by Lara

Flus, colds, and covid are not the only scourges feverishly flaring up again: fascism and anti-intellectualism are political poxes scarring the soul of our society. While you should not underestimate their potential for devastation and death, know that you are not defenseless and you are not alone. 

Metaphorical contagions and actual contagions are a large concern, particularly now with the appointment of RFK as Secretary of Health and Human Services, layoffs and information suppression at the Center for Disease Control, and withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization. Though not widely reported on by mainstream media, protests against the Trump regime have erupted in all 50 states and abroad. When viral pandemics occur, we isolate ourselves to protect each other, but to achieve the same result with these metaphorical contagions, we must do just the opposite. We need to come together to resist these plagues.

Fortunately and unfortunately, these ailments aren’t new. We have been inoculated against what may be to come throughout history—our body (of people) has learned to fight this fever before. Though the virus has adapted to new circumstances—technology—over the years, so too can we. The infection vector may have mutated but our resiliency remains, though it is likely to be tested in the time to come.

Toxoplasma gondii is a non-viral parasite to many warm-blooded beings, including felines—whose guts are the only known place where T. gondii are able to reproduce. Incredibly, this single-celled microbe is able to alter the brain and behavior of rodents, causing them to be attracted to—rather than afraid of—the scent of cat urine, increasing the odds of the infected rodent being eaten by a cat and thus allowing for the multiplication and spread of T. gondii. 

Many Americans walked towards the mouth of a predatory beast, allowing for the spread and growth of more hateful policy, with little instinct for self or collective preservation, when they voted against their own interests this past national election. 

Make no mistake, all Trump voters voted against their own interests, for when one individual is oppressed, all are negatively impacted because the oppressed individual will not be able to freely and fully participate in society. Though billionaires are benefitting from the current regime, more people seem to be recognizing the dangers of a system that allows for the accumulation of such inordinate, concentrated amounts wealth-–and it may ultimately lead to changes in societal structures that advance such inequality and the exploitation that makes it possible (which is in its own way parasitic).

“Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world for indeed, that’s all who ever had,” has been attributed to author and anthropologist Margaret Mead. Dr. Mead purportedly considered the first sign of civilization to be a 15,000 year old healed broken femur, which would have required six months’ rest to mend and protection from others to survive the process. 

Part of being a part of a functioning society is caring for your fellow beings, which can take many forms. It may be calling out bigoted behavior. It may be wearing a mask to protect others. It may be bringing a meal to a lonely or hungry neighbor or treating the unhoused like what they are: human beings, deserving of dignity and compassion, as we all are. 

It may be many things but at the heart of them all is our imperative to hold fast and care for each other and protect the vulnerable. With the potential for AI to become conscious (and few regulations limiting data being used to train it and the stealing of data by DOGE) and necrotic tendrils of fascism seeping through rich soils, it is critically important that we retain what makes us compassionate. 

Parasitic capitalism needs to feed on people to survive. Viruses require host cells to replicate. Don’t be a host cell for hatred. Push back against authoritarian and exploitative systems. We are the immune system. Let us overwhelm the forces of evil, the ways bees might swarm around an enemy, extinguishing it with our collective power, warmth, and energy (Note: I am not advocating for violence against individuals, but rather the abatement of ideas and policies that violate human rights). Though the rodent cannot be uneaten, we can work to prevent future rodent consumption, predators from taking office, and parasites from propagating. 

Viruses have fundamentally altered evolutionary history, accounting for ~8% of our genome. Though they have undoubtedly had detrimental and sometimes fatal consequences, often overlooked are impacts that have ultimately been favorable. Indeed, a virus gave rise to the formation of the mammalian placenta, allowing for greater nutrient transfer from mother to progeny. We cannot overlook the devastation viruses have caused nor should we gloss over the good they’ve given rise to. How will you resist this pestilence? What goodness will you grow in its wake?

Love always, 

Lara

The post Inoculation first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

A St. Patrick’s Mass on Irish Republican Struggle and a Legendary Troublemaker

By Andrew S.

The typical Bostonian understands St. Patty’s Day as a flurry of green clovers, the smell of ale, and the stench of whatever is left the next morning. But over a century ago, a different saint incited a commitment to faith in radical trade unionism and socialist struggle. James Larkin landed on the shores of New York City after a memorable act of furious labor organizing in Belfast and Dublin, unaware of the impact his New World Tour would bring to American labor. Hoping to be one of the Four Horseman sending American capital to a long-anticipated doom, Big Jim Larkin’s stateside legacy marks an undeniable contribution to the struggle of early American socialism. For St. Patty’s Day, we ask you to sit for a brief mass on this Saint of Struggle: Big Jim.

