received red lights if they met a single one of the following criteria:

• Accepts endorsements or contributions from:
  • Police unions
  • Police-associated PACs
  • Chambers of commerce (such as the Portland Metro Chamber)
  • Chamber of commerce-associated PACs
  • Fuel storage or shipping companies (Zenith oil, etc.)
• Opposes:
  • The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement
  • Universal Pre-K
  • Gender-affirming care
  • Taxing the rich and corporations
  • The Your 2 Cents ballot measure
• Supports:
  • Data centers
  • Charter schools or anti-teachers’ union groups.

Most red lights were due to endorsements by corporate PACs. We based our list of red-light PACs on a recent article in The Thorn. 

Methodology

We created this guide democratically. In our project proposal and at a series of forums, we decided that we would not include races for Congress, state legislatures, or governor. Leaders of our branches outside of Portland decided what races in their areas should be included.

Our criteria for green and red lights were democratically decided at a member forum. In most cases, we evaluated criteria based on candidates’ public statements. We only contacted campaigns to ask about their positions on state-level universal health care and ending the state moratorium on local rent control.

The forums also decided other details of the format and process. A handful of volunteers researched and drafted the guide ahead of the October general meeting, where it was approved for publication by a majority of chapter members in attendance.

Portland City Council District 3

Tiffany Koyama Lane (ENDORSED – RANK #1 OR #2)
Tiffany is an award-winning educator, leader in the Portland Association of Teachers, and Democratic Socialist. During her first year in office, she served as Council Vice President. She used her position to strengthen our sanctuary city status and passed the Protect Portland Initiative to keep federal troops out. Make sure to rank Tiffany #1 or #2 alongside Angelita. To learn more about her, make a donation, or sign up to canvass, visit her website.

Angelita Morillo (ENDORSED – RANK #1 OR #2)
Angelita is an anti-hunger advocate, Constituent Services Specialist, and Democratic Socialist. She has been unhoused and has never owned a car. In her first term in office, she banned AI price fixing for corporate landlords, created an office to protect immigrants’ data from federal overreach, and called out abuse in Urban Alchemy shelters. Make sure to rank Angelita #1 or #2 alongside Tiffany. To learn more about her, make a donation, or sign up to canvass, visit her website.

Esther León (Green Light)
Supports Your 2 Cents, expanding funding for public transit, and a data center moratorium. 

Cristal Otero (Green Light)
Supports allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care.

Tom Sollitt (Green Light)
Supports allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care.

Steve Novick (Red Light)
Endorsed by United for Portland and Future Portland.

Kellie Torres (Red Light)
Endorsed by United for Portland and Future Portland.

Heart Free Pham (Red Light)
Opposes universal pre-K and taxing the rich.

Martin Ward (Red Light)
Opposes taxing the rich and gender-affirming care.

Portland City Council District 4

Mitch Green (ENDORSED – RANK #1)
Mitch is an economist, anti-war army veteran, and a Democratic Socialist, and has also been endorsed by DSA nationally. In his first term in office, he has secured a historic investment in social housing, supported striking workers, and recently introduced a proposal to give relief to small businesses by taxing mega corporations. He is running for reelection to deliver social housing, climate justice and resilience, welcoming communities, trickle-up economic development, and government for the people.  Make sure to rank Mitch #1 on your ballot. To learn more about him, make a donation, or sign up to canvass, visit his website.

Jamey Evenstar (Green Light)
Supports Your 2 Cents, expanding funding for public transit, allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care. 

Jeremy Beausoleil Smith (Green Light)
Supports a data center moratorium, the Renters’ Bill of Rights, allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care. 

Matt Schulte (Green Light)
Supports allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care.

Josh Leake (Green Light)
Supports allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care. 

Eli Arnold (Red Light)
Endorsed by Go Portland Go and Future Portland.

Olivia Clark (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Portland Police Association, United for Portland, and Future Portland.

