As DSA Convention season descends on us, a familiar debate from previous conventions has re-emerged. This time it comes in the form of an amendment from the new slate Groundwork to the National Labor Commission’s consensus resolution on DSA’s labor work. Groundwork’s “We Are Workers” amendment would, among other things, strip out language from the consensus resolution that explicitly rejects a strategy of prioritizing relationships with union establishment in favor of a strategy of prioritizing building relationships with the rank and file. The amendment also advocated for deprioritizing working with Labor Notes (which shares DSA’s support for a rank and file orientation to the labor movement). Criticism came quickly, with longtime DSA labor organizers noting that our Rank and File Strategy (RFS) adopted in 2019 has gotten us quite far in our labor work. Supporters of the amendment responded, some criticizing DSA’s labor strategy as preventing them from working with union leadership on legislative projects and others arguing that this amendment leaves the RFS, which they love, intact but lets people do other things as well.

Leave aside for the moment that the amendment’s supporters rely almost entirely on examples of working with union leadership where the leadership and membership are not in dispute (a distinction worthy of its own separate analysis) and that our already-adopted Rank and File Strategy has been no barrier to working with union leadership on issues where membership and leadership are aligned. Also leave aside the question of what the distinction is between a union’s leadership and the union establishment (another separate piece). I want to focus on what it can and does look like to work with union leadership. There’s nothing wrong with building relationships and working with union leadership, as many of the staunchest supporters of the RFS in DSA regularly do in our labor work. But what kind of relationships are we building? What kind of relationships are possible?

We can classify cooperative relationships between DSA and a union into three types: Transactional, Top-Down Relational, and Bottom-up Relational. This, of course, leaves aside more frosty or openly antagonistic relationships (virtually all of which, it’s worth noting, are more a consequence of distrustful staff and officers than membership sentiment). Let’s take each of these three categories of positive relationships with unions in turn.

1. Transactional

This is probably the most common type of relationship with a union that we see in our electoral or legislative campaign work. This is a relationship where a union’s leadership, usually its political director and top officers, see value for themselves and their union in working with DSA on something. It may be that what DSA wants to do benefits them directly, as in legislative campaigns that involve increasing funding for their members’ jobs and departments. Sometimes the transaction is slightly more long term, and the leadership works with us because they’ll want to have a good political relationship down the line for something they want, as is common in our electoral work seeking endorsements.

This kind of relationship can net significant benefits in the immediate term, but they tend to be shallow, with the relationship existing entirely between some representative of DSA and some representative of the union. This means that DSA becomes dependent on individual members holding the relationship with the union (or just its political director), putting a long-term burden on them that can quickly lead to burnout and a loss of that working relationship. While you can try to bring others into those meetings and expand the relationship by ones and twos, that is not sustainable in a mass organization.

Political directors are often the staffers least tied to the mission and membership of their unions, usually jumping between union world and the world of electoral politics. Such a leadership is not going to move the union to do anything they aren’t inclined to do, absent DSA being able to give them something. And fundamentally, this kind of relationship reinforces a top-down, transactional approach within that union in how it relates to the broader political scene. These kinds of relationships cannot possibly transform that union or the labor movement. Instead they reinforce a status quo that has not, will not, move us closer to our goals as socialists.

2. Top Down Relational

This second category goes beyond the transaction of the first category. The union’s leadership are excited or impressed by DSA’s work and want to build with us long term, becoming recurring partners with us on our work. Maybe those union leaders see themselves as socialists. They may even be DSA members. The continued relationship is an end in itself, unlike the transactional relationship. They may send speakers to our events, buy ads and tables at our fundraisers, even endorse our legislative campaigns and candidates. This is often a result of DSA doing strike support work that demonstrates a deep political commitment, rather than a mere transactional commitment, to working with them, as well as shared ideals and goals.

This is a big step up from a transactional relationship, but it is still limited in many ways. As wonderful as a particular leader may be, these kinds of relationships are still simply person to person, rather than membership-to-membership or organization-to-organization, and they run into the same bottlenecks discussed above. 

