During the early morning of March 18, as people were asleep or preparing suhoor to begin their Ramadan fast, the Israeli occupation forces openly resumed the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Over 400 Palestinians were murdered in a single day, including 174 children – one of the largest child death tolls in Gaza ever recorded.

Israel’s recent assault follows several violations of the recent ceasefire, including a weeks-long siege on Gaza cutting 2.2 million people off from food and electricity. This recent genocidal escalation and brazen refusal to abide by the ceasefire lays bare the intentions of the Zionist project: the theft of Palestinian land and the annihilation of the Palestinian people.

In the face of this inexcusable violence, our commitment to the Palestinian solidarity movement and to the liberation of the Palestinian people will only strengthen.

People today are increasingly seeing past the bankrupt morality of the pro-genocide bipartisan consensus. As a result, both parties have attempted to silence activists, and have increased the political repression of anti-Zionists. In the Bay Area and across the U.S., ICE has targeted immigrants who’ve spoken up against fascism and for Palestine. People like Mahmoud Khalil – a leader of the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, who was arrested off the streets walking back from iftar and has been threatened to lose his green card without due process. Moreover, local students, workers, and faculty have faced harassment, expulsion, firing, arrest, and more for their principled advocacy for Palestinian liberation.

In the face of such odds, people have continued to stand strong and speak out against the genocide: thousands filled the streets across San José, San Francisco, and the U.S. this week in protests against the ceasefire violation. The Palestinian solidarity movement is only growing in power, and no government repression will stop it.

To end the immediate genocide for good, we must march onward and continue the struggle for Palestinian liberation, by fighting for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and by securing an arms embargo. We must fight at every level, from local businesses, to city councils, to county supervisors, to state legislatures, to Congress and the highest levels of government, to cut off all U.S. support to the genocidal state of Israel. In Silicon Valley, we must also fight big tech companies, which have created dangerous AI weapons and tactics of surveillance, often first unleashed on Palestinians before being used by police and military here in the U.S. This is our duty as socialists in the Bay Area, as the cause of liberation here, in the heart of the tech industry fueling the war machine, is inextricably linked to the cause of liberation in Palestine.

To build our power as a movement, we need you — yes, you! — to take a stand for justice and join an organization. The Bay Area has several groups fighting for the Palestinian cause: Palestinian Youth Movement, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Jewish Voice for Peace, Vigil 4 Gaza, and San José Against War. Additionally, we at Silicon Valley DSA have our own International Solidarity Working Group which supports Palestine solidarity. Our work includes the No Appetite for Apartheid campaign, where we educate local businesses on the Israeli apartheid regime, and convince them to boycott and remove Zionist food products from their shelves.

Together, through persistent organizing, dedication, and solidarity, we will fight Zionism, imperialism, and all forms of oppression. Together, we will win a better world. One where Palestine will be free!

The post SVDSA Condemns the Recent Genocidal Attacks on Gaza appeared first on Silicon Valley DSA.

The Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America condemn the introduction of California Assembly Bill 1468 (Zbur, Addis), which seeks to distort ethnic studies curricula to focus exclusively on the “domestic” experiences of historically marginalized groups in American society.

We oppose the proposed restriction to focus on “domestic” experiences, because foreign policy evidently affects various ethnic groups in the U.S. today. Supporters of AB 1468 specifically want to hinder students from gaining a comprehensive understanding of the global context behind marginalized groups and injustices, such as the Palestinian Nakba in 1948. This is especially unacceptable given the ongoing imperialist genocide being waged on Palestinians by Israel with full U.S. backing.

A comprehensive ethnic studies curriculum should encompass both domestic and international perspectives, to fully educate students on the interconnectedness of global struggles and histories. Additionally, such a curriculum must not shy away from talking about U.S. complicity in past crimes against humanity – including, but not limited to, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the transatlantic slave trade, and the U.S. Empire’s destruction of working people’s homes worldwide, such as in Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Palestine. Understanding these contexts is crucial for developing critical thinking on how the past affects marginalized groups in the U.S. today, and why state-sponsored reparations are long overdue for various communities. AB 1468, on the other hand, dissuades these discussions and censors critical thinking.

The backers of AB 1468 have explicitly stated that ethnic studies classes should not discuss Israel and Palestine, and that they “don’t think that ethnic studies is a foreign policy discipline.” This constitutes an unacceptable erasure of the U.S. Empire’s responsibility for ongoing and past violence worldwide.

Silicon Valley DSA condemns AB 1468 as an attack on the foundational values of ethnic studies itself, as highlighted in the 2021 Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum: for students to “challenge racist, bigoted, discriminatory, and imperialist/colonial beliefs and practices on multiple levels” and “connect ourselves to past and contemporary social movements that struggle for social justice.”

We stand in solidarity with all marginalized communities, and all victims of U.S. Empire. We commit to supporting their struggles for comprehensive representation in educational curricula, and their needs for material reparations more broadly.

Join us in opposing AB 1468 by emailing your state legislators.

Join SVDSA!

Help us build democratic socialist power locally by joining SVDSA! Join our mailing list through the form below. We will get you set up with email & text updates, and reach out to you individually. Please also read our Code of Conduct for participating in SVDSA spaces.