Eric Zimmerman (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Portland Police Association, United for Portland and Future Portland.

Multnomah County Commission District 2

Nathan Ong Norris (ENDORSED – RANK #1)
Nathan is a hazardous waste technician, union member, community organizer, and Democratic Socialist. He is a first-time candidate running to protect Preschool for All, improve housing stability through measures like social housing, and protect our environment. Make sure to rank Nathan #1 on your ballot. To learn more about him, make a donation, or sign up to canvass, visit his website.

Bri Williams (Green Light)
Supports Preschool for All, allowing local rent control, and statewide single-payer health care.

Tony Robertson (Green Light)
Supports allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care.

Serena Cruz (Red Light)
Endorsed by United for Portland.

Herman Greene (Red Light)
Endorsed by Future Portland.

Nabil Zaghloul (Red Light)
Endorsed by Future Portland.

Multnomah County Chair

Shannon Singleton (Green Light)
Supports Preschool for All, allowing local rent control, and statewide single-payer health care.

Julia Brim-Edwards (Red Light)
Endorsed by United for Portland and Future Portland.

Sharon Meieran (Red Light)
Endorsed by Future Portland.

Clark County Council District 2

Michelle Belkot (Red Light)
Opposes gender-affirming care and taxing the rich.

Hillsboro City Council Ward 1

Diana Jackson (Green Light)
Supports allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care.

Sarah Marugg (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Hillsboro Police Officers’ Association.

Hillsboro City Council Ward 2

Karim Delgado (Green Light)
Supports a data center moratorium, parts of the Renters’ Bill of Rights, allowing local rent control and statewide single-payer health care.

Ivette Pantoja (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Washington County Chamber of Commerce PAC, the Hillsboro Police Officers’ Association, and the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors.

Hillsboro City Council Ward 3

Titonian Wallace Sr. (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Washington County Chamber of Commerce PAC and the Hillsboro Police Officers’ Association.

Beaverton City Council Position 1

Evelyn Kocher (Green Light)
Supports parts of the Renters’ Bill of Rights, expanding funding for public transit, taxing the rich, allowing local rent control, and statewide single-payer health care.

Rachel Philip (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Beaverton Chamber of Commerce.

Washington County Commission District 4

Kipperlyn Sinclair (Green Light)
Supports a data center moratorium, allowing local rent control, and statewide single-payer health care.

Steve Callaway (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Portland Metro Chamber and the Washington County Chamber of Commerce PAC.

Washington County Commission At-Large

Nafisa Fai (Green Light)
Supports expanding funding for public transit and a data center moratorium.

Pam Treece (Red Light)
Endorsed by the Portland Metro Chamber, the Washington County Chamber of Commerce PAC, the Hillsboro Police Officers’ Association, and the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors.

Oregon House District 27

Tammy Carpenter (ENDORSED)
Tammy is a retired physician, school-board member, and a Democratic Socialist, and has also been endorsed by DSA nationally. She is running to champion statewide single-payer health care, fully-funded public schools, the Renters’ Bill of Rights, a data center moratorium, abolishing ICE, and a Green New Deal. To learn more about her, make a donation, or get involved, visit her website.

Oregon House District 35

Farrah Chaichi (ENDORSED)
Farrah is a human rights advocate and Democratic Socialist. In the 2026 short session, she used one of her two allotted bills to introduce and pass identification requirements for federal officers (or suspected imitators) at the state level. She is running for reelection to guarantee housing, health care, a habitable planet, unions, and education for all. To learn more about her, make a donation, or get involved, visit her website.

Ballot Measures

Your 2 Cents

VOTE YES (ENDORSED)

The Your 2 Cents ballot measure would allow Portlanders to decide how to spend the equivalent of 2% of the city’s discretionary budget through a participatory budgeting process. Participatory budgeting is already used by 7,000 local jurisdictions around the world. To learn more about the measure, donate to the campaign, or get involved, visit the website.