In addition, there is only so far a leader can take their union themselves. Even a dedicated socialist in a union presidency is going to be limited by conditions in their union and by the institutional forces of being an officer, with legal and fiduciary duties to the union and other conservatizing influences. Officers in such positions will therefore end up feeling even more limited than they may actually be. They’d love to go further in their support for our work, but their position simply won’t let them go that far. 

Further, even if they do push the limits of the bounds of their office, they’re ultimately answerable to their membership. Unlike virtually every other part of US society, unions are all democracies, at least nominally and structurally, and a union leader who strays too far from where the membership is can quite easily be disciplined in the next election. A relationship with the leaders, therefore, can only ever get you so far.

3. Bottom Up Relational

In this final category the relationship between DSA and the union is more ideologically driven than by transaction and rooted not in the whims of a particular leader, but rather by a core of militant rank and filers. In this situation, union members who are leaders on the shop floor, and who are ideally themselves socialists and DSA members, are continually finding ways for their union to work closely with DSA on shared work, such as a contract fight or a legislative campaign. Perhaps they, carrying considerably more weight with union leadership than some non-member from DSA would have, have convinced their leadership that this collaboration makes sense. Perhaps they have not yet gotten leadership on board but are bringing their fellow union members into the shared DSA work in a way that makes it harder and harder for leadership to say no. Ultimately, leadership either stands aside or actively builds a relationship with DSA, based not on quid pro quo nor on their particular political inclinations, but on a firm foundation of a militant base of member-organizers excited to bring their union and the socialist movement closer together.

The most obvious benefit this kind of relationship has over the other sorts is its durability. It is much harder to get rid of a group of shop floor militants than it is to get rid of a staffer or even an officer. In addition, should leadership change hands to someone more hostile to DSA, the shop floor militants can continue their organizing, continue bringing coworkers into DSA work and continue organizing around DSA work in their union, until either the new leadership relents, embraces DSA, or is replaced yet again.

More importantly, though, this kind of relationship leads to more genuine collaboration and cross-membership growth. While it’s great to have a union president decide to join DSA, we’re a mass organization; it is far more powerful to have a crew of shop stewards, dozens of shop floor leaders, hundreds of rank and file members join DSA. That is far more likely to happen if we’re organizing with them, rather than prioritizing leadership and hoping for trickle-down recruitment. A relationship with leadership that comes from their own membership ensures that leadership knows how serious we are, that our organizing prowess is for real, and that we should be treated with the respect of a group that knows how to bring a crowd to a fight.

What are DSA’s Relationships Like Now, and Where Do We Go From Here?

With this framework in place, what do our current relationships with union leadership look like? I think it’s fair to say that in many places, most of our relationships are in the first category, with a hope that continued work will get us to the second. Few of our relationships fit into that third category, but those have been some of the most rewarding. Far and away, the best example of this kind of relationship has been our relationship nationally — and in some places locally — with the Teamsters. There, we have dozens of DSA members who are shop floor militants, many of whom are long-term respected leaders who, when they speak, command the attention of their fellow members and their leadership. Those DSA shop floor leaders have successfully advocated for DSA to be brought in as a leading force in the UPS Contract coalition, buoyed by the excellent work the NLC and DSA chapters across the country have done with rank and filers to organize the broader working class around this fight. In the process, we have brought even more shop floor leaders who had not previously considered themselves socialists into DSA, growing our core of rank and file militants and in so doing increasing the seriousness with which the union’s leadership treats us. 

This should be the model for our relationships with union leadership; treating it not as a priority, not as the focus of our strategy, but as the result of prioritizing relationships with the rank and file, and in so doing have sturdier, more powerful relationships with the labor movement as a whole. This is crucial; the ultimate goal of DSA’s labor work is not to have a socialist movement that works well with the labor movement, but a socialist movement that has merged with the labor movement. We need more union members to become organized socialists, and more organized socialists to become union members, so that we can eventually have the organized base to bring these entities together into a force that can accomplish our goals and create the world we know we need. 

