Tuition Strike Update 2/24 – Registration Holds & Action-Planning Town Hall
Columbia has started imposing registration holds on strikers’ accounts. What this means is that you won’t be able to register when it’s your designated time, if the strike doesn’t end before then. You can find a full list of registration times here—the earliest registration date for the summer is March 8, and fall registration doesn’t begin until April 5. There will be another billing deadline on March 18, and we’ll reassess whether to continue to strike at that point. For the time being, we’re asking everyone to continue to withhold tuition for as long as possible.
It’s important to keep in mind that you can still register for classes as soon as you pay tuition (the administration claims it’s instantaneous that holds are removed after paying tuition), so you could still register even if you miss your first scheduled registration time. If you are flexible about what classes you register for, or if the classes you want are widely available, then there are minimal risks to continuing to strike.
For students who are graduating this year, commencement begins on April 27, meaning a diploma hold will come into effect on March 27. As with the registration holds, this is not permanent but rather will be lifted once you pay. As mentioned above, we will have held a vote on whether to continue the strike before the March 18 deadline, and will continue to be in touch about how we want to move forward.
If you are considering dropping out of the strike, please reach out to columbia.ydsa@gmail.com to talk more.
Lastly, we want to emphasize that Columbia will do everything in their power to keep us in school and get us to pay tuition again. The administration aims to intimidate us with this retaliation, but we still have power. Over the next month, we’re going to be doing everything we can to force the administration to concede. We’ll need all the help we can get. If you’re interested in getting involved, you can join one of our working groups! We’re also hosting a town hall meeting this Thursday, 2/25, at 8 pm EST where we’ll be discussing potential in-person actions and other next steps.
Solidarity,
Columbia YDSA
Labor Rights and the American Catholic Church
SJDSA Labor Working Group Statement on Camden Public School Closures
The members of South Jersey Democratic Socialists of America stand in solidarity with the families and teachers of Camden, New Jersey as they continue to fight against the closure of Wiggins, Sharp, Cramer, and Yorkship schools. Our principles reject policies that put profit over people. Furthermore, this decision will lead to increased inequality, uncertainty, and pain for predominantly Black and Latinx working-class families of Camden that we cannot accept.
Superintendent Katrina McCombs called these school closures “painful, but necessary.” We agree that these closures are painful, but there is nothing necessary about them. Camden City School District recently announced a $40 million deficit for the fiscal year of 2022. Meanwhile, the American Water Corporation, the 76ers, and Subaru won’t pay full property taxes for almost 20 more years. But the roots of these school closures lie in the 2012 Urban Hope Act that sought to punish “failing” urban public schools by replacing them with charter schools and “renaissance schools” – a giveaway to corporate nonprofit management. The damage wrought by ”economic development” and “education “reform” has gone hand in hand.
Education “reform” is being used to propel George Norcross’s “Camden Rising” – a land grab that seeks to gentrify the city of Camden for prospective affluent white residents. This plan blames minority and low-income residents and prioritizes the interests of wealthy property developers over the needs of the community. The destruction of community schools and family support systems will be left in the wake of “Camden Rising.”
Closing public schools in Camden will only decrease enrollment in the city’s remaining schools and deepen the district’s budget deficit. Austerity is not the answer. We demand an end to public school closures. District administration must actively communicate with parents and teachers to meet their needs and increase enrollment. New students should be welcomed into Camden Public Schools rather than be used as pawns for gentrification and real estate development. Most importantly, corporations and the wealthy must pay their fair share to the public.
New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America Solidarity Statement with Amazon Alabama Workers
Currently, 6,000 warehouse workers in Bessmer, Alabama are doing something historic: voting to unionize an Amazon workplace. Over the last decade, Amazon has become one of the most powerful and profitable companies in the world, but this was achieved through the exploitation of their workers. Amazon has subjected their workers to brutal and humiliating conditions from exhausting physical labor that leads to long term injuries, to unreasonable workplace quotas that force employees to take such measures as urinating in bottles, to widespread tracking and surveillance by computers. Already in Europe, many Amazon warehouse workers have unions to guarantee their health, safety, and job security; in America, Jeff Bezos has increased his wealth by $75 billion while leaving American Amazon workers to rely on Medicaid and SNAP to make ends meet during a global pandemic. We also know that Amazon engaged in a brutal union-busting campaign, including changing traffic lights to prevent organizers from speaking with employees about the union.
