GMDSA Electoral Committee Chair Adam Franz delivered the following speech at our chapter’s summer barbecue on July 22.

It’s great to see so many people here today, and I thank you all for coming to support our chapter’s delegation to Chicago for the national convention.

I am going into my fifth year as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and many of the people here have been in the organization longer than I have. In my time in this org, and in all of our lifetimes, “socialism” and the left have been mostly an experience of defeat. The rollback of the New Deal in favor of neoliberalism, the defeat of the labor movement, the rise of the new right, Bernie’s two defeats, and a second Trump administration. Often, socialists have looked to small wins, like mutual aid, or the lack of a defeat, as a victory.

Zohran’s win changes all of that. Since 2020, socialists have been told, and in many cases accepted, a narrative that our beliefs are unpopular, that a majority of the American people are not with us. When the New York assemblymember, a cadre DSA member, announced his campaign last fall, he was a joke. Polling at just 1%, his platform read to the mainstream media like an ultra-left Twitter bio. Free buses? Rent freeze? Publicly owned grocery stores? No, these were not the talking points they had decided the election would be about. A moral panic about crime, a debate between different forms of centrism—that was what the mayoral election would be about. Zohran’s message would not breach the borders of the already existing base of democratic socialism in New York.

New York City DSA did not, however, just play to its base. After Trump’s victory, Zohran took to the street, talking to voters in neighborhoods that swung hard against Harris in November. He found that voters were motivated by a sense that the country was not working for ordinary people, and that even the lives they had been living four years before were no longer affordable to them. Now, price caps on rent and free, universal public services don’t sound so radical. They sound like the kind of materialist demands that the socialist left has that connect with working class voters.

Zohran’s message took off, propelling him into second place against disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo. And the more voters saw of Zohran, the more they liked him. The socialist assemblymember seemed like the first politician in a long time that genuinely cared about the struggles of the working class, and had solutions for them. Zohran did not just win the primary by 12 percent; he won neighborhoods nobody expected, and even in the neighborhoods where he lost, he far exceeded expectations, like in the more conservative Staten Island, where he landed only 9% below Cuomo. 

If Zohran wins in November, DSA will be in a position to be governing America’s biggest city. Like Bernie 40 years ago in Burlington, we have the opportunity to demonstrate that socialist government is good government. That public ownership is more efficient than private dictatorship. We can realize the slogan that Lenin beautifully gifted us a century ago: “Bolshevism equals soviet power plus electrification.” Socialists recognize that we must radically transform the state to empower ordinary people and deliver a better form of administration of government services that puts to bed the notion that socialism means ineffective government.

The easy thing to do, and you already see this in Democrats’ chosen media outlets like CNN and the New York Crimes, is to say, “This is a New York phenomenon, it can’t be repeated in cities and towns across America. Small-town America doesn’t have the media presence,  the right demographics, whatever, to allow such a victory in Anywhere, USA.” 

The truth is, New York is not an easy place to win elections for the left. It’s a city with a media ecosystem run by billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, where politics is driven by machines hostile to the left, and where the ultra-wealthy have seemingly unlimited resources to defeat insurgents like us. NYC-DSA won not because of these conditions, but in spite of them. It totally transformed the terrain on which the election was fought, because it had built up its own working-class institutions that could compete with the capitalist class on its terms, not those set by the 1%. The chapter has methodically built up its presence around the city. Zohran could capitalize on 50 thousand volunteers, knocking on doors in every borough and neighborhood to spread the message, leading to record-breaking turnout. 

The task for us is to bring the momentum to Vermont. Our chapter clearly is not as big as NYC-DSA, which has over 10,000 members. Yet we have the potential to be just as organized and mobilized. 

Working Vermonters are sick of the Democratic Party. Democrats have no answers for working people to address their concerns of an unaffordable state and out-of-control housing crisis. We do. The question is, will Vermont continue to slide back into the Republican camp, or will Vermont follow the “Zohmentum” and elect socialists in 2026?

Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. The Electoral Committee has set a goal to run four candidates for the legislature next year, in winnable seats where we can build a strong presence under the golden dome, and in hopes of building our presence statewide for future campaigns. We do this because we believe that our politics are popular and we can win. It is also because we believe that running for office is not an opportunity to rabble-rouse and talk down to the masses, but to govern as socialists. 

To do this, we need candidates. If you have ever thought to yourself, “I wish someone would do something about these problems,” that person is you! If you are interested in running for office, for the state house or selectboard or city council, come find me or another organizer today. There is a place for everybody to play.

If we are going to win, we need a chapter with a fighting capacity. We need to rely on an army of volunteers, like Zohran did. If you haven’t yet, join DSA today! While the capitalist class relies on their money, there are more of us than there are of them. Build the movement, build a fighting DSA, because I believe that we will win in 2026. 

And if you want to build on this major win, sign up to get involved with the Electoral Committee.  The next meeting is July 20 at 6.

Workers with higher pay and better benefits, like tech workers, can still benefit from union representation.

The post I’m happy with my pay and benefits. Do I really need a union? appeared first on EWOC.