Our greatest weapon in that pursuit is the collective withholding of our labor from capital. We can’t get there through relationships with labor leaders. A union president can do a lot of things that can be useful to us, but they can’t withhold the labor of their members by themselves. The president can say “we’re on strike” until they’re blue in the face, but if the members aren’t onboard, it’s not going to happen. The membership are the beating heart of every union. When that heart doesn’t beat, nothing will happen, no matter how many socialist or socialist-friendly leaders you have. This is why, strategically speaking, if we want to build the labor movement we need to win socialism, a strategy that prioritizes building relationships with union leadership simply will not get us there, and must be rejected.

This is not to say that we should never work with and build relationships with union leadership, as so much of our existing work conducted under the Rank and File Strategy has shown. We do it tactically for a variety of reasons. But strategically, that cannot and should not be the priority. When push comes to shove, we know that the power lies with the rank and file, because while the rank and file can change their leadership, the leadership can’t change their rank and file. Any amendment to our labor strategy that loses sight of that will weaken DSA, harm our labor work, and distract from our goal of building a militant, democratic, socialist labor movement.

The post What Kind of Relationship Do We Want With Union Leadership? appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

DSA +50 Orgs Condemn Biden Administration Siding With Private Prison Company CoreCivic to Keep Immigrant Detention in New Jersey

July 17th 2023

New Jersey, USA – This week, the Biden administration is expected to file an amicus brief joining private prison company CoreCivic in its attempt to keep an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prison open in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Elizabeth Detention Center, a converted warehouse with nearly 30 years of documented abuse, is approaching its contract expiration with ICE on August 31, 2023, and is barred from renewing its contract under a New Jersey state law signed by Governor Murphy almost two years ago. 

This move follows a similar Biden administration strategy in California, where the administration fought to prevent a private prison ban from taking effect.

A united coalition of New Jersey groups, calling on Governor Murphy and local, state, and federal officials to defend their residents, offered the following statement:

“The Biden Administration’s decision to side with CoreCivic, the world’s largest private prison company, is bitterly disappointing but unsurprising. New Jersey is no stranger to the uphill battle it will take to remove ICE’s abusive presence from our communities, nor the megacorporations who seek to profit off of our communities’ misery. We are proud of our history of resistance that ended ICE contracts with local counties across the state. We will continue our pressure to ensure that the Elizabeth Detention Center is closed permanently, that all people are freed, and that the building is never used to warehouse people for any purpose again.

We are in a critical moment. With a little over a month left until the contract expires, the local and state elected officials who once condemned the EDC under previous administrations must step up and condemn it today. We want to remind them of the tremendous suffering and resistance to the Elizabeth Detention Center since it opened nearly 30 years ago. Tens of thousands of people, inside and outside the prison, have protested the inhumane conditions, and at least two people, Boubacar Bah and Victor Ramirez-Reyes, have tragically died due to their detention there. 

We will continue to demand action and honor the lives destroyed by US immigration policy. We urge communities across New Jersey to join our fight to end the unnecessary, inhumane, and abuse-riddled practice of immigration detention.

We urge Governor Murphy and all elected officials to provide a prompt and public response to rebuke the Biden administration’s attempt to undermine New Jersey values.”

The post DSA +50 Orgs Condemn Biden Administration Siding With Private Prison Company CoreCivic to Keep Immigrant Detention in New Jersey first appeared on North NJ DSA.

Hello comrade! If you clicked on this you’re very cool! Here are the RSVP links for the stuff we meant to call you about:

By Tarang Saluja and Eli Gerzon 

Norwood, MA — On Saturday, July 8, between the early hours of 4 am to 8 am, Massachusetts saw its first Amazon picket. Teamsters and roughly 200 supporters from other unions and socialist organizations stood in solidarity to block about six tractor-trailers from entering the DCB4 Amazon warehouse in Norwood, Massachusetts. All tractor-trailer drivers chose to be in solidarity and honor the picket lines.

This picket was the Massachusetts extension of the Teamsters Local 396 picket in Palmdale, California. After Amazon delivery drivers and dispatchers in Palmdale unionized with the Teamsters and reached an agreement with Battle-Tested Strategies, a contractor for Amazon, Amazon refused to recognize the contract and committed multiple unfair labor practices, including the termination of all 84 workers in the bargaining unit. Since June 24, Local 396 has been picketing not only in Palmdale, but also multiple locations across the country. There was another picket on July 7 in Connecticut, and these actions have been leading up to Amazon’s large annual Prime Day promotion on July 11.

