In the last decade, Somerville, NJ has experienced significant growth and economic revitalization. Somerville spent the 90’s and the early 2000’s under the shadow of the Bridgewater Mall; yet another town littered with shuttered storefronts and young people eager to leave. Today’s Somerville is almost unrecognizable with its new abundant apartment towers and downtown shops. Even the New York Times called Somerville a “Walkable Suburban Alternative” so even the most obnoxious New York expats have taken note of this small New Jersey town.

Despite Somerville’s success story, the city government proposed selling Somerville’s sewage system to American Water for $8 million. The town warns of an inability to pay for upcoming maintenance costs and has sold the decision as inevitable due to town finances. This sale of water utility systems will lead to higher utility costs for Somerville residents in the long term. Far from being inevitable, the combination of generous tax giveaways to developers and financially irresponsible bond offerings by the government of Somerville have put the town in a situation that was entirely avoidable and still could be avoided if residents vote “No” this November 8th on the proposed sale of the wastewater system.

The current push to privatize the sewer system in Somerville is emblematic of the structural issues with Somerville’s urban renewal. From financing luxury apartment developments with PILOT schemes that required a $5.2 million bond sale to financing a massive parking deck to the tune of a $7.2 million bond sale; it’s clear that there is a capacity to finance the $9 million dollars needed for long-term maintenance on the sewer system, and that the issue is a lack of political will.

Somerville already spends about $3 million operating and maintaining their sewer system annually, and runs a surplus of about $150,000 on their sewer budget annually, per the town’s 2022 budget. An extra $1 million annually for 9 years (as the for-profit company New Jersey American Water proposes to spend) is reasonably in budget for the township without blowing out the deficit, and can easily be paid off with long-term revenue from the sewer system and by tapping into budget surpluses elsewhere. NJAW’s fearmongering proposal claims that household sewer bills will have to rise dramatically to pay for maintenance, but this ignores the ability of the town to use general funds and issue bonds to amortize the cost over time. Even a direct tax increase to pay for the project without debt (an unnecessary worst-case) would only require total municipal tax revenue (from all sources) to go up about 4%, a light burden for Somerville taxpayers. In comparison, NJAW plans to raise sewer rates permanently (on an operation that already runs a positive balance) in order to extract more profit from Somerville’s population.

Fortunately, there is still time to stop this unnecessary and misguided sale, which will only serve to increase the cost of sewer service for residents of Somerville. Vote NO on November 8th and stop this greedy company from getting its hooks into the wallets of Somerville’s people!

Last week, Wednesday Oct 19th, Amazon workers at the ATL6 warehouse in East Point held a press conference in response to retaliatory firings from management and poor working conditions at the facility. The firings occurred following a months-long organizing campaign, in which associates presented a petition to management signed by 300 workers demanding a $5 raise to $18/hr.

Outside the facility, workers assembled with community groups and union allies, including Atlanta DSA, Teamsters, IUPAT, 9to5, and United For Respect – which organized the event. Speakers gathered at a podium, flocked by photographers and local press, before a drawn poster reading “Your intimidation tactics won’t stop us! We’re fired up!”

Throughout the afternoon, ATL6 workers spoke on the poor conditions they faced at the warehouse, ranging from low pay and rough hours, to sanitation and safety. Workers cited multiple sanitation problems at the facility, including unusable restrooms, cockroach infestations, and inadequate accommodations for working parents and folks with disabilities.

Former ATL 6 employee, Brandon Callaway, discussed his firing following the petition drop. Callaway spoke about his difficulties working at Amazon following a kidney transplant, during which time the company did not allow him sufficient medical leave for followup treatments. The father of a 3-year-old, he also vocalized the anxieties he’s faced as a working parent pressured with the dual time constraints of daycare late fees and Amazon’s inflexible scheduling. “That’s why I came together with my coworkers to fight for better working conditions,” Callaway said. “I shouldn’t have to worry about losing my job because of my disability or having to take care of my family.”

Another worker, Cynthia Winters, blasted Amazon for its negligence towards workers’ safety on the job. Winters cited workers having passed out or died because of overheating in the warehouse, paired with a lack of adequate drinking water. “We have roaches in the ice machine, roaches in the coffee machine,” she said, rattling off a list of grievances around workplace safety.

At the same time as workers are forced to cope with unhygienic facilities, they’re still pressured to work at an inhumane pace. “People die in here trying to get this work out,” said Winters. “It’s a numbers game. Get the numbers out, get the numbers out! Push, push, push!”  Winters also criticized a recent company-wide $1/hr raise for warehouse workers, adding, “Where can we afford to live with just a $1 raise?”