The post SVDSA opposes AB 1468’s racist attacks on ethnic studies appeared first on Silicon Valley DSA.

As part of our 2025 Migrant Rights Campaign, DSA San Diego is pressuring local school districts to defend students against ICE raids. Read more. [...]

Read More... from Migrant Rights Priority Campaign: Spring 2025 Update

The post Migrant Rights Priority Campaign: Spring 2025 Update appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America | San Diego Chapter.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent the official position of Working Mass.

By Nick Lavin

In the whirlwind of unconstitutional executive orders from the Trump administration, it’s easy to miss the storm brewing over the 2026 Massachusetts budget. 

BEACON HILL—Governor Healey’s “fiscally sustainable” budget offers some more housing and transit funding as mandated by the 2022 Fair Share Amendment, but also major cutbacks to healthcare spending, especially for the most needy. Since her 2022 election, Healey has undertaken an increasingly neoliberal economic retrenchment in line with Democrats’ decades-long strategy of “me too, but not so much” Reaganism, cutting taxes for the wealthy while draining critical public services.

Trump’s election opened the floodgates for a conservative resurgence in the Democratic Party, with Party leaders and caucus members regurgitating right-wing talking points on LGBTQ issues and immigration while letting the White House’s Reaganite budget sail through Congress. As frightening as the backslide of our democracy is, unions are the best positioned institution to resist it. Through the Rank-and-File Strategy and community organizing, DSA can play a central role in rebuilding union militancy to win against authoritarian neoliberalism.

“Through the Rank-and-File Strategy and community organizing, DSA can play a central role in rebuilding union militancy to win against authoritarian neoliberalism.”

The Landscape

Even under Democratic President Joe Biden, federal funding for state social services was inconsistent. For example, the expiration of federal Covid-era ‘ESSER’ (Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief) funds spelled the end to hundreds of teaching jobs across the state. With an authoritarian Republican in the White House however, the need for blue states to fill in the gaps will only increase; but Healey is not stepping up to the task.

Healey has made affordability in Massachusetts her centerpiece issue, but not for everyday people. While the Governor raised millions from real estate developers, biotech corporations, and the Kraft family to support her 2022 election, she remained silent as union and community activists hit the streets to win new taxes on the wealthy through the Fair Share Amendment. Her 2023 tax cuts — including $350 million for wealthy estates, large corporations, and financial assets — led to a 2024 budget shortfall for which she reached into the Fair Share funding to cover.

Her 2026 budget continues spending for housing and transit mandated by Massachusetts voters in the 2022 Fair Share Amendment ballot question. To be “fiscally sustainable”, however, Healey also made substantial cuts to healthcare for the state’s most vulnerable.

Healey’s budget cuts half the state’s Department of Mental Health workers, meaning 170 case workers will lose their jobs. The closure of two facilities — Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children and Pocasset Mental Health Center — was paused only after major community blowback that culminated in a large union-led rally at the State House on February 25th. 

“The closure… was paused only after major community blowback that culminated in a large union-led rally at the State House.”

For the state’s homeless, Healey’s budget allocates $425 million more for shelters, a deal reached after upending Massachusetts’ forty-year policy of guaranteeing safe haven for pregnant women and people with children, and drastically reducing the number of people eligible by mandating proof of residency.

The Governor’s budget also freezes MassHealth rates paid to community and ‘safety-net’ hospitals, which provide services regardless of an individual’s ability to pay. The freeze suffocates hospitals and healthcare workers providing lifesaving care to the state’s most vulnerable as state remittances will continue to fall behind inflation.

Unions recognize the threat these cuts pose to their membership. In a statement, SEIU 509 President Dave Foley addressed Healey directly, calling her budget “an injustice to those who rely on these crucial programs” and demanded full funding to “ensure that residents across the Commonwealth can continue receiving the care they deserve.”

Teachers, too, are feeling the heat. With the depletion of the aforementioned Covid-era funds, school districts across the state are facing budget cuts. Like SEIU 509, the Massachusetts Teacher Association (MTA) directly called on Healey to stopgap the cuts with state funds.

The Problem

A close observer might wonder why these same unions now angry with the Governor also lined up behind her in the 2022 election. If workers can’t rely on these politicians to deliver on their promises, why endorse them?

A closer observer might also observe the dilemma of choosing between a conservative Democrat, a far-right Republican, or sitting out of electoral politics entirely. One might even ask why these unions limit themselves to strongly worded statements, rather than flexing their most powerful muscle – the strike – as unions do with relish in other countries.

It is easy to point to liberal union leadership “in bed” with the Democrats, and there’s a lot of truth to it – many union leaders have become bureaucratic and conservative after decades of beatdowns for the labor movement. But unions often take defensive positions and make defensive endorsements for the same reason their membership votes for whatever more-or-less odious Democrats are on the ballot – the feeling they lack the power to forge an alternative.

Our task as socialists is not to cajole union leadership merely to cut ties with Democrats. Our task is to organize constituencies both inside and outside unions to make the labor movement’s resistance both powerful and inevitable, setting the stage for a new party in the process.