With this action, the Teamsters were able to use their position as a large union to mobilize around the country and employ a strategy that brought pickets to disrupt production and add pressure on Amazon around the country. “We’re just here to show Amazon we’re going to take this fight anywhere they want to take it,” said Cecilia Porter, a Teamsters Local 396 member and striking Amazon driver.

UPS workers, 340,000 of whom may go on strike August 1, were most prominent on the picket line. Greg Kerwood, a member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and a UPS driver, spoke to the common struggle in logistics. “Workers at Amazon do the same work, same job, same warehouse labor, same delivery labor. They deserve the benefits of a union contract, just like we enjoy at UPS.” 

Rand Wilson, a part-time organizer with TDU, understands that the battle will not be easy, likening the challenge to earlier, unsuccessful Walmart organizing efforts. However, he is excited to try out new strategies and expand organizing horizons. Wilson spoke to the importance of solidarity across unions, stating that “not just the Teamsters but every union needs to be involved in a campaign to unite these workers and to build power with the rank and file of Amazon.” 

Many other unions were there. Members of Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) showed up with “Our Fight is Your Fight!” signs. Far from a symbolic phrase, the Teamsters have offered concrete support for Starbucks workers. Julie Langevin, an ex-barista and current SBWU organizer, spoke to how Teamsters’ commitment to respect the picket line helped Starbucks workers at 874 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston maintain a strike for 64 days. 

“One of the most incredible things about the Teamsters and the fact that they deliver supplies to all of our shops is that they don’t cross picket lines…so when we have a picket line and we keep it going 24 hours a day for 64 days, Starbucks can’t possibly open that shop.”

Cecil Carey, a Boston Teachers Union (BTU) member, also spoke to how solidarity between the Teamsters and teachers leads to material wins. “I want my students and their families to be able to have living wages and stay in Boston. And so I care about every worker getting paid appropriately and getting justice at the worksite.” 

Anneta Argyres, president of the Professional Staff Union (PSUMTA) at UMass Boston, shares this concern for students and fellow workers at the university. “We are all facing the concerns about increasing cost of living and increasing inequality in our society … So I both see the struggles that our students at UMass Boston are having, trying to get an education and deal with that huge amount of debt, and I see what happens when we’re hiring new folks who are burdened with educational debt and trying to make ends meet and can’t even afford to work in a place like UMass Boston.”

Argyres also added that Amazon’s practices should concern all workers, warning that “if we allow employers to get away with the treatment that they want in Amazon warehouses, we’re all gonna be facing that same treatment.” 

Jacksyn Bakeberg, a mathematics graduate student worker in the Boston University Graduate Workers Union (BUGWU) and a leader in the Boston DSA Labor Working Group, also observed the parallels between the corporatization of higher education and Amazon’s increasing cruelty. “I think Amazon is changing the landscape of what work looks like in the United States and in the rest of the world. And similarly, we’re seeing a really changing business model in higher education… a shifting towards viewing higher education more as a business.”

For Steve Gillis, a bus driver in Boston for 37 years and member of the Boston School Bus Drivers Union, it is clear how the Amazon model affects bus drivers.  “Those of us who have been professional drivers… we see this model that Amazon is trying to push, like Uber and Lyft independent contractors. Workers? Not workers, no rights, no wages, no benefits, no unemployment, no workers’ compensation.”

He adds that fellow bus drivers have to work part-time at companies like Uber and Lyft to make ends meet. For Steve, this battle is part of the fight against “the corporate law in this country that allows Amazon to get away with this fiction and with this really illegal activity of not even treating their drivers like workers.”

This fight also extends to broader issues of social justice. Proudly wearing a SBWU shirt, Gillis was particularly animated about Strike with Pride, a strategy that SBWU has used to fight back against anti-LGBTQ attacks from Starbucks corporate. “Starbucks came in and ripped down rainbow flags. How fucking outrageous… joining, not only the Supreme Court, but right-wing legislatures and fascists across the country attacking LGBTQ folks? No, we won’t have it.”