WA IL26-001 and IL26-638

VOTE NO (ENDORSED)

These Washington state initiatives would require teachers to out LGBTQ+ children to their parents and impose genital inspections on students wanting to participate in girls’ sports. Our chapter voted overwhelmingly to recommend a No vote on both. You can learn more on this website.

Ballots will be mailed out October 14th, so once you get yours, we encourage you to

DSA Muncie Branch Statement of Recommendations for the 2026 Election The DSA Muncie Branch recommends voting for Sara Guillion for Indiana State House in District 34 and Phil Gift for […]

Revisiting Einstein’s "Why Socialism?" in 2026

The post The Physics of Freedom appeared first on Democratic Left.

by Bleu Cease, Curator

Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo) presents Sanctuary: Borders & Belonging in 2026, an exhibition bringing together national and regional artists, creatives, and documentarians in response to the current political and social landscape surrounding immigration. On view October 2 through November 14, 2026, the exhibition centers the human lives behind political rhetoric, examining how belonging is made and denied, and how care, resilience, and solidarity persist amid increasingly hostile systems and cruel public narratives.

* * *

Sanctuary: Borders & Belonging in 2026 brings together national and regional artists, creatives, documentarians, and community members in response to the political and social realities surrounding immigration and migration. The exhibition amplifies immigrant voices, documents criminalization and detention, examines border politics and architecture, and creates space for people to share the complex experiences that shape belonging. Through testimony and creative resistance, these projects center the human lives behind political rhetoric while also countering simplistic and divisive narratives, insisting on dignity and human rights for all. Together, they ask how belonging is made and denied, and how care, solidarity, and resilience persist in the face

The installation honoring Dolores Bustamante, created in collaboration with Erica Bryant and Carly Fox, places portraits of a generous farmworker, grandmother, and community leader alongside 137 letters of support, turning a local campaign for her release into a public shrine honoring the woman at the center and our community’s mutual aid, collective care, and resistance to immigrant detention.

Bringing Tom Policano’s photographs from Slim Pickins into conversation with Cher Valentino’s recent paintings inspired by those images, this installation connects the conditions of migrant farmworkers documented in the 1970s to their continued vulnerability today. The pairing reminds us that poverty and unjust labor practices persist, now compounded by immigration enforcement targeting these workers, compressing decades of limited progress into an urgent shared present.

Julio Salgado’s project I Am UndocuQueer features heavily alongside the artist’s own personal reflections in the video My Name Is Julio, making visible undocumented queer people’s leading role in the immigrant-rights movement, and confronting fear with pride, humor, joy, and self-representation, even in the face of deportation.

Arleene Correa Valencia’s textile artworks transform family photographs, letters, clothing, and culturally specific fabrics into haunting portraits of migration, family separation, memory, and longing; where incomplete or absent figures represent the lives interrupted by borders, policies, and immigration enforcement.

Sound of Sanctuary, an immersive listening installation, created by Anaglog (Sean Mulligan) in partnership with RoCo, launches a live-recorded album and brings together five first- and second-generation immigrant artists and five Rochester musicians with the understanding that sanctuary is not a fixed place, but a shared culture of listening, relationship, attention, and care

The Community Interview Project: The Immigrant Experience presents nearly 100 intimate recordings with immigrants from Rochester and the surrounding region into the gallery, grounding political debates in the voices and stories of our neighbors, presenting immigration as a diverse collection of lived experiences through which this community and the U.S. as a country have continually been built.

(I’m)Migration is an exhibition within an exhibition; a collection resulting from an open call for visual art by immigrants in the Rochester region. It includes more than 60 artworks by immigrants and immigrant collaborators, bringing together stories of arrival, belonging, separation, resilience, cultural practice, and transformation while emphasizing the power of many voices speaking alongside one another.