Organizing the Rank-and-File

Power at the bargaining table – whether battling the boss or the politicians – is defined by the most radical action the majority of your membership is prepared to undertake. The membership of our unions, the rank-and-file, is the key to rebuilding a powerful labor movement. If we want the labor movement to fight back against local budget cuts and the Trumpist onslaught, we need to focus on organizing from the bottom up.

DSA’s rank-and-file strategy is a proposal to do just that. It identifies two problems — a low level of working class self-activity and organization, and DSA’s social, economic, and political separation from the working class. Rather than taking the position of highly-educated (if downwardly mobile) middle-class activists lecturing everyday people about the importance of political activity, we can directly foment democratic mass action from the shopfloor by taking rank-and-file jobs in strategic industries like logistics, K-12 education, and healthcare.

The bottom-up movement for Palestine is a powerful example of the labor movement building political power. Rank-and-file unionists across the country organized in their workplaces to pressure congresspeople for an arms embargo against Israel. In my union, the Boston Teachers Union (BTU), we organized members to rally against Katherine Clark, passed an arms embargo resolution, and called our representatives en masse as union members demanding an end to the war. Just days after our resolution passed and our President personally called the Senators, both Warren and Markey voted to stop weapons shipments to Israel.

We can organize the labor movement’s resistance to Trump’s authoritarian neoliberalism, but only from below. Rank-and-file organizing will therefore be the catalyst not only for renewed shop-floor militancy, but also for stronger political interventions against the bipartisan neoliberal consensus. Until the rank-and-file is itself organized to directly confront political power, we cannot expect union leadership to offer more than pointed statements against our government’s routine acts of injustice. 

To this end, Boston DSA should bring programs like the Rank & File Project to the chapter to develop members into rank-and-file organizers. We should also continue our labor solidarity campaigns (such as with UAW and the Teamsters), which will help DSA’s membership identify the merger of the labor and socialist movements as our primary task and rank-and-file participation as its primary vehicle. Labor solidarity demonstrates socialists are the most reliable fighters for working class issues and helps us identify the militant minority – existing leaders in the labor movement – with whom we should build relationships.

Last year, DSA delivered the perfect synthesis of these strategies to Amazon’s front gates just in time for Christmas. With DSA Amazon workers organizing their coworkers on the inside and chapter’s Labor Working Group handing out hot coffee and walking the picket outside, DSA helped workers pull off the most exciting labor action against Amazon this country has seen so far.

Organizing Our Communities

Just as DSA employs inside-outside strategies to support labor organizing, we can fight on the terrain of social movements to create space for labor activists to move their unions on political questions.

In 2023, the moral outrage that poured into the streets across the country over Israel’s genocide quickly resonated in places of worship, community centers, and union halls. The union resolutions, rallies, and statements carefully shepherded by rank-and-filers drew from the energy of the pro-Palestine movement: ceasefire resolutions would have been impossible without the mass protests; pro-free speech resolutions without the encampments, etc. 

By supporting organic social movements – around Palestine, immigration, housing affordability, and more – DSA can create clear opportunities for the merger of socialism and the labor movement. But our movement-style campaigns must have clear political targets and seek to ally with – not co-opt – existing community organizations.

We should work with organizations with real community ties. What groups have challenged and won against the status quo? What groups have real constituencies? Which take on a ‘radical’ posture and name, but have neither a constituency nor clear strategy?

Our campaigns should also be broadly and deeply felt, uniting the broadest possible swath of the population. Arms embargo tied military spending to the depletion of social services; shelter policy fits neatly into the fight for housing affordability, etc. These base-building, agitational campaigns will not only build DSA’s reputation as a democratic and mass-based center for organizing, but also help identify and develop natural community leaders to support in future electoral races.

The Boston DSA Palestine Working Group (PWG) spent many cold winter and sweltering hot summer days on street corners, collecting signatures to demand our congresspeople call for an arms embargo. This painstaking work not only involved connecting to and supporting the various community organizations involved in Palestine solidarity, but also helped us identify union members in our neighborhoods. In fact, several rank-and-filers in BTU’s arms embargo effort came not from shop-floor organizing, but through conversations they had with PWG petition clipboarders who then passed their contact information off to friendly BTU Palestine organizers.

To Fight Big, Start at the Shop Floor

Healey and the State House hold tremendous power over unions through the budget allocation process. For decades, this has placed unions on the backfoot, attempting to negotiate small victories against the bipartisan neoliberal consensus. Economic retrenchment and the ossification of a conservative labor leadership has led us to our current political moment, defined nationally by Trumpist authoritarianism and locally by Democratic not-quite Reaganism. But if we build militant, class struggle unions and social movement campaigns we can create a vibrant socialist labor movement to defeat both — and the place to start is on the shop floor.

Nick Lavin is a Boston Public Schools paraprofessional and a member of the Boston Teachers Union.

By Terence Cawley

SOMERVILLE, MA — As Starbucks Workers United continues to organize for respect on the job, workers have begun escalating pressure on the company locally and across the country. 

Since 2021, over 550 stores representing over 10,500 workers have unionized – more than 25 percent of which have joined since February 2024. None have reached a collective bargaining agreement with management. Starbucks Workers United’s demands include a company-wide living wage, expanded healthcare benefits and paid leave, and consistent scheduling. The union is also fighting for protections from racial and sexual harassment and enshrinement of current benefits in the contract itself. 