The Belfast Strike of 1907

England was not the easiest place to grow up Irish. James Larkin was born to Irish migrants from occupied Ulster in the slums of Liverpool on January 21, 1876, then forced to give up formal education to look for work as a teenager. Any other detail is debated; various biographers and journalists toss around myths about his birth that never seem to add up with Larkin’s own claims. Despite the background of poverty, or maybe because of its hardship, the Larkins constituted a political household forged in the fires of labor and Irish republicanism.

Anti-Irish sentiment burned hot in England. Irish workers faced everything from spontaneous ambushes at the end of the school day to legislative bills punishing the Irish on accounts of “drunkenness”. Jim Larkin emerged from this era seething with outrage after witnessing the oppressive conditions birthed from the evils of British capitalism. Larkin joined the troublemaking wing of labor before the term was popularized. After waging vicious quarrels during odd jobs for English bosses, surviving bouts of regular unemployment, Larkin sailed for Ulster at the beginning of 1907. He leaped from the frying pan of Liverpool to the fire of Belfast. There, Jim Larkin cut his teeth as a radical unionist during his involvement in the Dockers’ and Carters’ Strike of 1907. 

Belfast labor was divided between the Protestant and Catholic working classes. Protestant workers enjoyed more spoils than their Catholic counterparts while craft sectionalism drove many Protestant unionists to conservative politics. Under the auspices of the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL), Larkin aimed to unite Belfast’s 1500 carters and 3,100 dockworkers, one thousand of whom were already card-carrying members. His efforts were remarkable. Within three months, every carter was unionized and a total of 2,900 dock laborers had joined the union – over 93% of the workforce. 

The union, proud of its results, asked for voluntary recognition from the ten companies employing dockworkers in Belfast. Only three refused – Lancashire and Yorkshire, London, and North Western and Midland. They were the biggest and most powerful companies on the dock. 160 dockworkers, mostly Protestant, initiated a strike with Larkin at the helm. Within a month, the strike exploded exponentially as 8,000 workers joined Larkin’s uproarious meetings.

Despite Big Jim’s efforts, the strike ended in ruin. Local industrialists hailed troops from the seat of English colonial rule at Dublin Castle to shut down the strike. The NUDL’s secretary believed it necessary to chase a settlement. After vicious fights with scabs, Larkin criticized the settlement and dockworkers rioted across the city in August, with some millworkers sacrificing their lives in the capitalist violence that ensued. The carters, whom Larkin had persuaded to organize a sympathetic strike, agreed to a contract and pulled out – leaving dockworkers stranded and isolated. Larkin changed his position in the wake of the spontaneous combustion of the violence and its horrible ends. Yet, while some viewed the strike as a catastrophic loss, one thing was certain: the Larkinism was a hefty threat to the ruling class in Ireland and Britain.

The ITGWU and The Dublin Lockout of 1913

After defeats in Belfast in 1907 and Cork in 1908, Larkin was still more motivated to pave social change through radical trade unionism. In 1909, Larkin formed the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). Two years later, as he turned to the pen, he founded the The Irish Worker and Peoples’ Advocate (colloquially shortened to the Irish Worker) covering strikes, protests, and workers’ opinions. ITGWU and the Irish Workers’ League agreed to print the paper. Within weeks of initial print, over twenty thousand copies were being sold per weekly edition. James Connolly, the legendary Irish socialist, was working in 1912 as Belfast organizer for ITGWU, a year before his large Role in the Lockout.

Each of Big Jim’s organizing projects was crucial to the Dublin Lockout of 1913. Dublin’s economic scene was marked by poverty. Housing conditions were heinous as thousands of cities lived in tiny tenements, women were packed into infamous laundries, and the contraction of tuberculosis among workers was a whopping fifty percent. William Murphy, Ireland’s most renowned capitalist, was friendly with most unions except for Larkin’s radical ITGWU as he insisted on crushing the union to bits throughout the city. On August 26, 1913, members of the ITGWU went on strike. Within twenty-four hours, the police responded with violent skirmishes. Four days later, James Connolly declared class war on behalf of Irish trade unionists in The Irish Worker founded by Big Jim.