The short advocacy film When They Come For Me: Hope and Fear for Immigrants in the Promised Land by Worldwide Documentaries brings together local immigrant advocates and community perspectives to document the effects of inhumane immigration policies in Rochester, the Finger Lakes region, and Western New York.

In Border Wall and several accompanying photographs, Saman and Sasan Oskouei use mirrors, fencing, barbed wire, and steel to fracture the apparent permanence of borders, transforming barriers into boats, doorways, flowers, flags, and passages toward freedom, movement, and envisioning another future.

Jim Mott’s ICE Detention Facilities and the American Landscape (Seven Studies) uses paintings based on field observation and digital reconnaissance to consider how the growing for-profit immigration detention system has become embedded within familiar rural and urban communities, connecting the concrete realities of incarceration to the economic decline, infrastructure, and broader culture of the places that host and enable it.

In Resist or Surrender, Annette Dragon’s compassionate photographs show that resistance is not an exceptional act but an ongoing local practice. She honors the ordinary people who gather throughout the region to advocate for immigrants and human rights while holding close the personal absence of her friend who is imprisoned at a nearby detention center.

Saints of Our Time by Pamela Araya reimagines Catholic devotional portraiture through three highly visible contemporary figures connected to immigration, Latin American identity, and cultural memory. The three paintings honor Liam Conejo Ramos in Hope, Bad Bunny in Voice, and Renée Good in Testimony, as embodiments of suffering, cultural power, courage, and the ongoing struggle for dignity and belonging.

Pamela Dodds’s installation Documenting Border Barriers transforms meticulously rendered drypoint etchings of fences, walls, razor wire, and surveillance systems into an imposing visual and information archive of the architecture of exclusion. It arranges the prints like a wall across the gallery and reveals these structures as deliberate, mostly contemporary acts of political control.

Installed outside the gallery, the related work of public art BELONG by Gianna Stewart confronts censorship and erasure by incorporating hundreds of words that have been removed from government websites, publications, and grant applications into a large graphic. This brave artwork makes visible the absurdity and the danger of this attempted erasure, while also reclaiming public space to insist that we all belong.

Sanctuary: Borders & Belonging in 2026 continues RoCo’s longstanding support for artists who engage urgent social and political questions. It also reaffirms our commitment to art practices that center testimony, witnessing, imagination, and action. At a time of censorship and fear, the exhibition amplifies artists who, often at great personal or professional risk, speak truth to power and advocate for human rights and a more just, equitable world. As global inequality, climate change, and the politics of fear lead to increasingly barricaded and surveilled borders, and immigrant communities face intensified criminalization, Sanctuary demands solidarity. To listen to one another. To defend one another. And to recognize that our freedom and safety are bound together.

Upcoming Events:

• Film Screening: Ice Breaker / Match Maker
. [Friday, October 16, 6:00pm – 9:00pm] 
A screening and related gathering exploring migration, connection, and the social realities of immigrant life. 
• Surviving Suppression: How Artists Experience and Overcome Censorship. [Friday, October 23, 2026, 6:30pm – 9:00pm] 
A panel and conversation examining the pressures artists face when their work addresses politically charged subjects, and the strategies they use to continue speaking through art. 
• Sound of Sanctuary: LIVE
. [Friday, November 13, 6:30pm
] A live performance of Sound of Sanctuary which is being launched in partnership with RoCo as an installation and listening station in the main gallery. 

Sanctuary: Borders & Belonging in 2026 will be on view October 2 – November 14, 2026, at Rochester Contemporary Art Center, [137 East Avenue]. Gallery hours are Wednesday – Sunday, 12:00pm – 5:00pm, with extended hours Fridays until 9:00pm. Suggested admission is $2; admission is free for RoCo members.

The post Sanctuary: Borders & Belonging in 2026 first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

By Luis Feliz Leon and Jane Slaughter

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has won a second four-year term, with an overwhelming lead in member balloting for the union’s top officers.