“My coworkers and I who supported and voted yes on Election Day wanted more of a voice in how our workplaces were run and what impacts it had on us,” said Julie Langevin, who joined Starbucks Workers United as a staff organizer for the Northeast after becoming involved with the union as a rank-and-file Starbucks barista in the winter after its formation. “For us to be factored into the equation at all.”

From 2021 to 2024, Starbucks pursued an aggressive anti-union strategy. Workers responded in kind with over 700 Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) filings with the national Board. The company appeared to change course in February 2024 when management reached an agreement with Starbucks Workers United to negotiate a “foundational framework” for contracts for union stores before failing to meet its own end-of-year deadline. The company offered no raises or benefit increases for union baristas in the first year of their contracts, a clear violation of the union’s demands, which Starbucks Workers United rejected by going on strike at 300 stores on Christmas Eve 2024 in the largest labor action in company history. 

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol earned over $97 million in 2024 while commuting from his California home to company headquarters in Seattle via private jet.

From Filings to Sip-ins to Strikes

Starbucks workers in Seabrook, N.H. filed a petition in February for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board. The election is scheduled for April 3, 2025. Should workers vote to unionize, their shop will become the fourth Starbucks in New Hampshire to unionize.

But filings have become only the beginning of a larger pressure campaign. Starbucks Workers United escalated further in March as negotiations stalled: from March 8-11, Starbucks Workers United members and allies hosted “solidarity sip-ins” at over 100 Starbucks locations in advance of the company’s annual shareholder meeting on March 12. Supporters ordered coffee under names like “union strong” and unionists held strategic organizing conversations about the union with non-union baristas. Starbucks Workers United has employed sip-ins to recruit baristas at not-yet-union stores, offer moral support at union stores, and apply public pressure on Starbucks in a way that unites workers and union supporters.

“This round of sip-ins was specifically [meant] to show the holes in the company’s ‘everything’s fine here’ messaging that they put out around their shareholder meeting,” said Langevin. “Knowing we’re seen and supported is so very valuable and breaks down the isolation and doubts we have while organizing.”

On the last day of the nationwide sip-ins and the day before the national shareholder meeting, Starbucks workers in three cities went on strike and occupied their shops to demand fair union contracts. The company called police on workers in all three cities to arrest protesters. Langevin believes the entire gamut of tactics were effective in applying pressure on the company:

“Not only did we see a decline in Starbucks stock in real time as our sip-ins and strikes and acts of civil disobedience were publicized around the country, but we’ve heard reports from managers and seen heightened presence from low and mid-level leadership in stores terrified that we’ll keep escalating and growing.”

On the Frontline of a Local Sip-in

Enthusiasm for the union was high at one local solidarity sip-in held at a Starbucks store in Davis Square in Somerville. Two baristas verbally thanked supporters for their work. 

One sip-in attendee, Brian Murray, was a “salt” organizing on the inside as a rank-and-file worker during the initial wave of Starbucks organizing in  2021. After two years with Starbucks Workers United, he now works for the Harvard Graduate Student Union, HGSU-UAW Local 5118. Murray noticed that when he got to the register to order, the cashier was taken off duty and someone who appeared to be a manager took their place.

“This was a tactic I saw in Buffalo,” Murray said. “Often, corporate wouldn’t want everyday workers to receive that support and have those interactions.”

Still, Murray found it “really heartening” to see his fellow community members show up to support Starbucks workers. Support can bleed across industries and strengthen morale across multiple kinds of workers in different shops. In Buffalo, striking nurses showed up at Starbucks shops during their pickets to encourage Murray and his coworkers.

“For some folks, that was really empowering,” said Murray. “Gave them strength.” 

What’s next for Starbucks Workers United?

Supporters of Starbucks Workers United can show their solidarity and receive email updates about future actions by signing the No Contract, No Coffee pledge. Langevin also confirmed workers will continue to escalate in its fight with Starbucks for the strong union contracts its members deserve.

“As of right now, our goal is to get Starbucks back to the bargaining table,” said Langevin. “[As] our acts of civil disobedience show, we’re willing to do whatever it takes to get there.”

Terence Cawley is a member of Boston DSA.

I’m sure you’ve had the same conversation by now. A friend, family member or near-stranger calls and says, “Talk me down. I’m freaking out.” 

I fielded two of these recently. The first caller, an old friend and comrade, is not a newbie. After a couple decades on the left, during which she was an activist in a teachers’ union and leader in various union campaigns, she upped her game, getting herself successively elected as a school board member, City Council member and finally County Superintendent of Public Instruction, overseeing seventeen school districts. She served two terms, staying faithful to the progressive ideals she started with.

After retiring she joined DSA and continued to stay active in electoral politics in a support role. In short, she is not naïve or easily rattled. But on this occasion, she was feeling completely unnerved and overwhelmed. Why? By paying too much attention to the news, chock full of horrifying stories about Trump, Musk, Vance, and the other elected and unelected fascists in their ugly campaign to destroy the helping powers of government and make life for the multiracial working class as miserable as possible. 