Historically, unionization efforts have always gone hand-in-hand with racial justice. In the 1940s, the CIO’s “Operation Dixie” sought to connect wage increases with dismantling Jim Crow segregation. It failed due to opposition from segregationists and McCarthyism, but it reemerged again during the Civil Rights Movement the 1960s. This culminated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike where Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally assassinated. The New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America views the current unionization efforts at Amazon in Alabama as an extension of this legacy, and stands in solidarity with workers voting to unionize. Any effort against this unionization effort must be viewed as a de facto defense of white supremacy. This unionization vote and organizing effort will not only boost and uplift the Amazon warehouse’s predominantly black workers in Bessmer but also serve as a precedent for other workplaces in America to fight for better conditions, and fair, just labor rights for all.
In Solidarity,
North and South Jersey Democratic Socialists of America
Charlotte Metro DSA for M4A
On January 3rd, 2021, Charlotte Metro DSA held its monthly meeting in the midst of the #ForcetheVote on Medicare for All debate that was raging online amongst the American Left. While the weeks since that meeting have diverted our attention, it is important for the chapter leadership to revisit what was discussed at the meeting and report on the debates and decisions that the chapter made as a democratic organization in regard to #ForcetheVote.
Members displayed their passion and commitment to socialism and building working class power in one the longest debates in chapter history. Many fantastic questions were raised about how we build power, the nature of organizing work, and how we can effectively reach our friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors in the working class. Ultimately it was decided to not endorse the #ForcetheVote effort, but instead to use this as an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment as a chapter to Medicare for All organizing.
Through the debate we were able to reach a consensus as a chapter that healthcare is at the top of everyone’s mind, especially in the midst of a pandemic and economic crisis. Since healthcare intersects with every aspect of our lives - labor, housing, education, race, and gender, to name a few - it is also one of the easiest ways for us to start talking to and organizing with the people in our lives. So, instead of simply voting “no” on endorsing the #ForcetheVote effort, we want to use this as an opportunity. An opportunity to recommit to supporting Medicare for All organizing within Charlotte Metro DSA and in the Carolinas, as a way to reach and recruit new members, as a vehicle to building an effective organizing body in the region, and as a way to positively impact the lives of workers in our community and state.
As we launch this renewed effort in Medicare for All organizing, please join us for our Medicare for All Campaign Kickoff on Saturday, February 20th at 1:00 PM.
RSVP here. Campaign news, updates, and actions will be posted on our M4A Campaign launch page.
Medicare for All now. Solidarity forever.
The Charlotte Metro DSA Steering Committee
SJDSA Mutual Aid Statement On The Treatment of Our Unhoused Neighbors in Camden
“I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.” -Malcolm X
In a report from TapInto from Camden’s February 9th city council meeting, homeless activists spoke out about the lack of action taken by the city to assist the many unhoused individuals living in Camden, especially in the cold winter months. Camden County Commissioner Carmen Rodriguez had this to say in response (emphasis added):
“The intent of Code Blue [is to be a] life-saving measure, not a comfort measure. It’s a life-saving measure. When we do warm warming sites, we’re not here to invite the homeless in to feel comfortable, to give all kinds of haircuts and baths and feed them lasagna and things of that nature. We just want to make sure that they stay alive and encourage them to go in for services, encourage them to seek the services that they want.”
South Jersey DSA is appalled and disgusted by Commissioner Rodriguez’s inhumane response. The unhoused are not a burden, they are our neighbors, friends, and family. One in two hundred people will become homeless in a given year. For those below the poverty line, that number can fall to as low as 1 in 25. Camden’s poverty rate was about 30% in 2017. Homelessness is an artificial problem, created by governments and capitalists eager to exploit their communities. There are more vacant homes available than there are people without homes. Beginning with the Reagan administration, cuts to public housing and the social safety net have decimated impoverished communities and left millions of people without affordable housing. Rather than actually solve these problems, governments typically use victim-blaming and neoliberal reform. Public spaces are over-policed, hostile architecture is installed, and County Commissioners claim that they only need to provide a warm room in order to fulfill their moral duty to the public.