The election was a referendum on the new fighting direction Fain has taken the union by leading 2023’s Stand-Up Strike against the Big 3 automakers, other bold contract fights, and new organizing campaigns.

It marks the second time members have voted for their top officers in the union’s 91 years. UAW members voted to switch to a one-member-one-vote system in December 2021.

Fain received 68 percent of the vote, against five opponents. His nearest competitor, incumbent vice president Rich Boyer, had 13 percent.

Fain ran as part of the United UAW slate. His slate-mate for secretary-treasurer, Brandon Campbell, also garnered 68 percent, against two rivals including incumbent Margaret Mock.

The slate’s candidates for the three vice president spots appeared on track to be elected with 19–25 percent each in a field of 11 candidates. (VP candidates needed 16.7 percent to win.) The slate also won all the regional director races that it contested.

The sweep means that the slate will hold all the seats on the union’s International Executive Board except for one regional director.

Fain won a majority of the vote in most locals, from assembly plants to legal services, and a plurality in almost all the rest. Boyer, who heads the union’s Stellantis division, won just two of the union’s dozens of big locals: Local 140, Warren Truck, his home local, and Local 1700 at Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, both near Detroit.

Turnout was low and similar to the 2022 election, with a little over 10 percent of the union’s 400,000 active members and 600,000 retirees returning their mail ballots. (Retirees vote on top officers in the UAW.)

While some expected Fain’s strongest support to come from the higher education and legal aid locals on the East Coast, turnout there was down by more than half from 2022, with fewer than 2,000 ballots mailed in. Turnout was up in Local 4811 at the University of California, which went 75 percent for Fain, but still only 2,500 of 60,000 members there voted. As in the last election, it was members in the big manufacturing locals that were key to Fain’s victory.

Perennially online candidate Brian Keller had 7 percent of the presidential vote. As the ballots were counted he took to Facebook Live to swear at members for 30 minutes and call them “morons” for not voting for him.

MOTIVATORS

In phone interviews with a dozen members, auto workers cited pensions and post-retirement health care as their key motivators for backing Fain. They also raised concerns about tackling automation and job security.

But the biggest issue was the better contracts the UAW has won since Fain took office.

“Infighting” between Fain and his opponents on the outgoing International Executive Board — Rich Boyer, Margaret Mock, and Mike Booth — came up, but people drew widely different conclusions, with many repeating the phrase Fain “isn’t perfect.” Jeep worker Megan Fagan in Toledo said some members have checked out due to the internal drama, reinforcing the cynical view that not much has changed.

For most, though, disagreements at headquarters were not of interest or on their radar. They looked at their pay stubs and voted accordingly.

Boyer, Mock, and Booth came together to form the Integrity Slate but failed to offer a counter to Fain’s focus on fighting the companies and launching new organizing drives. Boyer’s main pitches in his campaign statement in the UAW magazine were to lower union dues and reduce the staff at union headquarters.

“Fain and his slate are the only ones that have a real program for the future of the union,” said historian Nelson Lichtenstein, author of Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit. “You’d think the other people would have come up with something aside from they want to reduce dues, which means basically cripple the new organizing.”

“The members chose Fain, despite the Monitor’s best efforts to create turbulence, because we’re ready to fight for retirement health care and protection from A.I. layoffs in 2028,” said Gary Chynoweth, vice chair of the reform network UAW Member Action, in a statement. “Our work now is to keep helping members step up as leaders in a union that’s ready to fight.”

KEEP ON TRACK

UAW Local 551 member Candyla Brown is one of 5,000 workers at Ford’s assembly plant in Chicago. She said she backed the United UAW slate to keep the union on track in 2028, to win pensions, post-retirement health care, and pay bumps that keep up with inflation.

To win these demands, “we need strong leadership,” she said. “We had a good experience with the 2023 strike, and I’ve been watching the new organizing efforts,” she said. “I think the UAW has come a long way since Fain got into office.”

