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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the PSC?

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

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

Who is on the Ballot?

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

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

When and How Can I Vote?

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

Where Can I Vote?

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

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

by Sean Arent

Background

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

Purpose

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

Submission Guidelines

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

How should DC's socialists engage with Advisory Neighborhood Commissions?

Remembering democratic socialist Suzanne Crowell, who passed away on June 15, 2025.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author: Kevin N.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post No Staff Too Small to Strike appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Denzel McCampbell is running in District 7 for Detroit City Council. He has spent more than a decade working on issues such as voting rights, water affordability, and equitable transportation. He’s also aiming to improve public safety by investing in preventative measures, community violence intervention programs and mental health services. Denzel’s primary is on August 5th!

Denzel is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

There's never been a more exciting time to be in DSA. As you may have heard, a democratic socialist recently won the New York City mayoral primary.

33-year-old Zohran Mamdani's unexpected victory over former governor Andrew Cuomo in America's biggest city demonstrates the power of politics that centers the material needs of the working class. Amid numerous reasons for despair, it shows that DSA can offer a path forward. It's a moment of national significance, and now we need to take the model nationwide.

You can play a part by joining DSA and getting involved in your local chapter. Scroll down for our calendar of meetings in July.

You'll notice that it doesn't include a chapter or branch meeting. Instead, we've planned a couple outdoor social events for the summer. One of them is tomorrow (6/29)!

Come to Waterbury Center State Park (177 Reservoir Rd.) at 9:30 a.m. or to Stowe's Sterling Pond Trailhead (6443 Mountain Rd.) at 10 a.m. and spend a day in nature with other socialists. You can hang out with us again on July 20 at Burlington's Oakledge Park (11 Flynn Ave.), where a picnic will begin at 4:30 p.m. Feel free to email us at this address if you have any questions about either event.

We're getting folks together in part because we're trying to raise funds for our chapter's elected delegates in advance of the 2025 DSA National Convention in Chicago, where they'll debate resolutions and help choose a new National Political Committee. If we want our chapter's voice represented in August, we need to make sure that our representatives can afford the trip. You can donate here.

Finally, you may have heard that downtown Burlington is getting a new movie theater in the fall. If you noticed its name or read about its democratic governance, you may guessed that socialists had something to do with it. GMDSA has endorsed Partizanfilm, a cooperative, grassroots project to build a not-for-profit cinema for the people. Consider becoming a member! And please tell them we sent you on their signup form.

GMDSA MEETINGS
🚲 GMDSA's Urbanism Committee will meet on Monday, July 7, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🧑‍🏭 Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted by the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including July 9, at 6 p.m. at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington).

🔨 Our Labor Committee will hold its next meeting on Monday, July 14, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🗳️ The next meeting of our Electoral Committee will take place on Wednesday, July 16, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🏳️‍⚧️ Our Gender & Sexuality Committee will meet on Monday, July 21, at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

🤝 Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Tuesday, July 22, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🎥 Socialist Film Club will temporarily go remote next month. July's pick is the Italian drama The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971), available via Solidarity Cinema. After watching it individually at home, we'll discuss it together at Zero Gravity (716 Pine St., Burlington) on Friday, July 25, at 8 p.m.

🍉 Our Palestine Solidarity Committee will meet on Monday, July 28, at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

STATE AND LOCAL NEWS
📰 About 16,500 protesters rallied against President Trump in Burlington on No Kings Day, which may have been the state's most active day of political demonstrations ever.

📰 The Vermont Progressive Party needs a new executive director.

COMMUNITY FLYERS

A review of Malcolm Harris' recent ecosocialist proposals.