She called because she was looking for human connection with a comrade whom she hoped could point to some rays of light amid the darkness. I told her that many people are resisting the fascist tide in many ways—in the courts, in all levels of government, and in the streets. New coalitions are being formed, and old ones resurrected. I mentioned the popup demonstration staged by FUN (the new federal workers network California Red reported on last issue) that I had attended. 

I told her the mainstream media is certainly not helping here. Its underreporting of the resistance is spotty, often politically unsophisticated, and fearful of taking on Trump. If you pay too much attention to it, it will freak you out and/or wear you down quickly—part of the goal of a fascist regime. She got off the call telling me that she felt a bit better, and promised she would more carefully titrate her media consumption going forward. 

In the middle of the call I saw my brother was trying to reach me, so I called him back—and found myself essentially returned to the same conversation, complicated by where he lives, a small conservative rural town. He said analogies with history (Germany 1933) were making him extremely nervous.  

In both conversations (and others like them) I gave two pieces of advice: watch your political media intake carefully, and find a group of like-minded people with a common resistance perspective and shared activity to join with—being careful to take on only the amount of work that won’t burn you out over the long term. It also helps to have a best guess big picture to work with.

Best guess: Three lines of defense

I—and I’m not the only one—see three lines of defense and broad areas of activity between now and the 2026 elections (if we are still having them by then). The first, a focus on the courts, leaves out most of us for strategy discussion and direct participation, as legal action mostly requires being a lawyer. But we can certainly participate in support campaigns, including publicity, education and organizing. Since the highest court in the land is in the hands of Trump appointees, this first line of defense may only get us so far, with its main utility buying time. It may ultimately be more effective for education of the public than actual legal redress—especially if the fascists choose to ignore and sideline the courts. For what it’s worth we note that of the eighty suits filed against Trump he has won 12 and lost 22. 

The second front is electoral—organize to overturn the thin majorities of Republicans (now a fully fascist party) in the House and Senate. It is critical that at least one house of Congress goes to the Democrats in order to block the worst actions of the trifecta held by Trump et. al. At this point there is no guarantee that there will be elections in 2026, or if there are, that they will be conducted fairly. So this part of the strategy requires state and local work around election protection, as well as a candidate selection process that makes certain no Trojan horses like Manchin or Sinema are among the Democrats running, and replacement of weak straws like Schumer among the current leadership. Then, of course, there’s actually electing candidates in 2026.

Alongside these two frontline areas it will be crucial to construct robust non-violent direct action (NVDA) wings of our movement. Sit-ins, marches, occupations, other forms of civil disobedience and face to face confrontations against the people moving the country to dictatorship will gain news coverage and, with successes, provide information and courage for the long term. Such activities will bring in new recruits. (They will also require savvy and well-prepared security. Depending on how things unfold the MAGA forces might well unleash their violent rabble on peaceful demonstrations.)

There is at best a two-year shelf life on these two lines of defense, which is why development of street support for them is so critical; the latter will likely become the key component of what follows. If lines one and two crumble the final line of defense before full on dictatorship will be mass action. What might that look like? 

Here is where unions come into the center of the picture, and we must begin preparing now if there is to be any chance of success. Maximum impact on this far right government and oligarchy (which since January have become synonymous) will be earned when masses of workers refuse to work. The more that the consent of we the governed is withdrawn from the abuse we are suffering, the more leverage we will have.

Forward toward the…

I have never been one of those people who think it’s a good idea to call for a general strike to deal with a problem, even if the problem—say, the United States going to war under false pretenses—would deserve to be met with that solution. Why not? Because there are sound reasons why we’ve only seen around fifteen (depending on how you define them) citywide general strikes in nearly two hundred and fifty years of American history, and none since 1946. We’ve had exactly one national general strike, in 1886, which after achieving only limited success toward its goal of an eight-hour workday, brought on the first Red Scare. 

Called by the young American Federation of Labor (AFL) and supported by large sections of the Knights of Labor on May 1, 1886, the strike was honored by some three hundred thousand workers (in a non-agricultural workforce of around twelve million). It eventuated over a period of years the establishment of International Workers Day on May 1 in nearly one hundred countries around the world, but not here, the country in which the events occurred that inspired the holiday. In the wake of that setback, the eight-hour day movement had to wait nearly half a century before it became the law of the land.

This historical record might not encourage hope for a general strike’s success today. Neither does the current state of organized labor, which is weaker in terms of workforce density than it has been in a century, and contrary to what is required for a general strike, fractured along several fault lines. 

Don’t call: organize

But recent developments mean the political landscape is shifting. Many strikes erupted in 2022, the most important of which was the autoworkers’ victory over the Big 3. In its wake the UAW’s president Shawn Fain issued a challenge to the rest of the labor movement: line up your contract expiration dates for May 1, 2028 and prepare to act the way a united working class should act. No leader of a major national union has talked—concretely—like this for decades. 

Although we have seen no citywide general strikes since 1946, in 2018 the “red state revolt” of education workers featured anti-austerity walkouts that in their scale were essentially general strikes of public education. Currently in California a number of major urban teacher unions have been meeting and planning to bring these ideas together: a common contract expiration date and united action when the contracts expire. 