She said organizing in the South is a bright spot. Volkswagen workers in Tennessee voted to join the UAW in 2024, becoming the first unionized foreign-owned auto assembly plant in the South.

At Daimler Truck in North Carolina, Jon Greene, president of Local 3520, said Daimler has staffed up its labor relations personnel in preparation for another showdown, and corporate HR has been closely following the election. “We tripped them up with the last contract,” said Greene. “It wasn’t any more of that friendly bargaining that had been happening over the years with International, so we caught them off guard.”

RENEWED MANDATE

With a renewed mandate, the pressure is on Fain’s team to organize members to step up when contracts expire at the Big 3 automakers on May 1, 2028.

In 2023, the companies were caught off guard, accustomed to a sedate strike, if any, and modest union demands. When the union launched a spreading strike against all three companies at once, with more plants walking out week by week, company bargainers were blindsided. They gave up more in that one contract than they had in the previous four contracts combined.

They will likely be better prepared for May Day 2028. Unions may face another obstacle in 2028 — in an election year, Democratic politicians traditionally bring heavy pressure not to rock the boat, fearing blame from voters. In 2023, though, a poll found 78 percent of Americans supported the UAW’s strike.

Some expensive union demands were left on the table last time: pensions and retiree health insurance for workers hired after the big concessions of 2007–2009, and protections against mandatory overtime and automation.

Flush with victory in fall 2023, Fain urged other unions to line up their contracts with the Big 3’s, for a united assault on corporate coffers.

Domanick Moss, of Local 1853 at General Motors’ Spring Hill, Tennessee, assembly plant, said he backed United UAW because it built a broad coalition and set a goal of preparing for a potential May Day 2028 general strike.

“I think that we have a solid ground laid in terms of how we’ve been connecting with other unions,” Moss said. “If enough of us go on strike, we could get more attention on universal health care. I would like to see Medicare for All and the PRO Act passed. I would like to see consequences for corporations doing rampant automation.” (The PRO Act would make it easier for workers to organize and secure contracts.)

GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF UAW

The election results are a sharp rebuke to the government-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky, whose original mandate was to oversee clean-up of the endemic corruption that sent 13 union officials to jail.

Barofsky developed a strong antagonism to Fain when the UAW Executive Board passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in late 2023, which the monitor said could be seen as “antisemitic.” Fain resisted Barofsky’s attempts to reverse that stance. Ever since, Barofsky has issued a series of reports criticizing Fain and siding with his opponents on the Board. Some UAW members who followed the drama drew cynical conclusions, but apparently most voters found Fain’s actions spoke louder than the monitor’s words.

Barofsky’s mandate is set to end in early 2027, but the consent decree keeps open the possibility of extending the monitorship. If Barofsky’s previous behavior is any indication, he may push to stay in place longer.

Fain’s opponents made much of the monitor’s reports, which accused Fain of misdeeds including retaliating against Boyer and Mock, after he relieved them of some of their major responsibilities. Opponents spent most of their energy attacking him personally and detailing their own grievances, rather than talking about the direction of the union. Their campaigns did not have much reach.

Fain, on the other hand, reminded members of the union’s achievements and tried to keep the disagreements from looking personal.

Despite encouraging leadership at the top, the UAW has a long way to go to become a member-driven union that consistently takes on the boss. While Fain has charted a new direction, much of the union bears the scars of decades of concessions, or is still stuck in the old, company-friendly ways of operating. That includes seeing the union structure as a career ladder, a way to get off the factory floor.

Years of one-party rule means that the bench of members able and willing to push the union in a new direction is still shallow. That has the potential to change in locals where the International has brought big resources for contract campaigns and strikes.

The UAW Member Action network is slowly working, through education and trainings, to build up the bench. After this election, it looks like the UAW will continue to be back in the fight.

{A longer version of this article appeared in Labor Notes and Jacobin.]