Next week, five members of the Green Mountain Democratic Socialists of America will set out for Chicago, where they'll represent our chapter at the DSA National Convention, the biennial event that determines our organization's nationwide priorities and leadership.

We elected them as our delegates, and now we need to make sure that they can get there and back and still be able to pay rent next month. Here's one last call for our fundraiser – if you're a member of our chapter and haven't already contributed, please consider it. If you're not a member, we recommend joining DSA.

Here at home, we've started planning for Labor Day, joining a coalition that has begun organizing a rally and march for workers in Burlington. You may want to mark your calendar now for 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 1 – we'll follow up before then to confirm the details.

Lastly, before we get to our usual list of meetings – have you heard that the nation's most successful third party needs a new executive director? You can learn more about the position on the Vermont Progressive Party's website. To apply, "send a cover letter, resume and 3 references to: Anthony Pollina, Chair, Vermont Progressive Party at apollinavt@gmail.com."

We hope you've enjoyed the summer so far. See you out there!

GMDSA MEETINGS AND EVENTS
🚲 GMDSA's Urbanism Committee will meet on Monday, August 4, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🔨 Our Labor Committee will hold its next meeting on Monday, August 11, 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 August 13, at 6 p.m. at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington).

⬅️ GMDSA's West Branch will meet on Saturday, August 16, at 11 a.m. at Burlington's Fletcher Free Library (235 College St.), with an optional orientation for newcomers at 10 a.m.

➡️ GMDSA's East Branch will meet on Saturday, August 16, at 11 a.m. at Montpelier's Christ Episcopal Church (64 State St.), with an optional orientation for newcomers at 10 a.m.

🗳️ The next meeting of our Electoral Committee will take place on Wednesday, August 20, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🎥 Socialist Film Club will organize a screening in Burlington on Friday, August 22. Keep an eye on our calendar for a time and location.

👋 Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Tuesday, August 26, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🤝 GMDSA's East Branch and West Branch will come together for a general meeting on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 11 a.m. at Montpelier's Christ Episcopal Church (64 State St.), with an optional orientation for newcomers at 10 a.m.

STATE AND LOCAL NEWS
📰 Unsheltered homelessness is on the rise in Vermont.

📰 Vermont's largest community mental health center announced that it would eliminate 57 jobs and cut services.

COMMUNITY FLYERS

Forty days on strike led to major wins for Urban Ore workers, but the struggle for a first union contract lies ahead.

The post Lessons from Urban Ore’s 40-Day Strike appeared first on EWOC.

This Report is submitted to the National Political Committee (NPC) of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) by the Green New Deal Campaign Commission (GNDCC) for consideration at the 2025 National Convention. The purpose of this report is: (1) to provide DSA members an overview of Green New Deal campaign objectives, strategy, and organizing activities; (2) to provide the Convention with a report of how the campaign carried out tasks outlined in the 2023 Resolution; and (3) to inform the convention of the successes and challenges of the campaign to assist in more effective future planning.

Overview

GNDCC’s Building for Power Campaign (B4P) organizes chapters to win local demands for green projects and expansion of public services that directly benefit the working class and empower the labor movement. GNDCC trains and mentors chapters to build their base and form winning coalitions with public sector unions, building trades, DSA electeds, environmental justice groups, and public service users like riders’ unions and tenant unions. GNDCC unifies and coordinates local campaigns by training organizers to:

• Research local issues that chapters can strategically intervene in
• Develop strategic campaigns based on objective metrics and criteria for winning and for building a stronger base and chapter
• Mobilize membership to turn out and continually assess campaign strengths and weaknesses
• Build coalitions with labor, elected officials, and other politically-aligned groups

This year, GNDCC’s 2025 Consensus Resolution proposes to continue B4P work because it has been successful in agitating for green policy and in strengthening chapter organizing and structure. The underlying strategy remains viable for the current political moment and is critical to building Left power against authoritarian threats. Due to the quickly changing political landscape, GNDCC plans to democratically develop GND strategy in this term by holding one or more strategy summits for DSA members, potentially in multiple regional meetings. The GND Summit we held in 2020 will serve as a model for future work of this sort.

A Brief History of GNDCC

GNDCC is the culmination of the original Ecosocialist Working Group (EWG), the first-ever climate action by DSA, launched by the National Convention in 2017. At that time, the growing severity of the climate crisis – and the emerging awareness of it – made climate action central to US politics by showing the inadequacies of liberal governance and environmental policy. From the start, DSA climate organizers have earned democratic legitimacy from membership by bringing proposals to our highest decision-making bodies, the Convention and the NPC.

Out of members’ growing conviction that direct campaigning at the national scale is essential to progress on climate, 2019 National Convention adopted, as a national priority, the Green New Deal Campaign, as defined in the Ecosocialist GND Principles. The Principles, endorsed by the NPC and over 60 DSA chapters in 2019, formally positioned the GND as a terrain of class-struggle.