When Trump’s Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this month that it was cancelling TSA workers’ collective bargaining rights, Sara Nelson, head of the Association of Flight Attendants, responded that workers have “very few options but to join together to organize for a general strike”.

The wording is precise: not a call, abstractly, for a general strike, but to organize for one. This was the beauty of Fain’s call. Embedded in how he issued the call was how to make it happen. Even so, it will take a massive effort to pull it off. The plan was presented before Trump’s election with a three-and-a-half-year timeline—appropriate for scaling up this way. But given the speed at which the fascists are breaking government and completing their coup, we will probably need to move up the schedule. Is that possible?

An extraordinary event, a general strike takes a rare combination of circumstances to bring it about, let alone win.  Four preconditions are required:  widespread anger among working people; a high degree of cooperation in a strong enough labor movement; union leaders confident enough in their level of organization that they are willing to stick their necks out and call for it to happen; and a spark or symbolic incident that crystallizes people’s willingness to act.  

In light of the relatively small size of the labor movement today, coalition with other progressive organizations is crucial: finding common cause with community organizations representing working class, poor and otherwise marginalized constituencies, with international solidarity and anti-war movements, with NGOs of all types, will be important.

It is likely that building block actions will contribute along the way—sectoral strikes, demonstrations and occupations, with (best outcome) growing solidarity and tactical sophistication developing through successes and failures. Labor leaders will need to be convinced through this process that militancy is a practical matter. This will no doubt not be a linear process; more like a chaotic one, the lessons of which need to be considered on the fly, tested and retested. A general strike—the ultimate weapon of the working class—will result from intent, experience, reflection and a bit of luck.  

Attitude counts

That’s as far as my best guess can take us. I’ll close by emphasizing that unity of the forces of resistance to fascism and oligarchy is created by coalition building and enabled by an attitude not always present in the culture of the left. We are far too prone to being alert to openings to argue, to disagree, split, stay in silos, and allow purity of principle to keep us divided. This is especially the case within organized labor. Seeking differences is relatively easy. We are less used to (and less good at) seeking openings to find our common interests and purpose and then acting together as one. But without that attitude of openness and unity-seeking, coalition building becomes far more difficult.  

Fighting fascism is not a time and place for purity, single-issue politics or doing things the way we’ve always done them. It’s a time to set aside the narrow lens for a broad one. By all means continue to work on your social justice cause, the one that you have passionately cared about and pursued for years or decades, whatever that may be. But don’t let that divert you from the task of standing with others in the alliances that are now forming to build the strength necessary to defeat Trump, Musk and their fascist assault. We’re in this together or we’re not going to make it.

California DSA members will be among those marching on the state capital on April 24th to abolish Pacific Gas & Electric. Protesters plan to pack an 11 AM California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) meeting at 1516 Ninth Street in Sacramento, then rally on the Capital Mall at 2:30.

California Red readers understand already that decisions by private utility executives determine who among us will enjoy reliable, life-sustaining service—and who will be burned alive in utility-ignited firestorms. PG&E has been a long-time target of protests by DSA members and others, but this could be the year when we finally pivot from protest to actually breaking the utility’s god-like grip on our power supply.

The Investor-Owned Utility Act (SB 332) would immediately curb PG&E’s many corporate abuses that have impaired service reliability, inflated customer rates, and criminally endangered public safety. But equally important, SB 332 carefully lays the groundwork for replacing PG&E and other Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs) with a “not-for-profit” public utility. 

 This is a very big deal.

Anytime your utility pleads guilty to 84 criminal counts of homicide—as PG&E did in 2020 after its equipment burned down the town of Paradise—it’s pretty clear you have problems. To deal with some of the most immediate ones, SB 332 would require annual audits of utility equipment, speed up “undergrounding,” and replace equipment that has outlived its usable life in high fire-risk areas. SB 332 would also: 

• Prohibit the shut-off of utility service for vulnerable ratepayers to ensure their health and safety needs are met.

• Require prompt action to cap IOU rate increases for residential customers to no more than the basic inflation rate.

• Tie executive compensation to meeting specific safety goals.

The structural problem

So far, so good. But SB 332 also addresses the deeper, structural problem with IOUs: When utility shareholders pocket their profits, there is less money available to meet the needs of customers. Utilities can’t print money.  When shareholders skim profits and top executives award themselves fat bonuses, there is less money to provide service. Broadly speaking, the utility’s options at that point are to sacrifice reliability, compromise on safety, seek higher rates--or all three.

SB 332 solves this problem by creating a not-for-profit utility where shareholder profits—and executive bonuses tied to those profits—don’t exist because the utility’s sole allegiance is to customer service, and to the skilled workforce that is essential to providing it.

SB 332 states the problem succinctly:

Past and present experience demonstrates that the IOUs prioritize profits over the safety and well-being of the ratepayers and residents of California, and thus, to support public necessity and public purpose, must be replaced with a well-researched and structured successor entity that focuses on the needs of ratepayers, workers, fire survivors, and community members instead of shareholders.

Can the Legislature really do this? Yes! Article 12 of the California Constitution says private corporations providing power to the public are “public utilities subject to control by the Legislature.” The Legislature took the first step down this path in 2020 by creating Golden State Energy when PG&E was in bankruptcy and its future looked shaky. An alternative now existed—if only on paper. SB 332, introduced this February by State Senator Aisha Wahab, takes the next step by providing a blueprint and timeline for a real-world transition from PG&E to GSE.