Larkin was at his physical limit. Stressed, strained from tensions within the union, and health flailing, Larkin was thrown in jail by police officers who ambushed him on his return home during the evening of the very first day of the general strike. Upon his release from jail in mid-September, Larkin immediately set sail for Manchester to call attention to the situation from British trade unions and organize a sympathetic strike. His persistent verbal attacks on the British labor aristocracy left him unpopular with some labor leaders he tried to sway to the persuasion of ITGWU’s cause. His efforts halted on October 26 when English rulers put him on trial for sedition.

Upon his early release on November 9, Larkin traveled around the working class havens of South Wales and northern England and convinced some thirty thousand workers to strike in solidarity with ITGWU workers across the Irish Sea. The effort sparked international news amongst socialist figures; Big Bill Haywood, in Paris at the time and a future comrade in arms, raised funds for the strike in Ireland. Even Lenin wrote about the class war rising in Dublin, calling out Larkin’s efforts by name. Nonetheless, the Dublin Lockout ended in January 1914 with a crushing loss for the Dublin working classLarkin. Irish workers returned to work after five months of strikes, British trade union leaders aired their grievances around Larkin’s persistent ad hominem attacks on them, ITGWU ejected him from his responsibilities to the union, and his loved ones grew distant. Dejected, Larkin took up an offer from ‘Big Bill’ Haywood: a New World speaking tour. 

Big Jim’s Years in the United States

Big Jim showed up in the United States with bravado and a rally at Madison Square Garden of 15,000 workers. Now a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Big Jim’s arrival was welcomed by some American socialists and deeply distrusted by others. The Socialist Party of America (SPA)’s right wing punished him for his syndicalism to slow his tour, but he persisted right until he joined the Western Federation of Miners organizing in Butte, Montana.

The Easter Rising struck Ireland when Big Jim was in the United States. Since he had begun resettling his family in Chicago, Larkin missed the escalations leading up to 1916 back in Ireland and craved what he believed was his rightful place in the Irish resistance. His fury didn’t stop him from continuing labor organizing in the United States. Larkin became a proponent of an uprising in the United States after Jack Reed returned from Russia with the details of the unlikely Bolshevik success against warmongering rulers in Russia. Larkin supported the Communist Labor Party that split from the SPA in the exodus of ten thousand members that eventually grew to the fifty-thousand strong that constituted the Communist Party, USA.

Larkin’s departure from the United States was as bitter as his arrival. Broke, hounded by a Red Scare,  Larkin left in 1923 for Ireland. His impact was ambiguous and promises of socialist victory in the United States unmet.

A Final Prayer

From 1923 onward, Big Jim was trapped by his own egocentrism. The positive qualities that Larkin honed as an organizer – defiant, ruthless, and blunt – would run dry in contrast to his crippling insecurity. Upon arriving back in Ireland, Larkin denounced the ITGWU to split the union for status. That signaled the decline in his organizing career. 

Despite his shortcomings, his grandeur, his unadulterated fury, and the bridges he burned to serve his ego, Jim Larkin remains a towering and mystifying figure in the lineage of organizing. Who has heard of such a man who could organize thousands of men in a matter of months, or even thirty thousand Welsh and Liverpool workers hundreds of miles away to strike out of pure solidarity? Hater of theory, lover of literature, Catholic nationalist, and Christian devotee, Jim Larkin was one of our best missionaries for socialist struggle. His righteous anger to never bend in the face of brutal exploitation raised millions of organizers in waiting to their feet – taking control of their lives and futures. 

Let us embody his spirit this St. Patrick’s Day. 

Andrew S is a member of Boston DSA.

References

Emmet O’Connor, Big Jim Larkin

Emmet Larkin, Jim Larkin

Press release from UW-Madison YDSA

We are so pleased and proud to announce that three of our candidates have won in the ASM elections Wednesday night — Gabo Samoff for College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and Student Finance Services Committee, Bobby Gronert for College of Letters and Science and Student Finance Services Committee and Tristan Englemann for College of Engineering (five seats total).

These wins signal that students are dissatisfied with the university and Trump crackdowns on free speech on our campus, that students will not settle for university complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine or any other attacks on marginalized students, faculty or workers by the Trump administration — attacks on undocumented and foreign students, trans and reproductive healthcare, layoffs and cuts to university workers. We say socialism beats fascism.

We want to thank everyone who chose to support us in the elections and let you know we are here to fight for and with you. We will do everything in our power to resist repression and encroachments upon ALL students and faculty, fight for justice on our campus and everywhere and are excited to work with you very soon. Let this be a reminder that we are not powerless, and we still win in the darkest of times; a better world is possible. We are only getting started, let’s celebrate this win and keep up the fight!