From 2020 to 2021, GNDCC coordinated a DSA-wide organizing Summit which led to the national PRO Act campaign, then GND for Public Schools. The PRO Act campaign, adopted by the NPC and coordinated in chapters across the country, was DSA’s biggest campaign since Bernie 2020 and helped reinvigorate the national organization at a key moment. Based on this experience, DSA’s 2021 National Convention adopted the Ecosocialist Green New Deal priority which made the campaign “one of its highest national priorities.”

However, it became clear that the window for federal action was closing after the Inflation Reduction Act was passed midway through the Biden administration. But the 2023 passage of the ground-breaking New York Build Public Renewables Act, spearheaded by DSA organizers, signaled openings at the local scale. Referred to as the most significant piece of Green New Deal legislation to date, BPRA showed how public sector-oriented coalitions can win publicly-owned green infrastructure investment coupled with union jobs and strong labor provisions.

Building off this win, 2023 National Convention delegates adopted the Building for Power campaign. Under our Theory of Power and analysis of pathways for GND organizing, the campaign proposed to coordinate and help chapters win, at the city and state level, GND legislative/policy demands for public goods built with union labor and designed to further strengthen working class organization around climate. If passed, GNDCC’s 2025 Consensus Resolution will continue that work.

B4P Chapter Campaigns

Resolved that the GNDCC will continue to train and organize DSA chapters to run and win legislative campaigns for reforms that shift structural power to the working class by synergistically building public sector capacity and the labor movement—like expanded mass transit, democratized and decarbonized public energy, green social housing, and green public spaces and facilities.

As a body, we both reach out to chapter campaign leadership and take in chapter inquiries to evaluate for “B4P” status based on our criteria. The volume of inquiries and interest from across the country shows the drive to take climate action and get guidance on how to do so. In the last year alone, GNDCC Steering members have logged over 300 one-on-one and small group touches with chapter members to evaluate and workshop campaigns. In total, we have evaluated almost 100 campaigns and inquiries over the course of this campaign phase.

A plurality of campaign ideas do not make it far. Many chapters suffer from a lack of internal organization, capacity, or buy-in for campaign-type work. When we were debating in 2023 doing another national/federal level campaign like PRO Act versus letting chapters evaluate their own local conditions as under B4P, we recognized that these constraints would mean forgoing working with these chapters. That said, nearly all chapters who are pursuing a B4P campaign have reported that their chapters are stronger because of it.

As of July 2025, we have 11 active Building for Power campaigns across public transit, public power, social housing, and public spaces/schools:

Louisville – Get on the Bus Chicago – Fix the CTA Los Angeles – Power Mass Transit Houston – Our Vote, Our METRO Detroit – Bring Back the Tracks St. Louis – GND for Public Schools

NYC – Green New York (BPRA) Milwaukee – Power to the People Metro DC – We Power DC Metro DC – GND for Housing NYC – House the Future

Below are a few examples of DSA chapter work on B4P campaigns and recent wins.

Detroit Brings Back the Tracks

2025 began with strong momentum from Detroit DSA, where GNDCC member Mel H led a successful power-mapping training that launched the “Bring Back the Tracks” transit campaign. About 15 new and experienced members joined the power-mapping and research working groups that led to the launch of the campaign. The campaign has received positive local press on Detroit Public Radio and Click On Detroit, highlighting the growing influence of our ecosocialist vision in the motor city.

Louisville Gets on the Bus

Louisville DSA’s Get on the Bus campaign, fighting for expanded bus funding alongside the ATU, hit a big milestone, landing on the front page of the Courier Journal in January. In February, the campaign secured key union endorsements: the Jefferson County Teachers Association endorsed, the Louisville Central Labor Council voted unanimously to join the coalition and sign the demand letter, and the Kentucky State AFL-CIO also signed on, with its director publicly recognizing DSA as “the real deal” in building working-class power.

Milwaukee Brings Power to the People

Milwaukee’s Power to the People campaign scored a major win this year by helping to elect Alex Brower to Milwaukee’s Common Council. Alex was a core organizer who helped launch the public power campaign, and as a cadre candidate he ran on a platform that included replacing We Energies with a public utility. Milwaukee now has a socialist in office to help make this campaign a reality! Joining electoral work with legislative demands is a key feature of Building for Power campaigns.

NYC Builds Social Housing

House the Future in NYC began canvassing in March of this year, to advance social housing as a key site of climate resilience. They collected nearly 1000 signatures over a few weekends in support of a statewide social housing developer via a bill authored by socialist in office Emily Gallagher. Ithaca DSA, Long Island DSA, and Mid-Hudson Valley DSA have formally endorsed the campaign and joined NYC in organizing statewide.

NY DSA Chapters Build Public Renewables

BPRA provides a model for a successful chapter campaign within the B4P framework. It was the work of NYC DSA and other NY DSA chapters, including Mid-Hudson Valley DSA, which elected Sarahana Shrestha, a former steering member of the Ecosocialist Working Group, as a key moment in the campaign. It is currently in the implementation phase and GNDCC’s Matt H. recently interviewed Micheal P., one of the strategy chairs, about where the campaign stands now. Michael’s comments are brimming with insights relevant to many chapters and members so please give the interview a read.