Analysis and implementation

Here’s how it would play out: 

The California Energy Commission by June 30, 2026 will create a Study Team to perform a comparative analysis—and an implementation plan for replacing PG&E with a successor not-for-profit utility. By December 31, 2026 the Study Team will select an Advisory Council to represent diverse constituencies, including:

• Labor unions

• Tribal interests

• Low-income residential ratepayers

• Wildfire survivors

… along with experts in equitable rate design, distributed energy resources, and grid architecture, as well as experts in justice issues: environmental, energy, utility, racial and economic.

The Energy Commission, through a public process, will vote on the recommended successor utility by September 30, 2028. The Commission, again through a public process, will vote by October 31, 2029 on approving the implementation plan.

SB 332 gives the Study Team broad powers, including access to books, records and documents “of any nature” from the Energy Commission, from the Public Utilities Commission, and from the IOUs themselves. 

Legislators want to know if the successor utility is likely to achieve certain policy objectives, including:

• A demonstrable reduction in electricity costs for customers over a 30-year period.

• Increased transparency and accountability in governing structures, financial spending, and infrastructure decisions.

• Maintaining pensions and increasing benefits for utility workers, as well as increasing “good union jobs and inclusive workforce development” in the region.

Protecting workers during the transition

Wisely, SB 332 is acutely sensitive to the need to protect workers during the transition process. It directs the Study Team’s feasibility assessment to “safeguard or strengthen” worker benefits—including union protections—during and after the transition period, and to provide for workers’ rights and “a just transition for workers impacted by the decommissioning of unsafe, polluting infrastructure.”

By no later than 2032, SB 332 wants to “safely decommission” any unsafe and polluting infrastructure that is transferred to the successor utility. SB 332 also aims to decommission gas infrastructure and transition toward electrification—an important environmental priority in the era of climate change. 

Squaring the priority of safe, reliable and clean electric service with the priority of affordable rates is a huge task. Replacing PG&E is going to cost money. But leaving things the way they are also costs money—a lot of it. Gas explosions are expensive. Wildfires can be fantastically expensive. Damage from interrupted service, while less visible, is also expensive. SB 332 suggests financing mechanisms to help us invest in avoiding disasters rather than face the far greater costs of cleaning up after them. 

Electricity is the foundation of modern American life. SB 332 is designed to give us—the public—substantive control of our utility service—a chance to push back against exorbitant rate hikes and corporate wrong-doing. It is a critical first-step in reclaiming our right—everyone’s right—to clean, safe, reliable and affordable utility service. 

SB 332 is a very big deal.  For further information: stop-pge.org

America's healthcare system is at a critical juncture. Once known for high-quality care, our healthcare system is increasingly failing patients and its own independent providers. As a physical therapist, I am witnessing firsthand how large hospital systems are reshaping healthcare delivery—and not for the better.

I own and operate a physical therapy clinic which has been serving my community for more than forty years. We accept MediCAL, Medicare and many other insurance providers. We deliver care to the young, the old, the wealthy and the unhoused. My clinic is a lifeline for people facing mobility challenges—injury, surgery, degenerative disease and plain old aging. 

We treat our patients in a one-on-one setting applying manual therapy techniques in tandem with individualized therapeutic exercises. This direct and individualized approach leads to better patient outcomes compared to the “patient mills” we are being replaced by, wherein unlicensed individuals “treat” multiple patients at once in a gym.

Since the 1990s there has been a 40% decrease in reimbursement levels to independent PT practices like mine, with the most significant drop occurring since the onset of the pandemic. In fact, in my city there are only two independently run PT clinics remaining. The others were bought out by health conglomerates and hospital systems. 

More than ever before, independent physical therapy clinics are being forced to either close or sell to hospital systems. The reason? Hospital systems charge substantially more for identically billed services, simply because they're hospitals. Additional hospital fees generate pay for the therapist and staff working there and they are in on it. The clinic owners often feel forced to sell their clinic to make a buck too, instead of losing money all the time. The impact on patients is severe.

When seeking physical therapy, many face months-long wait times. Often, they unknowingly end up at hospital-owned outpatient clinics where they pay significantly higher out-of-pocket costs for care they could receive at an independent clinic. The cruel irony is that independent clinics typically offer longer treatment sessions and more personalized care at a fraction of the cost.

The ”facility fees” problem

How do hospitals justify these higher charges? They use "facility fees”— additional charges they justify as essential services, regulatory compliance, and infrastructure costs. However, hospital-owned outpatient clinics operate independently and don't carry such overhead costs; yet they are allowed to charge the hospital rate.

Global real estate as a financialized asset is the biggest commodity in the history of mankind. Unsurprisingly, hospital systems are increasingly functioning as real estate enterprises with their CEOs behaving more like property moguls than healthcare administrators. In high value urban areas, hospital systems use their real estate holdings as collateral for loans and expansion, while leasing properties to independent providers at premium rates. They also benefit from substantial tax credits from local governments, depleting public resources that would otherwise fund essential services like public transportation, housing programs and infrastructure.