The workers at ATL6 are currently filing unfair labor practices against the company through the NLRB for the retaliatory firings. In terms of next steps, workers say they’re determined to stay in the fight until their demands are met. “We should not have to leave our job in order to get something done,” said Winters. “That is why we’re coming together to let them know we’re not taking it anymore.”

To show solidarity with the ATL6 workers’ organizing campaign, folks can sign the their petition here, demanding that the facility site manager listen to Amazon associates!

Photos by Ken L.

The post ATL6 Amazon Workers Unite for Higher Wages appeared first on Red Clay Comrade.

For over a month, protests and strikes have rocked the country of Iran in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22 year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested while visiting Tehran by the Guidance Patrol for violating Iran’s mandatory hijab law. Despite fierce crackdowns from the Iranian state, these protests, led by women, students, and workers, have made clear the demands for women’s rights and autonomy, shouting chants of “Women, life, freedom” and “Death to the Dictator”. Tonight, we hear from Dr. Naghmeh Sohrabi, a professor and scholar of Iranian history and politics, about these protests and their connection to the Iranian people’s long history fighting for justice and freedom. We’re also joined live tonight by Oriana and Tara from Movement Chaplain Collective in New York City. We’ll talk to them about the importance of providing spiritual and emotional care to movements through actions, advocacy, direct care to organizers, and as mutual aid.

Atlanta DSA Statement on the November 2022 Elections

The stakes of the November 2022 elections are high, and the outcome could jeopardize the rights and livelihoods of working people across the state and country. The GOP is an anti-worker, anti-Black, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-queer reactionary force which aims to dismantle abortion, voting, and other fundamental rights for working people with the goal of generating power and profits for the billionaire elite. For this reason we encourage our members, supporters and the public to vote in this year’s elections to defeat the Republican Party and their far-right agenda.

Both locally and federally, GOP electoral success this November would empower the Republican party to escalate their attacks on marginalized communities, further expand the police state, and suppress democratic elections. With the increasing hegemony of the MAGA right within the Republican party, their reactionary agenda could go as far as banning abortion nationwide, stifling labor unions with a federal right-to-work law, and rejecting the 2024 election results. With so many of our rights on the line, we must do all we can to keep Republicans out of government.

At the same time, the Democratic party serves many of the same corporate interests as the Republicans. The Democrats have done close to nothing to curb the expansion of far-right MAGA ideology, codify the right to abortion into law, get corporate money out of politics, or protect the right to organize at work. DSA remains committed to advancing a socialist political alternative to neoliberalism by challenging corporate Democrats from the left through community organizing and primary elections. While recognizing these differences, we must fight back against the white supremacist right wing, and not ignore the threat that their terror presents. Abstention from the electoral terrain in the name of purity politics won’t advance our goals: we should not cede any ground to the far-right.

To combat the GOP and their far-right agenda, we encourage everyone eligible to vote to use that power this November by confirming their voter registration status, making a plan to vote early, and voting up and down the ballot for the most left-wing candidates. Although we are not endorsing any specific candidates this cycle, Atlanta DSA is organizing around key election issues like abortion rights and mobilizing our members and supporters to vote. We call on our allies to prepare to mobilize to demand democracy in case the far right tries again to invalidate or deny the election results. In the name of free and fair elections, we’ll be ready to hit the streets and join the working-class majority in demanding that every vote be counted.

As Democratic Socialists, we recognize that voting is only one of many tactics in the fight to win our long-term goal: a free, democratic, and equitable society run by and for the multiracial working class. The crisis of democracy in the US is not just an electoral contest but a centuries-long class struggle between working people and the capitalists, landlords, and right-wing politicians who profit from our exploitation. To win a Democratic Socialist society, we must rebuild the labor movement, expand working-class consciousness, and build a mass party capable of uniting working people. Beyond this election season, Atlanta DSA will continue the struggle to organize our workplaces and reclaim abortion rights. We invite all those who agree with our aims to not only join us in voting this November, but to also get involved in our work building a socialist movement that can create a truly democratic society.

Find your polling place and make a plan to vote early at atldsa.org/vote

Sixty Years after the US Navy’s Caribbean fleet first created a picket around the island of Cuba, the United States’ cruel and aimless embargo of Cuba continues. Despite decades of red scare tactics, designed to silence Socialists who believe the embargo is a moral and political failure, people of all political stripes have come out in opposition of the ongoing embargo. So why is the embargo still in place? Simply put, it’s good politics for certain voting blocs. Though America’s ruling class hopes Cuba can continue to be the US’s socialist boogeyman next door, the embargo should galvanize support for Socialism.