In short, New York State has relatively aggressive climate laws — mandating rapid transition to renewables, with benefits of the transition to disadvantaged communities — but DSA organizers understood the State “was not going to take the aggressive action that was needed to meet those goals.” To build a “mechanism to force the State to deliver on this promise,” they used a sort of secret weapon for the energy transition, the New York Power Authority (NYPA), the largest state-level public utility in the country. Seeing it as an opportunity to get the State — not private developers – to build renewables, NYC DSA and a coalition it led pressured the State itself to step up and build the renewable energy.

The strategy included plans to create a huge amount of green jobs, shut down fossil fuel plants, especially in lower-income places with mostly Black and Brown residents, and lowering utility bills. Through internal pressure in Albany in coordination with DSA electeds like Zohran Mamdani and Sarahana Shrestha, external pressure to force a response from target legislators, running insurgent candidates against target legislators, and relentless organizing, the coalition won a law that basically gives NYPA both the power and the mandate to build a ton of publicly owned renewable energy and create all these benefits in the process. The fight to see it fully implemented continues.  

Metro DC fights rate hikes

When DC’s electric utility proposed raising rates over 12%, We Power DC fought back by organizing residents to send almost 2,000 letters to the DC Council in the fall of 2024 urging them to stand up to rate hikes. Now, as bills (and summer temperatures) rise, DC’s public power organizers are hitting the streets to canvass for public power and wheatpaste around the District. Meanwhile, the campaign has developed a technical whitepaper to make the case for legislation to build a public alternative to Pepco. 

Building for Power 2023-2025

Coaching & training 

Resolved that the GNDCC will continue to support the development of chapter capacity by providing campaign-oriented training, coaching, resources, and educational materials and facilitating cross-chapter coordination as part of a larger unified strategy.

Campaign Huddles

Since the GND for Public Schools campaign, GNDCC has understood that regular campaign meetings for chapter leads can be the heart of the campaign and provide the most enjoyable and fruitful organizing meetings many members have been involved in. To this end, we host cross-chapter meetings (once monthly, now quarterly) called “Campaign Huddles.” Typically, 5-10 chapters, often with multiple members from those chapters, participate for the hour-long call and we do outreach to widen and grow interest. In the last two years, we have held about 15 hour-long chapter huddles, with more than 200 unique participants across 70 chapters.

Huddles provide members with opportunities to learn from each other and they give GNDCC ways to collect information from chapter campaigns that can help us understand gaps in knowledge and needs of chapters. Presentations by chapters about their campaigns, skills sharing with experienced members, and open discussion can address very uneven levels of campaign experience and skills among chapters. We talk about tactics and strategic challenges, about comms and organizing tools, about the political moment and preparing for future fights. 

Members who attend report loving them, especially for the chance they give members to share experiences, commiserate with each other, and celebrate together. Huddles and similar meetups can also help cohere DSA as a national organization of closely coordinated locals and in building solidarity and a shared sense of direction among members.

Trainings

Training chapter leaders to create and execute strategy, organize internally, use organizing tools, and plan and conduct field work is the core of the B4P campaign. In the last two years, GNDCC has held 5 major trainings lasting over 9 hours, in addition to mini-trainings tailored for specific chapters.

Strategic Campaign Trainings with GDC
In February 2024 we hosted a 3-part training series on strategic campaigns along with the Growth & Development committee. Just over 150 comrades attended live or accessed the recordings, representing over 60 chapters from across the country. One of those participants from Houston DSA went on to revitalize the chapter’s dormant ecosocialist working group and launched a Building for Power campaign on transit, “Our Vote Our METRO”. 

Regional Organizing Retreats
Since 2023, GNDCC also participated in 4 DSA regional organizing retreats when these were still taking place to promote Building for Power and the value of running strategic campaigns. 

Mini-Trainings
GNDCC also hosted on-demand trainings for specific chapters based on their needs. In 2024 we hosted sessions for Twin Cities, Grand Rapids, and LA to help them think through their local conditions and craft strategic demands. 

Coaching

Each actively campaigning B4P chapter has a GNDCC contact who meets with them regularly, advises campaign leads and provides them with resources, reporting back to GNDCC on developments and needs. In 2022-23, GNDCC put together a coaching team of experienced DSA organizers from chapters around the country to help mentor B4P chapter campaigns. Finding members experienced enough, good at communicating, and with capacity to spare (2 to 4 hours a month), is challenging in the best of times and even more difficult when DSA chapters are at low capacity ebbs as they have been during this time. In the past 2 years, this work has been shouldered more and more by GNDCC steering members, and we have essentially stopped expanding the program. 

A coaching success story comes out of Los Angeles, where NYC-DSA member Joe S has stepped to work with Los Angeles’ Power Mass Transit campaign when it ran into challenges pushing for a quick-build network of dedicated bus/bike lanes and for free fares on LA transit. Joe continuously challenged chapter leads to take on new strategies/tactics to get what they want without dropping core demands for better transit, get aligned with SIOs, keep attacking the Metro Board, and track chapter/campaign growth outside of direct “wins.” The campaign has since pivoted to targeting the LA Metro Board along with the local janitors union to create a permanent system of free public bathrooms at major transit stations.