Jamie Wallace from the Coalition for Black Trade Unions (CBTU) and Ed Childs from UNITE HERE Local 26 also see this struggle linked to broader social issues, particularly racism and war. 

Wallace described “racism as another system that keeps the people separated and divided,” adding that it keeps the powerful in their position because “we are divided as a people and we haven’t come together to battle against these systemic oppressions that we are currently facing.”

Adding on to Wallace’s comments, Childs expressed concern that Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated while helping organize sanitation workers into unions and bringing together the Civil Rights movement and union movement, has been forgotten “as a symbol of the unionism.”

Childs also spoke to how war is used as a tool to divide and attack workers. After recalling how the U.S. has historically used war to repress unions, he added “When the U.S. has wars in Africa, those African workers are us. If the U.S. attacks Russia, those Russian workers are us. They attack China, those Chinese workers are us. Until you understand that, you’re losing. So, get out in the street!”

Passionate about eschewing artificial divisions, Childs also criticized how only some workers were deemed essential workers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Don’t any worker think that they’re not essential and don’t any worker think that another worker’s not essential. We’re all essential. And if anybody’s out on strike, whether it’s a dishwasher or computer programmer, you get out there and support them.”

In addition to their commitment for shared struggles, many of these workers were also members of socialist organizations and shared a critique of capitalism. Most of the interviewees in this article were members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), or Workers World Party (WWP). Organizations like the Young Communist League (YCL) and the Independent Socialist Group (ISG) were also on the picket line but not quoted in this article.. 

Spencer Costigan, a member of SBWU and DSA, added to the message of solidarity with a critique of capitalism and what it does to workers. “No matter where you are, there are workers struggling… because that’s the nature of capitalism. That’s just the way that the system has been built, and the only real way forward is to dispose of that and create a new system.”

For many workers and leftists, this picket at Amazon was a landmark moment in the fight to create a new system. Everyone on the picket line recognized that this fight is everyone’s fight, and people’s support is needed for both this fight and every fight to come. With the conversations on the Amazon Teamsters picket line covering SBWU’s Strike with Pride, the shared critique of the larger capitalist system, and parallel trends of exploitation across industries, this picket was a concrete symbol of the developing awareness that the only way forward is to unite across our struggles. 

For support, Porter asked people to donate, repost on social media, and show up to the picket. You can donate here and follow/boost @teamsters396 on Instagram and @local_396 on Twitter.

Happy red hot summer!

UPS Teamsters have voted to go on strike August 1 if the bosses do not agree to a fair contract. Join us Sunday, July 9, 2:00-3:30 PM at the Gallatin Labor Temple (422 E Mendenhall) for a discussion about why workers go on strike and how to support UPS workers.

Suggested materials to review:

• The Chicago Teachers Strike Is a Fight for the Common Good (Article)
• Create Havoc Around our System (CHAOS) method (Video)
• Teamsters Deliver The Goods 2  (Podcast)

Other upcoming dates:

• Thursday July 13, 6:30 PM, Housing Working Group (1820 W Lincoln)
• Sunday July 16, 2:00 PM, Labor Working Group (422 E Mendenhall)
• Thursday July 20, 6:30 PM, Housing Working Group (1820 W Lincoln)
• Sunday July 23, 2:00 PM, Labor Working Group (422 E Mendenhall)
• Friday, July 28, Strike Ready Fundraiser at the Gallatin Labor Temple to raise money for a strike fund to support UPS workers if they need to strike
• Sunday, August 13, 2:00 PM, New DSA Member Orientation

Solidarity Forever

Hello phonebankers! This is our schedule for August – looking forward to calling with ya. All events are on Zoom.

• Mon., 8/7 @ 6pm – RSVP
• Mon., 8/14 @ 6pm – RSVP
• Mon., 8/21 @ 6pm – RSVP
• Mon., 8/28 @ 6pm – RSVP

Your best pals,
DSA-LA Growth & Development working group