ilmDSA was out last Saturday to pick up some trash in an area neglected by the city.  In just a few short hours, we bagged up and took to the dump over 1,500 pounds of trash!  We made a difference in the area and helped keep a lot of litter out of our local waterways.  

If you want to come out and help this month, RSVP Here and we’ll see you out there!

To enhance the safety of all residents in the District, DC must embrace a decarceral regimen that funds care and support, not cages and violence.

To celebrate May Day as a single event can lead one to miss the spirit that animated its origins as an international workers holiday.

Assessing the power of the Manifesto today, Miéville illuminates the document’s power as prediction, prophecy and call to revolution.

The United Auto Workers emerged as a powerful force during the 1930s. Sit-down strikers challenged the capitalists of the Big Three car companies. Their willingness to take militant action unleashed a wave of unionization in the industry that could not be contained and spread to other sections of the working class. The UAW formed the bedrock of the Congress of Industrial Organizations which shifted the balance of power between capital and labor. A decade later leadership negotiated the Treaty of Detroit. An agreement that established wage increases, pensions, and health insurance. It became the foundation of labor relations in the United States. The union fought for more than bread and butter as it developed into a key backer of the civil rights movement. Various factors began to undermine the power of the UAW. Many of its most effective organizers were purged amidst the Red Scare. The Midwest experienced deindustrialization as factories were moved down South or out of the country. The Administrative Caucus led throughout this process and became increasingly corrupt. A movement for workers’ democracy in the union sprouted forth and demanded competitive elections. After securing One Member, One Vote in a referendum, ​​Unite All Workers for Democracy successfully elected new leadership. What does this mean for the UAW and the broader movement for working class empowerment? UAW member Chris joins us to discuss this and much more.

DSSL Public Statement Regarding the WGA Strike

As of midnight today, May 2nd, 2023, the 12,000 movie and television writers in the Writers Guild of America (WGA) are striking to demand appropriate compensation pre- and post-production, more pay for experienced writers, and basic benefits and protections for all industry writers. WGA members voted overwhelmingly to authorize this strike, with 96% of members voting and 97.3% of members voting YES. The Democratic Socialists of Salt Lake are proud to stand in solidarity on the picket line with these artists and demand that studios reward the brilliant minds of the WGA for all they contribute to the companies they work for and American arts and culture as a whole.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed the world, whether they realized it or not, that the role of the artist is one of the most important roles one can undertake as a human person. With the world in lockdown, millions of people passed the time with their favorite movies, TV shows, music, and literature. Hundreds of thousands of people took up painting or ceramics as a hobby, and some even dabbled in creating jewelry. When the world came to a stop, and many people found themselves in the darkest times of their life, we turned to artists for guidance, for comfort, for joy. Even if it was just for a moment.

Which is precisely why artists, like these WGA movie and television writers in Hollywood, deserve fair compensation for the art they produce and the culture they cultivate. These media CEOs, who reap the benefits of art they did not produce to the tune of billions of dollars, are not the backbone of this business; they are not the creative, visionary innovators, they are corporate oligarchs who don’t have an artistic bone in their body. It is criminal that these capitalist leeches have treated these WGA artists so poorly that they are in the position where they have no other choice but to strike.

Because of this, the DSSL demands that these companies, including Disney, Netflix, HBO, and NBC Universal, to bargain in good faith and give in to the writers’ demands. We call on other workers and unions in the entertainment industry, including directors, actors, and crew, to stand in solidarity with these writers and not cross the picket lines. The DSSL also recommends our members and people in the community follow these good practices until a collective bargaining agreement is met:

• Cancel subscriptions to any streaming platform you don’t use/don’t frequent often. Hollywood has a backlog of content waiting to be produced, so they will still theoretically be able to produce content for a while, and in turn make money. Cancelling you subscriptions puts economic pressure on these companies and shows them that we will not support them until they give in to workers demands
• Refrain from watching late night series on television or Youtube until an agreement is met. These series will be most affected by the strike, and a huge drop in viewership will put pressure on the companies.
• Refrain from watching reality series. Media companies lean on these during labor strikes, and will force more of these on viewers if they are shown to be popular. Besides, The Apprentice gave us Donald Trump, and nobody likes Donald Trump.
• Publicly show your support for WGA on social media and share information about it to sympathetic peers!