Mass Calls and conference panels

Resolved that the GNDCC will continue to collaborate with other DSA national bodies on overlapping campaign and policy areas. 

Since 2023, we have hosted 7 mass calls with DSA’s National Labor Commission, International Committee, and Housing Justice Committee, as well as with union organizers, DSA organizers, and socialists in office from around the country. We also helped coordinate panels at the yearly Socialism Conference in 2023 and 2024. 

The Fight for a Socialist Green New Deal (June 2025). Union leaders, socialists in office, and DSA campaign organizers explained why they’re continuing to fight for a socialist Green New Deal in the current terrain through Building for Power Campaigns. 

Socialism Conference Panel: An Ecosocialism that Builds: What’s Next for the Green New Deal? (Aug. 2024). DSA GND organizers, researchers from Climate + Community Institute, and UAW Region 9A leader Brandon Mancilla formed a panel on rebuilding the labor movement via Green New Deal unionism. 

Building for Power in Mass Transit (June 2024). In this webinar, we heard from Building for Power campaigns around the country that are organizing for mass public transit with organized labor and socialists in office. 

Workers and the World Unite: Labor in a Green New Deal (January 2024). Hosted by GNDCC and the DSA National Labor Commission, organizers from across the country spoke about their work and how it fits into the theory and practice of a just transition and a socialist horizon.

Ceasefire Now For People and Planet (Dec. 2023). Panelists from DSA, Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and Dissenters discussed the resurgence of a Left anti-war movement and organizing for Palestinian liberation in the context of the climate crisis, and explored how ecosocialist organizers can deepen internationalism and anti-militarism within domestic climate organizing.

Socialism Conference Panel: The Longer Road to a Green New Deal (Aug. 2023). DSA climate organizers, including GNDCC members, participated in a Green New Deal panel at the conference focusing on B4P strategies and the BPRA.

The Path to Green Social Housing (July 2023). Panelists from GNDCC and the Housing Justice Commission discussed different contemporary and historical approaches to the development of class- and eco-conscious social housing and how we can win it today.

BPRA: A Win in the Fight for a Green New Deal (April 2023). In this webinar, we heard from DSA climate organizers who made Build Public Renewables happen, and about how we can grow the movement for public power to win a Green New Deal from coast to coast!

Building for Power: Launch Call (March 2023). In the launch for the then new B4P Campaign, we heard from DSA member-organizers in Detroit, Philly, and Maine chapters, plus DSA electeds Hugo Soto-Martinez (LA) and Sarahana Shrestha (MHV).

GNDCC Chapter Grants and Fundraising

GNDCC has also distributed almost $7,000 in grants to campaigning chapters For example, Philly DSA was able to build 100 Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes (DIY air filters) for classrooms across 12 schools with their grant funds, aiding the community and building strong relationships as part of their Green New Deal for Public Schools campaign. Louisville’s Get on the Bus campaign printed 100 stickers for bus stops and 1,000 push cards for canvassing/tabling, which kicked off their ongoing work. In the same time, our committee has raised $4,500 in donations to DSA.

Campaign Challenges and Opportunities

US Politics

When we drafted our theory of power in 2022, we were organizing in the context of a neoliberal Democratic administration over which the Left had limited power. Now we find ourselves at the start of Trump’s second – worse – term. ICE is raiding communities and chapters are organizing to defend immigrants and trans people from the Right’s assaults. Trump has launched a trade war, frozen research grants, threatened universities, and purged federal workers. Basic environmental protections like the Clean Air Act are under threat, and some funding under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been rescinded. Meanwhile, Democrats play dead, post weak clap backs, and try to flank Trump to the right. 

In this setting, it is true that chapters may become stretched responding to immediate demands more pressing than new bus lanes. But our view is that, through B4P campaigns undertaken now, chapters can build the leadership and organizing skills and expand the outreach and recruitment that will be essential to responding to whatever Trump dishes out. 

The crises we face are urgent, yet the public goods we are working to expand take years to build out; there is no time to waste. An organized Left must keep pushing on the local level, where there are still opportunities to build working-class power and green public sector capacity. 

The recent victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York points the way forward. While Zohran’s campaign was laser-focused on making an affordable NYC for all, the demands were crafted in a way that proposed Green Abundance for the Many through policies that “embed climate action in real improvements for working peoples’ everyday lives.” This approach, merging electoral organizing with climate action through broad coalitions oriented to labor, is deeply connected with the Building for Power framework that is popular among so many DSA chapters. GNDCC believes this model, adapted to various conditions across the country, can post major wins on climate and forms a core strategy for fighting right-wing austerity and authoritarianism. Notably Zohran was a core climate organizer in NYC during his tenure as Assemblyman and is credited with stopping a new gas plant in Astoria, securing more funding for public transportation, and helping to push BPRA over the finish line.