The impact on our commons is staggering. In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, four "non-profit" hospital systems control real estate assets totaling more than $31 billion, with Kaiser and Stanford showing remarkable asset growth in recent years. This consolidation comes at a heavy cost to the public treasury. Why? Because these funds originate from avoided taxes, taking public funds which would otherwise be collected by cities to care for the unhoused, build public transportation, strengthen public education and on and on.

There is hope for change. Eighteen states have adopted "site-neutral" reimbursement policies, requiring equal payment for the same service regardless of location. California is not one of these states. In May 2023, the US House of Representatives passed a healthcare transparency package consisting of six bills. Two of these, the “PATIENT Act” and the “Lower Costs, More Transparency Act” would prevent Medicare from reimbursing off-campus hospital departments at higher rates than independent physician offices providing identical services. The American Hospital Association estimates these changes could reduce hospital reimbursement by $50 billion over ten years—but more importantly, it would redirect funds back to independent healthcare providers and public budgets at the municipal and county levels. 

California initiatives gathering support

The California legislature is presently proposing several bills that advance site-neutral payment reform. These initiatives have garnered support from patient advocacy groups, professional associations and policy makers who correctly argue that the status quo amounts to a giveaway of public funds and a watering down of services by aggregated providers. 

The for-profit hospital industrial complex claims that revenue reductions from these proposed laws could cause some hospitals to shut down outpatient programs or other service lines, diminishing patient access to care. Meanwhile, hospital systems continue aggressively acquiring properties and clinics, further consolidating their market power. While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) await full Congressional approval of these new legislative reforms, eighteen states have already successfully passed legislation to address facility fees charged by health systems for services. 

As Democratic Socialists we must understand what is at stake if we maintain a system that prioritizes hospital expansion and real estate acquisition over affordable, accessible care. 

We must demand that our representatives enact policies that level the playing field for independent healthcare providers—benefitting our communities. 

We must educate ourselves and our communities to dispel the myths constructed by the medical industrial complex and its many lobbyists. We must organize to ensure that legislation at the federal level already enacted in support of site-neutral reimbursement is enforced.

On Wednesday February 19, hundreds of federal workers and allied protestors rallied outside of the San Francisco Tesla showroom against Elon Musk’s ongoing attacks on public services. Among the crowd were federal workers who are fighting back against cuts and layoffs from “DOGE” (Department of Government Efficiency). The rally was part of a national day of action to “Save Our Services” organized by the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), a grassroots coalition of rank-and-file union activists.

For months President Donald Trump, working hand in hand with Musk, has been bulldozing the public sector in order to pay for tax cuts for the richest Americans. This means gutting our social safety net, rolling back vital protections, and pushing out hundreds of thousands of essential federal employees. Some of the high profile targets of dismantlement include the Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and U.S.A.I.D. Tens of thousands of probationary employees have been fired across over a dozen agencies.

The protest in San Francisco was led and emceed by FUN organizer Mark Smith, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees Local 1 and DSA member. Speakers included Kim Tavaglione, Executive Director of the San Francisco Labor Council, who said, “This is not a Democrat issue, this is not a Republican issue, this is a worker issue.” She continued, “Our entire society rests upon this fight. We need to get bigger and stronger, and show them that we’re not gonna take this shit no more.” Other speakers included the author Rebecca Solnit, who delivered brief remarks in solidarity: “We love you, we thank you, we know you take care of us and this incredibly complex system they’re trying to break.” 

Some of the signs held by protestors included: ““Fire Musk,” “Save Our National Parks,” “Workers Over Billionaires,” and “DOGE is a coup!” San Francisco DSA was well-represented in the crowd. 

To get involved with the movement to protect public services, visit the FUN website and join their rapid response network: https://www.federalunionists.net/

In September I wrote about ongoing East Bay DSA reading/discussion groups called Labor 101: Socialists and the Labor Movement.  These groups have been very useful in helping new members and members less familiar with labor to understand and be able to discuss some key ideas—why workplace organizing is essential, how we define the working class, and the role socialists can play in the labor movement, among other topics.  Some of the participants have become organizers in their own workplaces or started working with our local Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) to support other workplaces in organizing; many have become active members of the EBDSA Labor Committee. (More information about the groups is in the September California Red article.)

Since the COVID years these have been in-person groups but in April we are going to try an all-Zoom group. We’ll start on Thursday, April 10 from 6:00-8:00 pm and meet weekly. We have some EBDSA members who live too far away or take care of children or relatives, or have mobility problems; we’re hoping this gives more of an opportunity for participation. 

We are also hoping that the Zoom format can mean participation by members of other chapters. Some chapters may not have anything like this and members from around the state are encouraged to join us. We’ve tried to organize our materials so that a group leader has some guidelines, a timetable, and notes for each session. If you’d like to try leading a group for your chapter, attending this would be a great way to start.

We’d also love to have some members of other chapters that already have or are developing something like this to join us. Whether or not you can participate, please look at our materials, give us feedback and send us anything you’ve developed.

• Sign-up form for the April all-Zoom series     

• Flyer for the April all-Zoom series                

• Outline and reading list    

• Notes for group leaders     

Contact us for access to the whole folder