DSSL is first and foremost a socialist organization fighting for working people, and we are proud of WGA members for taking things into their own hands and sticking it to the man!!

Solidarity,

The Democratic Socialists of Salt Lake

The post DSSL Stands in Solidarity with the Writers Guild of America During their Strike! first appeared on Salt Lake DSA.

Our vote tracker has launched. Find out where your Jersey City Council rep stands on a Right to Counsel for ALL and use this script to get them to vote YES:

The Right to Counsel (RTC) would guarantee legal representation for all tenants facing eviction or other issues with landlords. NO tenant should have to fight for their homes alone!

**Calling Script**

Hello, my name is [your name] and I am calling to ensure [council member] is supporting the Jersey City Right-to-Counsel ordinance in its fullest capacity. Let’s make sure this includes universal coverage for all renters regardless of income!

Landlords and developers have accelerated the soaring rent costs that make Jersey City the most expensive city in the United States to live in. With [council member]'s support, residents will no longer fear facing eviction alone.

Can we count on your support to vote for a Right to Counsel for all tenants paid by developer fees?

**Send an Email**

Dear [council member],

My name is [your name] and I am calling to ensure [council member] is supporting the Jersey City Right-to-Counsel and Developer Fee ordinances in their fullest capacity. Let’s make sure this includes universal coverage for all renters regardless of income!

Landlords and developers have accelerated the soaring rent costs that make Jersey City the most expensive city in the United States to live in. Landlords more often than not have legal representation in housing court, tipping the scales in their favor. With [council member]'s support, residents will no longer fear facing eviction alone.

In nearby NYC, evictions were reduced by an estimated 30% after the passage of their Right to Counsel program. Let’s pass one of the strongest RTCs in the nation by making sure all tenants are protected from eviction, landlord malfeasance, habitability issues, illegally high rents, and more!

Can we count on your support to vote for a Right to Counsel for all tenants paid by developer fees?

Best,

[your name]

Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America Chapter Committee condemns the recent introduction of Assembly Bill 642, legalizing law enforcement use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in California. We further condemn the recent co-sponsorship of AB642 by SV-DSA member and District 25 State Assemblymember Alex Lee. Only determined and militant social movements can chart a safe and just future for Californians and for the world.  AB 642 will open the door  to intensified surveillance on already over-policed communities and movements that challenge the status quo.

Assemblymember Lee retweeted the claim AB 642 is needed to institute oversight over facial recognition, given the impending sunset of the extant FRT ban and the Assembly’s failure to extend it last year. We reject this logic wholesale – the place of socialists is at the leading edge of the struggle for a just society, not tinkering at the margins in the vain hope of staving off further defeat. Another bill attempting to re-extend the FRT ban (AB 1034) is already in committee –  Lee should show real leadership by putting his support behind it.

We condemn AB642 in the strongest terms and call upon Alex Lee to withdraw his co-sponsorship immediately.

The post Chapter Committee Statement on Assemblymember Alex Lee and AB642 appeared first on Silicon Valley DSA.

Member Bruce Nissen shares his thoughts on our work with the labor movement

One of the more “foundational stances” of the DSA is support for organized labor. Both in written positions and (less consistently) in practice, the DSA positions itself as unequivocally a pro-labor organization. Some DSA chapters have no working relationship with unions beyond rhetorical support; others like the Pinellas DSA have some of our members actively involved in individual unions and in broader union formations like the local central labor council (CLC).

It is not hard to understand why the DSA has this pro-union orientation. Democratic Socialists believe in democracy and favor struggle with our 1% overlords, the capitalists. Unions are among the most important U.S. forces for democracy. Although they do not have the clout with elected officials that corporations do, unions nevertheless have much more influence than almost any left-wing organization, so their support for basic democracy is important. The unions consistently oppose attempts (usually by Republican lawmakers) to restrict the franchise, make it harder to vote, implement right-wing populist or fascistic measures, or cut back the influence of ordinary Americans by any other means. Research has shown that countries with higher union densities are more equal and more democratic than those with low union densities.