Chapter Conditions and Internal Organizing

The last 2 years of Biden’s term, marked by the Gaza invasion and genocide, were demoralizing for DSA members. Chapters did broadly experience demobilization and fought to build in a landscape with little federal political possibility open to the Left. 

While the Build Public Renewables Act as well as the Zohran campaign provide models for successful chapter campaigning in the B4P framework, it’s also clear that most chapters are not in a position to win demands of that size or scope. In addition to external political barriers, DSA chapters have uneven capacity and skill levels, uneven organizing cultures and uneven mobilization. But chapters can win B4P campaigns on the scale of their local conditions! B4P’s strategy is designed to develop chapters in all those areas, particularly intensive organizing capacity to win power and transformative demands. 

While some chapters are struggling to get going, other chapters are reporting: wins in electoral campaigns that include GND demands, like those of Zohran and Alex Brower; new B4P campaigns with chapter buy-in; formation of chapter power-mapping groups; recent social events to build engagement; good canvassing numbers – especially in electoral campaigns pushing GND demands; and growing engagement with labor union locals. The GNDCC’s goal is to help chapters build, sustain, and spread organizing momentum in the next two years. 

Long Timelines and Developing Crises

Because this campaign is an ambitious effort to coordinate many local campaigns by chapters under varying conditions, we recognize that developing winnable demands while building working class power will take time. Chapters need time to do strategic groundwork or build capacity. Like a massive locomotive leaving the station, it will take time to gain traction and speed, but once started, it is difficult to stop.

We are proposing to continue this campaign and the great work it’s started. The instability and incoherence of the Trump Administration and the Democratic response mean that the political landscape is in great flux and predictability is limited. GNDCC therefore plans to democratically develop Green New Deal strategy in this term by holding one or more strategy summits for DSA members, potentially in multiple regional meetings. The GND Summit we held in 2020 will serve as a model for future work of this sort. We intend to continue mapping this terrain with a broad range of DSA members and providing them with training, coaching, resources, and organized labor power, to achieve progress in the next two years. 

Last Word

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. — Karl Marx

The post Report to the 2025 National Convention appeared first on Building for Power.

DSA is proud to endorse Willie Burnley Jr. for Somerville Mayor. Willie currently serves At-Large on the Somerville City Council. On council he has fought to expanding tenant rights, provide non-discrimination protections for trans and polyamorous folks, has made roads safer and sidewalks more accessible through the Safe Streets Ordinance, and advocated to abolish medical debt.

As mayor he’ll champion housing for all, a Green New Deal for Somerville Public Schools, expanding worker’s rights, and more!

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

Learn what independent unions are, why workers form them, and what the challenges and advantages they bring.

The post Should I Organize an Independent Union? appeared first on EWOC.

The Growth and Development Committee Steering Committee explains the positive benefits of their recent bylaws changes.

The post A New Phase in DSA’s Growth and Development appeared first on Democratic Left.

[[{“value”:”UNITE HERE Local 26 concessions workers on strike. (Working Mass)

FENWAY PARK, MA – For the first time in over a century, America’s Favorite Ballpark’s concessions workers are on strike.

UNITE HERE Local 26 gave Aramark a 48-hour deadline on Wednesday, July 23, to meet worker demands before one-thousand workers walked out of Fenway Park and MGM Music Hall. After a month of negotiations with management’s feet to the fire of the strike threat, Fenway’s concession company Aramark has still not come close to meeting the demands of their workers for adequate wages and against automation.

Aramark Strikes Out

The main fight for Fenway workers is over wages, especially for non-tipped workers. President Aramayo noted in June that Fenway workers are “paid peanuts” compared to their counterparts in other stadiums. Even in the city of Boston, workers in concession services at Boston University and Simmons University are paid $26-$28 an hour. Fenway workers are paid $18-$20 an hour at the highest level of seniority.

Non-tipped workers are essential to making Fenway’s and MGM’s concessions work function. Charbel Salameh, a beer seller for 28 years and counting, told the press on Wednesday:

There are a lot of hourly folks who don’t earn gratuities here, like cooks and warehouse workers that nobody really sees. If the warehouse workers don’t deliver the product, there is no product.

There’s also the struggle against automation. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, sports and music venues have begun to introduce more computer systems and mechanisms in concessions areas. Aramark has introduced more computerized cash registers in the years since COVID-19 at Fenway, too. The surge in automation has heavily impacted the Fenway workforce and their service without much of a wage increase. 

Salameh described a workforce that Aramark has hollowed out through automation:

It used to be that there were four beer sellers per stand. Now, we have one person overseeing four registers.

The more time is spent working at Fenway, the more likely one is to get a higher-earning shift. But with the introduction of automation and the decreasing numbers of shiftable staff, employees who have been working at Fenway for even fifteen years are much less likely to get picked up for a shift.

For employees like Amanda Savage, who have been working at Fenway for eighteen years, earnings have fallen dramatically. The money she’s able to bring in is far lower than before there were computers replacing her coworkers. Savage is on track to receive half the earnings from gratuities last year, half of what she had earned the year before, even as the price of everything goes up.