Burdensome Sanctions Limit Medical and Food Imports

The embargo’s continuing existence remains as enduring evidence of US imperialism’s cruelty against countries that dare to pursue an alternative to the capitalist economy. Cubans find themselves cut off from critical sections of trade and the global economy as a result, limiting the import of medical items, food, and cash remittances that can enter Cuba from the US. Cuba can’t even import these necessities from non-US countries due to the threats of the US’s secondary sanctions. 

While the embargo in theory allows the import of food and medical items to Cuba, the structure discourages these imports in practice. For instance, the Calixto Garcia Hospital in Havana, which is Cuba’s main trauma hospital, has only two working anesthesia machines. Although they had contracted with a Swiss company to purchase more, cash-in-hand, the threat of secondary sanctions killed the deal. The threat of sanctions that would cut off foreign companies from financial processing and credit institutions housed in the United States, in addition to burdensome application and approval requirements, discourage most American or global companies from doing business with Cuba. 

Similarly, while the embargo theoretically allows food exports into Cuba, US sanctions still cut off critical food imports to Cuba. Sanctions require Cuba to purchase all food with hard currency or through third-party guarantees from foreign banks. This again is where the threat of secondary sanctions discourages foreign companies and countries from providing Cuba with financing for food. Cuba’s access to hard currency is further limited by US imposed travel restrictions, limits on remissions, and restrictions on foreign currency exchange, meaning Cuba can find little relief by trading with other countries. Moreover, if a product contains more than 10 percent US-made components, then US sanctions apply to the product, effectively locking Cuba out of critical technologies in domains dominated by US production such as agriculture, computing, and aerospace. (You can read more on the sanctions here and here) 

But this has not stopped Cubans from carrying on. In the face of the embargo, the country has shown extreme resilience, building a leading health and pharmaceutical industry, becoming a global leader in sustainable development, and even creating its own COVID-19 vaccine when the embargo would have excluded the country from global stocks. 

Though in many ways the country is a success story in how to thrive without globalization, Cuba should never have had to adapt to such a situation. From every angle, the US embargo of Cuba is a failed and cruel policy.

DSA Leads a National Campaign to End the Embargo

With widespread consensus on the embargo’s failure comes the opportunity for DSA to achieve an elusive political goal: permanently ending the embargo. DSA has kicked off a national grassroots campaign to end the embargo that reflects the importance of strategic organizing in achieving big, progressive wins, and Boston DSA is leading the way.

The campaign begins with cities. Local DSA chapters are lobbying their city councils to pass resolutions against the Cuba embargo, through constituent lobbying, public education events on the embargo, and demonstrations against the embargo’s negative effects. Boston DSA has already achieved the passage of resolutions in the Boston City Council, Somerville City Council, and Brookline Town Meeting. (Cambridge passed a similar resolution in early 2021) 

With local support for ending the Cuba embargo firmly established, the campaign now expands to coalition work. The city council resolutions are strategically written to provide the foundation for developing ties between Cuba and local constituencies in Massachusetts in domains such as biomedical research, public health, academia, and cultural institutions. Providing the basis for doctors, public health officials, artists, academics, researchers, environmental activists, religious leaders, farmers, union organizers, and others to develop concrete ties to Cuba and experience first-hand the difficulties of the embargo is a crucial piece of broadening our base of support and creating new activists organized around ending the embargo of Cuba. 

This broadened coalition will provide additional leverage as we move to federal pressure campaigns. Since the legal framework of the embargo is a construction of Congress, it is vital to push elected officials in the House and Senate to respond to their constituents’ wishes and propose or support legislation that will end the embargo. Not only do municipal resolutions provide tangible  evidence of the desire for a change of Cuba policy, but the new movement created by using resolutions as coalition organizing tools will provide powerful leverage from our region’s top leaders in various industries. 

Organizational Structure, Elected Allies, and Localized Issues are Critical to Success

The Cuba campaign’s organizing strategy greatly benefits from DSA’s decentralized structure while leveraging the organization’s national reach. Local chapters know how to best navigate the local political dynamics and pass city resolutions, but large-scale change at the congressional level will require national coordination across DSA chapters. Chapters are working independently to pass city resolutions and then with DSA’s International Committee to coordinate the national congressional campaign across chapters. If successful, this interlinked local and national approach can serve as a template for future DSA organizing campaigns that want to build a national campaign from the grassroots. 