By their very nature unions are also adversaries of large corporations and capitalists. This is simply because bargaining and enforcing a collective bargaining agreement with an employer brings opposing economic interests into contention, at least to a degree.

Therefore, a strong alliance between Democratic Socialists and labor unions seems like a clear plus. That said, socialists often find practical limitations to their work in the labor movement. One stems from the Cold War legacy. Many Americans equate socialism with dictatorship and loss of freedoms for individual workers and their families. Nationally prominent Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) counter this image, especially among younger workers. DSA member behavior within the labor movement also dispels this misconception. I expect this obstacle to diminish over time.

Nevertheless, young DSA members who join and get involved in unions are frequently confounded. This is part of a pattern of American workers in generally often not understanding what unions are or how they work. A young DSA member first thinking about involvement in a union at their workplace may expect to see a dynamic organization on the move; what they often find is a bureaucratic, uninvolving outfit with few interests beyond protecting the contractual protections of its own members and few external activities beyond supporting Democratic Party candidates irrespective of how progressive those candidates are or are not. (Of course, this is not an accurate depiction of all unions — some are dynamic, progressive, internally democratic and involving — but these are the exceptions to the rule in today’s American labor movement.)

Given this “state of the unions,” some young DSAers may ask, “Why is it worthwhile to involve oneself actively in union or labor movement affairs? Isn’t it mostly a waste of time that would be better spent elsewhere?” I think this question deserves a serious answer.

The labor movement must be at or near the center of our focus because unions are the only institutions of any size in American society that are composed entirely of workers and are devoted entirely to the interests of workers. They are unique working-class institutions in a society that has attempted to obliterate even the notion of “working class” by lumping us all into a broad “middle class.” With all their flaws, unions are the only organizations we’ve got if we want to reach workers on a self-organized basis. And reaching workers on a self-organized basis I so crucial because working class people asserting themselves at the workplace (the “point of production”) is the only way that transformative change occurs, and historically this is the only way it has ever happened.

To illustrate this, consider the difference between putting our socialist energies into union work vs. putting them into a party like the Democratic Party. In the labor movement, you are working to build and contest politically within a clearly working-class institution that, however backward its leadership may be, is still at its core an organization composed of and answerable to workers. In the Democratic Party, you are working in a multi-class institution largely funded by and certainly answerable to a core of multi-millionaires and billionaires. Even if the political perspectives coming out of the leadership of both institutions should be identical there still would be a world of difference concerning which is worth serious socialist engagement.

To me, that means that we Democratic Socialists should view the Democratic Party in a totally opportunistic fashion: use it when you can (for example, use its ballot line in most cases) and soak it for support whenever that’s possible for our objectives and candidates, but don’t waste your time trying to internally build this organization that has no clear class basis and no internal discipline except for the discipline exerted by its funders. In contrast we should view the labor movement as fertile terrain for serious involvement and contestation over political and organizing/mobilizing orientation. We have a strong foothold for building class power to the extent that we are able to establish socialist influence and ultimately leadership within it. That means we have to build the labor movement; help it to thrive and then work to make it a better instrument to enhance the power of all workers.

That’s why I believe that an unshakable commitment to the labor movement and to establish and build a socialist current and ultimately socialist leadership within it to be absolutely crucial to the work of the DSA. Given the political and bureaucratic outlook of many labor leaders, that may seem a discouraging prospect but there is no alternative. The members of U.S. unions are much like other workers in our country, and we can’t expect unions to magically be way more advanced than their own membership. Building a socialist working class and ultimately a socialist America is a long-term task — work in the labor movement is crucial, but we must think of ourselves as long-distance runners.

(I want to thank Richie Floyd for incisive commentary on an earlier version of this blog, helping me to make it much better.)

The state chapter of the ACLU, the New Jersey Working Families Party, and the Fair Share Housing Center are among nine endorsing the right to counsel proposal in Jersey City.

The other groups lending their endorsement to the cause are the Latino Action Network (LAN), Housing Rights Initiative (HRI), Make the Road New Jersey (MRNJ), Our Revolution New Jersey, North New Jersey Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (NNJDSA), and the New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP).

Read “ALCU, NJWFP, & Fair Share Housing among 9 endorsing Jersey City right to counsel” in Hudson County View