UNITE HERE Local 26 announcing concessions workers would strike in 48 hours – on Wednesday, July 23. (Working Mass)

The introduction of automation has likewise hindered workers from making personal connections.

For Savage, one of the best parts of working at the park used to be serving little kids with ice cream. The installation of computer systems has stolen the joy and alienated her more. The computer systems that prevent customer-to-worker interaction have decreased the number and quality of interactions shared between fan and concessions workers; in fact, Aramark has discouraged workers from maintaining that connection altogether. Savage reported that Aramark once warned her not to be so close to the concessions stand as customers were checking out.

Gratuities that workers once enjoyed have decimated exponentially. Heidi Kertatos, who has worked at Fenway for nineteen years, had put her time year after year to work herself up the ladder as a beer seller. After COVID-19, though, she immediately noticed differences:

Once COVID came, Aramark changed things. They took away cash, so now, you have to split a thousand dollars between six people for working four registers.

Like many companies, Aramark used a global pandemic to underpay workers more.

Fenway Workers Take a Walk

Many workers still held hope Aramark would meet their demands in the eleventh hour.  

Lauren Casello, a suite attendant, has worked Fenway for twenty-two seasons. She shared her concern “I’m nervous. This is my full-time job. I need to work, so we’re hoping that Aramark comes to us with something good.” But they have no choice – as Salameh stated during Local 26’s press conference: “none of us want to walk out, but all of us want to make a living wage.” 

After his last meeting at the negotiating table, Salameh’s last glimmer of hope was dashed:

Right now, it feels like we’re treated like cattle. We have all put in a lot of time, and everybody used to know our names. Now, they don’t wanna know who you are.

For most workers, it was the final straw.

At noon on Friday, July 25, Fenway Park workers went on strike. Their black-and-red signs sprung up around the Fenway area with rapid succession, alerting every passersby to the strike, and workers took to the picket line with bravado and strike signs firmly in hand. Within an hour they were joined first by dozens, then hundreds, from organizations including other unions and the Boston Democratic Socialists of America. Around 3PM, Boston City Council member Julia Mejia also joined the picket line.

Even more community organizations made plans to join the picket line on the weekend as the Boston Red Sox face the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Union workers are asking fans to attend games but to not buy beer, food, or other concession items if workers go on strike. They need Aramrak to feel the pain in the absence of concessions workers on the company. Supporters can join workers on the picket line at Fenway Park.

Nineteen-year old beer seller Laura Crystal put it simply:

It’s the epitome of corporate greed. We need to squash it. 

Andrew S is a community organizer with Boston DSA and contributing writer to Working Mass.

The post In 113-Year First, Fenway Park Concessions Workers Go On Strike appeared first on Working Mass.

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By: Zachary Wright

WORCESTER, MA – On July 4, 2025, Donald Trump signed into law his “Big Beautiful Bill.” The bill is draconian and destructive on every level of the social contract. One of the most deadly provisions is the Big Beautiful Bill’s decimation of Medicaid programs.

During my career as a rank-and-file nurse, I’ve worked with diverse populations of different cultures and ages. I’ve worked in cardiac, intensive care, and the emergency room, so I’ve been able to see patients from many different stages of their hospital stay. Rootedness in the workplace allows us not only to advocate for and observe our patients and their needs, but that of the wider community in which the hospital exists. The community around the hospital is a mix of urban and rural, lower-income workers and tenants.

Many are part of the two million Massachusetts residents who rely on Medicaid assistance to obtain healthcare in the form of MassHealth.

When MassHealth Falls, So Do Patients

MassHealth is the name we give Medicaid in Massachusetts. Almost 2,000,000 of our family members, friends and neighbors are enrolled in MassHealth. 76% of the adults enrolled in Medicaid are employed, most full-time. Approximately ⅓ of births in Massachusetts are covered by Medicaid and ⅔ of nursing home residents receive assistance from Medicaid through MassHealth. 

This “Big Beautiful Bill” will cause severe challenges to the most vulnerable of our fellow residents by taking a dagger to MassHealth. Those already struggling with rising prices of groceries, housing, childcare and more will be unable to cope with higher out of pocket costs. People will choose feeding their children, keeping roofs over their head, and gas for the car to get to work instead of medical care. Even before Medicaid cuts began, American workers were rationing. In April 2024, researchers found a fifth of Americans rationed medication. And as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer rise in Massachusetts just like the rest of the nation, our neighbors who put aside seeking medical care due to their inability to afford it will be sicker when and if they do finally seek care.

Rural hospitals rely on Medicaid reimbursement to keep their doors open; those funds help pay their staff, keep medications stocked, their lights on and their beds available.  Hospitals, when deprived of those reimbursements, will need to cut costs to make up the difference if they want to stay open.  That means fewer nurses, fewer beds, fewer procedures, greater costs for the patients, longer wait times, and an overall decrease in the availability of care.  