Indeed, in recent memory no community in New Jersey has been exploited as much as Camden. The Democratic Party in South Jersey that includes Commissioner Rodriguez famously wrote a tax break law to funnel over $1 billion directly to party boss George Norcross and his associates. The Victor apartment complex received millions in tax abatements to rent units for upwards of $2100 in a city once called the poorest in America. While some in the city suffer to even have clean water or adequate heat, let alone a place to sleep at night, a billion dollar waterfront “revitalization” that claims to bring jobs to Camden has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to taxpayers per new job created. Not only could Camden County provide haircuts, baths, and even lasagna to everyone who requested them in warming sites, they could very easily provide homes for all of them just with the Norcross cartel’s ill-gotten riches. To do anything else with that money is condemning countless lives to death.
We stand in solidarity and action with the community organizers who are taking care of their community and speaking up about the inadequacies of our systems. You can support these efforts by following Compassion for Camden and responding to the needs of the community, donating at one of South Jersey Mutual Aid’s dropoff sites, or volunteering your time with a code blue shelter.
Protected: February 2021 Regular Meeting Minutes
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A World to Win
Our society is in economic and social crisis, and as socialists, we know that the roots of this crisis spread far beyond the immediate cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. Deliberate policy decisions by our leadership at all levels have led to a widening gap between the wealthy and the poor, crumbling social and physical infrastructure, an education system designed to reinforce the dominance of the capitalist class, a healthcare system designed to extract profit from human suffering, and a mass incarceration system that imprisons and brutalizes tens of thousands. In this episode, RPM's own Jack Devine interviews State Senator and NYC-DSA member Julia Salazar about the state budget process and how New York State can lead the charge against 50 years of harmful neoliberal austerity. We also speak to Emmaline Bennet of Columbia YDSA about the current tuition strike at Columbia and the fight for democratized universities dedicated to the pursuit of human knowledge over private profits. Finally, because it's COVID winter, Desiree Frias will walk us all through how to help eligible people, especially elders, sign up for a vaccine appointment through the city's fiendishly difficult online portals. Times are tough, but we have a world to win.
https://taxtherichnys.com/
https://bit.ly/tuition-strike-fund
https://bit.ly/tuition-strike-letter
https://nycvaccinelist.com
To give to the station, please call (516) 620-3602 or go to wbai.org. Thank you!
PRESS RELEASE: BERKSHIRES DSA DISTRIBUTES MUTUAL AID REQUEST FORM
February 9, 2021
PRESS RELEASE: BERKSHIRES DSA DISTRIBUTES MUTUAL AID REQUEST FORM
Pittsfield, MA — The Berkshires chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is distributing a Mutual Aid Request Form.
Anyone living in Berkshire County who needs support in surviving this season may request a care package of personal care items and home cleaning supplies by completing this confidential request form. Fifty packages are available first-come, first-served starting today, February 9th; this form will close automatically when the limit is reached.
Members of the Berkshires Democratic Socialists of America will make contactless deliveries on the afternoon of Saturday, February 20th.
“For many, the costs of personal care, paper products, and cleaning supplies are prohibitively expensive,” said Chapter Co-Chair Abigail Childs. “Despite being essential these items cannot be purchased with SNAP benefits. Life under capitalism is relentless and we must take responsibility for each other’s needs now more than ever.”
This mutual aid effort comes on the heels of a “Bread and Roses” food distribution where 130 grocery bags of fresh and shelf-stable food were distributed with a handmade paper rose—at Pittsfield Common back in December 2020. The Bread and Roses project addresses some immediate needs while the Chapter continues organizing long-term social and economic change.
A historic rallying call of the American labor movement inspired the project’s theme. In 1912, “Bread for all, and roses too!” united the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile workers who striked for humane working and living conditions. Led by immigrants, most of whom were women, the mass demonstrations sparked poetry and song.
The DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States. DSA’s members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly democratic socialist presence in American communities and politics. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few. DSA members use a variety of tactics, from legislation to direct action, in the fight to empower working people.
For media Inquiries, please contact Amillie Coster (413) 854-5611, amilliedelphina@gmail.com