One of the key lessons learned to date is the importance of developing strong relationships with our local electeds in order to encourage the praxis of internationalism from local office. Kendra Lara, a DSA member and Boston City Council member, introduced the Cuba resolution to the Boston City Council and was an important ally in navigating the political dynamics and procedures to pass the resolution. Willie Burnley Jr., a DSA member and Somerville City Council member, approached Boston DSA about passing a similar resolution in Somerville and drew on our support to pass a resolution in his city. Likewise, Ryan Black, a Boston DSA Coordinating Committee member and former Brookline Town Councilor, was the primary citizen petitioner who introduced the successful resolution in Brookline. 

The campaign has also solidified the importance of finding local connections to issues of national and international relevance. Though Boston and Cuba are 1,500 miles apart and the Cuban population in Boston is miniscule compared to cities in Florida,Boston and Cuba are both global leaders in the medical and pharmaceutical industries. The Boston resolution emphasized how Boston academia and businesses could benefit from knowledge exchange with Cuba. Cuba is also a leader in sustainability, a growing concern as the Boston area adapts to the impacts of the climate crisis. Thus, collaboration on sustainability between local cities and towns with Cuba may form promising bases for future resolutions.

Join Our Campaign

Want to end the Cuba embargo? Or just interested in strategic organizing campaigns? Join us! You can email the Boston DSA campaign at cuba.bdsa@gmail.com and we will link you up with the work. Be on the lookout for upcoming political education events as we move new resolutions forward! If you would like to directly help Cubans, who experienced a disastrous fire in early August and the devastating impact of Hurricane Ian in September, you can donate through Code Pink or Global Health Partners. The embargo limits donations that can flow to the country and only certain organizations are able to send assistance.

For the month of October we will be raising funds for the creation of Abortion Care kits for our local clinic. Come join us at our special fundraiser bake sale and event or donate online (and get some special treats, no tricks). Abortion Bans are Scary! Fundraiser Shop

Click here to Donate: Abortion Bans are Scary! Fundraiser

74 people in Milwaukee County Jail receive $3,200 in mutual aid funds

In 2020, Cooperation Milwaukee and Milwaukee DSA started a mutual aid fundraising campaign in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We were able to work with the Brown Berets and the Milwaukee Turners to distribute food, supplies and gift cards to people directly impacted by the pandemic on three separate occasions. Funds continued to grow after these food drives. We coordinated the distribution of funds to incarcerated people at Milwaukee County Jail with Milwaukee DSA’s Abolition Working Group.

As a result of the fundraising campaign, we have been able to equitably donate a total of $3,200 into the accounts of 74 people who are incarcerated in the Milwaukee County Jail.

The pandemic has created an especially dire situation for people incarcerated in jails and prisons across the United States and the world. The close living quarters in carceral facilities inevitably created a challenge in a pandemic, but there are many steps that could have been taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. People in carceral facilities across the country have reported medical neglect and unsanitary conditions. Many staff have shown indifference to safety precautions, often refusing to get vaccinated or declining to wear masks.

To make matters worse, hygienic products, such as soap and hand sanitizer, have been sporadically provided and only consistently available through the commissary (store). People in the Milwaukee County Jail are not paid for labor they perform while incarcerated, so those with no outside source of funds often have no way to access these basic sanitary items.

While we realize this won’t undo the damage that the inhumane conditions have imposed on Wisconsin families, we hope these funds will make life in custody a little more bearable for incarcerated people. We also hope that they will take solace in the fact that there are people on the outside who do care about them.

COVID-19 may be past its peak, but we are seeing a resurgence in cases and we must think of ways to help incarcerated people continue to navigate the pandemic. We certainly can’t rely on current leadership to address this crisis. Mutual aid via funds generated and submitted to incarcerated workers is one way in which we can support those most marginalized by the current oppressive system.

We envision a world where mutual aid, equity, solidarity and cooperation flourish, and will ultimately replace the hierarchical capitalist system which thrives on predation, exploitation, racism, classism, endless war and mass incarceration. We will continue to promote mutual aid for incarcerated people until such a world is achieved.

RPM takes you to Brazil and Florida, two places on the frontlines of climate chaos. We are joined by Benjamin Fogel from Jacobin and Richie Floyd from St Petersburg City Council. We will be talking about the elections in Brazil and the impact of Hurricane Ian on the Gulf Coast of Florida.