We are “fortunate” in Massachusetts that only one hospital is at risk of closing due to Medicaid cuts: Baystate Franklin Medical Center, in Greenfield. But as we saw when Steward Health Care’s CEO oversaw a regime of mismanagement resulting in the closing of both Carney and Nashoba, even the closure of a single facility can cause secondary effects downstream that harm patients and communities. Surrounding hospitals caring for the former Carney and Nashoba patients had more patients to care for with their limited beds; fewer beds on the medical floors led to admitted patients waiting longer for a bed in the emergency room; packed emergency rooms led to greater waiting times for those in the waiting room, delaying critical and time sensitive care. 

Time is tissue; strokes and heart attacks need prompt treatment to prevent disability or death.

Cuts to Medicaid Mean Cuts to Workers’ Community

Over 300 rural hospitals across the country may close due to the Medicaid cuts. Many of them not only serve rural white Americans; they serve Native communities and Tribes that depend on access to rural healthcare from reservations they were forcibly displaced to live in. Despite HHS Secretary Kennedy’s alleged attempts to shelter critical services like the Indian Health Services (IHS) from these cuts, rural Native communities are still on track to face the impact of rural hospital closures as well as by the cuts that many Tribal leaders consider violations of sovereign treaties between their nations and the United States. For rural people, both Native and non-Native, every hour traveled is one less hour of healthcare.

Every minute matters.

As a result of Medicaid cuts, long-term care facilities will become affordable only to the richer and fewer. Residents rely on Medicaid to afford the care they receive in these facilities; without Medicaid, they would be unable to afford the 24/7 care they need.  Cuts to Medicaid ensure some working families will need to shoulder the burden of care for elders. Caregiving is not easy, nor possible within the backbreaking wage labor necessary to pay even for rising cost of living and rent, so accommodating this to make up for Medicaid will come at a significant cost.  If you work full-time, you cannot be present to help change the diaper of your incontinent mother every other hour, or turn them to ensure they don’t develop bed sores.  Without these being attended to, skin breakdown, ulcer formation, infection, sepsis, disability and death can result. 

The challenge grows exponentially when you add chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other musculo-skeletal conditions, COPD and more. All of these require intensive caregiving that working families will feel forced to shoulder as a result of stupendously high costs for healthcare.

Caregiving can be difficult in other ways, as well, from potential violence to fall prevention. I was once struck by a confused patient who mistook me, the nurse caring for them for the past week, as a burglar who broke into their house at night.  Every winter there are news stories of an Alzheimer’s patient who left home, incapable of understanding the risk or preparing for the conditions, who died of exposure. And when elders fall, from poor lighting to brief loss of balance to disability, they face one of the leading causes of deaths for older adults: injury. 

It’s possible to make a home fall-resistant, but not fall-proof. Medicaid cuts will force working families to try to make their homes increasingly fall-resistant, another hidden cost and burden upon pocketbooks caused by the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Cutting Medicaid isn’t just going to affect the patients who lose their insurance coverage; it affects their whole community.  From the workers who lose their jobs when their hospital closes, to the families who must now find a way to care for their elderly parents, to the febrile baby waiting hours in the ER to be seen. Downstream effects will eventually negatively impact the lives of every American and every resident of the Commonwealth.

An Urgent Care in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Working Mass)

Death For What?

An additional 50,000 deaths per year are estimated to result from Medicaid cuts.

For what?  What are these cuts for?  For the most simple, capitalistic reason you can imagine: money. The money cut from the healthcare of our people will be used to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, who already have more money than most of us can even imagine. The oligarchs and bourgeoisie who pull the strings of the government for their own benefit will see the numbers in their bank accounts go up as we will watch our loved ones die.

MassCare is one step. The United States famously lacks any form of universal healthcare, alone among industrialized nations, despite some of the best medical education, the best rates hospitals, and cutting edge technology.  We have the wealth to ensure that no American needs to worry about being unable to afford medical care or risk crushing debt to obtain it, with the means to guarantee healthcare for every workers. And we don’t. Instead, our leaders have decided that the people should die. They have decided that the American people do not deserve the healthcare that we are capable of providing. They have decided that the working class must bear the burden to ensure that the wealthy elite continue to live lives of luxury. If we want to ensure the healthcare of all workers in the face of the Trump Administration’s cuts, we could fund universal healthcare for all workers.

I dread what is coming for my patients and my community.  I have already seen what happens when a patient can’t obtain or afford care; I had a patient who waited to come in and go into cardiac arrest when they did; someone lost their mother that night.  I’ve heard the cry of someone told that their father will never wake up; they weren’t able to afford their blood thinners, threw a clot, and had a catastrophic stroke.  I fear that there will be many more such stories as a result of these cuts. 

Thanks to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” many more loved ones will be lost too soon just to satisfy the greed of the wealthy.

Zachary Wright is a Registered Nurse (RN) at UMass Memorial in Worcester and a rank-and-file member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA). He is a member of Worcester DSA.

The post ‘Time is Tissue’ – Medicaid Cuts Set To Decimate Mass Workers’ Healthcare appeared first on Working Mass.

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