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UAW President Shawn Fain Wins Mandate in Reelection Victory was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Statement on Recent Events in New York October 12th 2026 North New Jersey DSA condemns the ICE shooting and police violence unleashed in Marble Hill. We echo the calls from […]

A rural, wine-producing area is exposed to new ways of thinking as like-minded socialists find each other — and win.

The post New Chapter in Walla Walla, Washington appeared first on Democratic Left.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 15: GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA ANNUAL CONVENTION

Green Mountain DSA’s annual convention will take place on Sunday November 15th at the Socialist Labor Party Hall (46 Granite St) in Barre, VT.

The convention will run from ~11:00 AM until the late afternoon. You can participate in-person or virtually. More details to follow.

For planning purposes, please register in advance here: https://greenmountaindsa.solidarity.tech/green-mountain-dsa-annual-convention

Submit resolutions or bylaws amendments here BEFORE NOVEMBER 1st: https://forms.gle/J7h8XDZHCyTTsbGk8

Make nominations for chapter officers and committee chairs here: https://forms.gle/mJYoXD4qtGku47he9

The convention bulletin will be published in early November.

AG CLARK MUST DROP THE CHARGES; GMDSA STANDS WITH WILLISTON PROTESTORS AHEAD OF SHUT DOWN ICE WEEK OF ACTION

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

• Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

Last week, Vermont’s Attorney General Charity Clark brought charges against 13 people who took non-violent direct action in front of an ICE surveillance facility in Williston. Clark boasts on her website and social media of the lawsuits her office has brought against the Trump administration and highlights the importance of “battling federal overreach.” Yet, as our communities fight back against the monstrous activities being committed by ICE, Clark’s choices have displayed her commitment to “order” over justice, as Dr. King describes.

Read the rest of the statement on our website at: https://greenmountaindsa.org/statements/ag-clark-must-drop-the-charges-gmdsa-stands-with-williston-protestors-ahead-of-shut-down-ice-week-of-action

Read our other two statements released this month re: UVMMC and Molly Grey here: https://greenmountaindsa.org/statements

GMDSA-ENDORSED CANDIDATES WIN BIG IN VERMONT THIS SUMMER: HELP GET THEM OVER THE FINISH LINE NOVEMBER THIRD!

This summer, Green Mountain DSA-backed candidates showed that socialist and working-class politics can win in Vermont. But winning a primary is only part of the fight. On November 3, our endorsed candidates will face voters in the general election, and they need our help to finish the job.

Elections are not a substitute for organizing, but they are one arena where organized working people can challenge the power of landlords, bosses, corporations, and the wealthy. Every door knocked, voter contacted, volunteer recruited, and conversation with a neighbor helps build the organization we need beyond Election Day.

Over the next month, GMDSA members will be canvassing, making calls, spreading the word, and working alongside our endorsed candidates across Vermont. Whether you have been organizing with us for years or have never canvassed before, there is a place for you in this work.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Help us send working-class champions to Montpelier.

Sign up: https://forms.gle/q4FFyFo4XKxxfEiv5

TAX THE RICH: MONTPELIER AND WINOOSKI CANVASSES FOR TOWN MEETING DAY 2027 BALLOT QUESTIONS

Working Vermonters are being squeezed while the richest continue to benefit from tax cuts paid for by cuts to healthcare. Medicaid and ACA subsidies are on the chopping block, putting tens of thousands at risk. This is a choice. We can let working people carry the burden, or we can demand that the wealthiest pay their fair share.

We are calling on the Vermont Legislature to pass legislation that raises taxes on the richest 5 percent, taxes wealth proceeds, and invests that revenue into affordable and accessible healthcare for all. Half measures are not enough. Policies that only target the top 1 percent or shift taxes around without raising new revenue will not meet this moment.

Sign up to help us collect signatures on our Tax the Rich ballot petitions (advisory questions for the Town Meeting Day Ballot in Montpelier and Winooski)!

Winooski -- Saturday, October 10, 1-3 p.m. @ 53 Lafountain St.

