Author: Kevin N.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

📰 The Vermont Progressive Party needs a new executive director.

COMMUNITY FLYERS

A review of Malcolm Harris' recent ecosocialist proposals.

Has the US Left's failure to unite around a Black presidential candidate damaged trust and relations of solidarity?

Review of Mark Fisher's dissertation and the strategic limits of Marxist cultural criticism.

Boycotts to protect DEI and workplace diversity are strengthened by lessons from the Black civil rights movement

Speaking to a renewed age of public-sector austerity, a history of US postal worker organizing

Metro DC has elected a range of political tendencies to represent the chapter at the 2025 convention; a brief analysis.

An empathetic understanding of a recent DSA social-media discourse and questions about caucuses and representation

From April 20th to May 11th, comrades in MADSA completed a reading and discussion of Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Originally written in the first half of 1916 and published as a pamphlet in mid-1917, Lenin’s work analyzing how and why imperialism emerges under capitalism remains a vital resource in developing a stronger understanding of key Marxist concepts and analyses.

For most members of the group, it was their first time ever reading any literature written by Lenin. Most members felt the language of Imperialism was easy to understand and the text was a decent length with a good amount of content to analyze. Imperialism is backed up by quotes from other scholars Lenin was familiar with at the time of writing, as well as tables of data and other evidence for his claims that imperialism is the final (inevitable) stage of capitalism. 

After reading Imperialism, the reading group members felt it was helpful to see how capitalism evolves into imperialism in phases. For some, it was helpful to see with clarity how capitalism evolves into imperialism, and it was easy to make comparisons with how the world functions in 2025. 

As for the logistics of running the reading group, members felt it was great to have a member lead the discussion with key questions or main thoughts to get conversation started. Meeting in person was nice for interacting with comrades, but having it remain hybrid is best for engaging more members in the discussion and allowing flexibility for members who could not join in person. The length of Imperialism was ideal and it was easily divided into 30-40 page readings every week, which was manageable by everyone. 

As for the future of chapter reading groups, members floated the idea of doing more political theory and history discussion in the Slack, so members can ask clarifying questions about topics, answer each other’s questions, or engage in friendly debate about readings. Having discussion questions assigned ahead of time could potentially help structure readings as well.

Overall, the reading group went well and members were excited to continue reading anything in general. Members also felt keeping the reading group casual would allow for other members to explore things to read that aren’t just Karl Marx. 

An important takeaway from reading Imperialism is Lenin’s theory that imperialism is the final stage of capitalism, that it was the natural final stage that arises out of the formation of monopolies, and that capitalism is at that stage has reached a dead end. As socialists, we were able to map out Lenin’s ideas neatly along the problems of the United States, which left us with a burning question: if we are living under the final dead-end stage of capitalism, what happens next? This question inspired us to seek out another work by Lenin, State and Revolution, to hopefully gain more insight into what Lenin believed would occur next. 

With the MADSA chapter steadily growing in membership over the past few months, there has been talk about developing more chapter education initiatives, whether that be more Socialism 101 events or events designed to help people understand specific areas of political theory. It is important that comrades who have the time and energy to read and discuss theory also take the time to educate others, either through book/discussion group reports, posts to Red Madison, or helping to organize educational events. 

We commend our comrades in the chapter for achieving the gargantuan task of completing a reading of Karl Marx’s Capital, as this work serves as the most fundamental basis for our understanding of capitalism and frames our beliefs as socialists. Comrades in the Imperialism reading group have expressed an interest in continuing to read fundamental works from European socialists like Marx, Lenin, Luxembourg, and others. We also agree that we should be taking time to source important works from non-Western/non-European points of view. We would like to invite our comrades to engage more in the chapter reading groups, whether that be posting in Slack to ask questions about our readings and findings, or joining the readings whenever they can.

We were able to access Imperialism for free using the Marxists Internet Archive. A free PDF of Imperialism can be found here.
An annotated version of Imperialism edited by MADSA’s own chapter member Phil Gasper can be found here for purchase.