Montpelier -- Saturday, October 17, 1:30-3:30 p.m. @ Christ Episcopal Church (64 State St.)

Sign up: https://forms.gle/dEngxC4rR9giKGx27

GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA MONTH IN REVIEW

Change rarely arrives all at once. More often, it is built through dozens of small acts: a conversation at a door, workers standing together on a picket line, neighbors meeting one another for the first time, or someone deciding they are ready to organize.

September gave us plenty of those moments.

Across Vermont, Green Mountain DSA members joined workers, candidates, organizers, and community members in building power together. We gathered at the Labor Day Festival of Resistance, supported the continued growth of socialist organizing in Southern Vermont, stood alongside Healthy Living Workers United, marched with our endorsed candidates at Pride, and knocked doors for both our electoral work and the Tax the Rich campaign.

Just as importantly, we spent time together. We talked, marched, laughed, organized, and strengthened the relationships that make sustained political work possible.

No single march, canvass, meeting, or campaign builds socialism. The work accumulates. Every conversation creates another connection. Every campaign develops new organizers. Every act of solidarity reminds workers that they do not have to face bosses, landlords, politicians, or the wealthy alone.

Join us this month of October for a spooky themed month of building solidarity and pushing for a better Vermont for all.

WE’RE BUILDING A FAMILY-FRIENDLY GMDSA

Green Mountain Democratic Socialists of America is working towards making our organization more accessible to parents and guardians. In August we were approved to receive a chapter Growth and Development grant from DSA national to help with this effort, among other priorities. You can help us by letting us know if you would benefit from childcare being offered at our general meetings.

Please fill out our Childcare Needs Survey: https://forms.gle/6Mq1KHWGrc3QgLGv8

UPCOMING GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA MEETINGS

Our Labor Committee meets on the second Monday of every month at 6:00pm on Zoom, including Monday Oct 12.

Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted with the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including Wednesday Oct 14 at 6:00pm at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Av in Burlington).

Our Electoral Committee will meet again on Wednesday Oct 14. The electoral committee meets at 6:00pm on Zoom.

GMDSA's branches will come together for our monthly general meeting on Saturday Oct 17 at 11:30 a.m. at Christ Church (64 State St in Montpelier). Newcomers are encouraged to show up at 10:30am for an optional “DSA 101” orientation. Everyone is welcome to join for coffee hour with snacks and discussion at 11:00am prior to the start of the general meeting.

Our Tax the Rich Working Group will meet on the first and third Sundays monthly, starting Sunday Oct 18 at 6:00pm on Zoom.

Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Monday Oct 19. The Membership Committee meets on the 3rd Monday of every month at 6:00pm on Zoom.

Our Palestine Solidarity Committee will meet on Monday Oct 26. The Palestine solidarity committee meets on the 4th Monday of every month at 6:00pm on Zoom.

Our Communications Committee will meet on Monday Oct 26. The communications committee meets on the last Monday of every month at 7:00pm on Zoom.

Our Steering Committee meets on the first Monday of every month at 7:30pm on Zoom, including Monday Nov 2. All members are welcome to participate in the meeting discussion, only members of the steering committee can vote.

Tuesday Nov 3 is ELECTION DAY. Stay tuned to learn where you can poll-stand with our endorsed candidates and celebrate with GMDSA and our newly elected socialists in office after the polls close. Check the GMDSA calendar and the campaign volunteer form.

Our annual chapter convention is Sunday Nov 15 at the Socialist Labor Party Hall (46 Granite St in Barre). This is the most important GMDSA event of the year!

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IMPORTANT DATES THIS YEAR

• GMDSA October General Meeting: Saturday October 17 in Montepelier

• General Election: Tuesday November 3

• Next GMDSA Convention: SUNDAY NOVEMBER 15 in Barre, at the Old Labor Hall!

• Next DSA National Convention: August 2027 (Date TBD)