“My vote today reflects my commitment to making tough choices and doing my job for the people of Maine,” wrote Maine District 2 Rep. Jared Golden (D) after casting the lone Democratic vote in favor of the Republican House budget bill this week. The budget calls for $485 million additional funding for ICE to feed Trump’s deportation machine—which Golden highlighted affirmatively—and another $6 billion in Pentagon spending. Meanwhile, the bill erases earmarks—making it easier for Trump and Musk to turn appropriations into slush funds—and cuts $13 billion from non-military spending in health, clean water, tribal assistance, FEMA, and more. Pulling a reverse Susan Collins, Golden voted in favor of Trump’s budget, knowing his vote would not be decisive. Trump wasn’t thinking about Golden when he demanded “NO DISSENT” from House Republicans, but Golden answered the call regardless. If it were not for the Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor thin majority, one could be tempted to dismiss Golden’s posturing. And Golden’s vote, which seemed like an anomaly just a couple days ago, has now been endorsed by the most powerful elected Democrat in the country, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

I have no special insight into Golden as a person. He’s obviously a very smart, likeable, hardworking man, and has about as much Mainer cred as a person can muster. Moreover, he can be surprisingly progressive on important issues. For instance, while Gov. Janet Mills—generally considered several steps to his left—has vetoed bills expanding Wabanaki sovereignty, Golden has supported important tribal priorities. Golden also vocally supports abortion rights and took a lot of heat for changing his position on banning assault rifles after the mass shooting in Lewiston. Credit where credit is due.

On the other hand, Golden famously split his vote during Trump’s impeachment, claiming he “voted his heart.” The pattern continued when he declared he was “OK” with Trump winning in 2024, even as he ridiculed people worried about Trump’s threats to democracy as “pearl clutching.” While condemning Republican State Rep. Laura Libby’s doxxing of a trans athlete, Golden repeated the right-wing trope that “biological males shouldn’t compete in sports against biological girls.” And when small farmers in Maine faced devastating cuts to USDA support, all Golden could muster was that he was “awaiting more legal clarity.”

[Read next: We’ll need popular resistance to defend trans rights in Maine – Pine & Roses]

Golden clearly wants Mainers to believe that he stands virtually alone in willing to make “tough choices.” Whatever you think of Golden the man, his method of trying to bridge left and right is the problem. After all, Golden won reelection by a whisker. His shrinking majority in District 2 and growing appetite for Manchinite posturing in Washington have led to speculation that he is considering a run for the Blaine House in November of 2026. Although it’s tempting to dismiss his chances in a left-leaning Democratic primary, Democratic leaders—and fundraising behemoths—demonstrated their willingness to pull out all the stops to prevent Bernie taking up the banner in 2016 and 2020. Furthermore, Trump has apparently picked Libby to conquer the state for MAGA in 2026 so the potential for the governor’s race to become “national” is real enough. Is Golden hoping he can serve as a rallying point for centrist and Blue Dog Democrats in the party apparatus? Perhaps. And that’s the problem with Golden’s method. Even if he wins, we lose.

So far I’ve stressed the uniqueness of Golden’s political positioning, but he also shares at least one trait in common with Gov. Mills, Sen. Angus King, and the bulk of the most powerful party leaders. That is, for all the latter’s references to Trump as a threat to democracy, they’re still willing to play by the rules. Mills rightfully won accolades for telling Trump she’d “see him in court.” Yet leaving our rights up to the Roberts Court leaves an awful lot up to chance. 

What’s the alternative? When Mills threatened to strip cost of living raises, direct care workers struck and took their message to the legislature, securing a vote in committee to restore the raise. When University of Maine administrators refused to protect international students, unionized graduate students organized a sit in. When Bowdoin administrators refused to honor a student referendum calling for the college to take action to support the people of Gaza, Students for Justice in Palestine organized an encampment. Actions like these are not yet powerful enough on their own to turn the tide, but they do point in another direction.

[Listen to next: Bowdoin College encampment for Gaza.]

Trump will continue his blitzkrieg for the coming months at least. He’s no pushover and we best prepare for a long series of confrontations. There’s no shame in recognizing we are on the defensive for the time being. But the initiatives we take now, be they organizing for May Day in Maine, standing up for our trans siblings, fighting for social housing, defending local farms or nominating candidates who’ve demonstrated they will fight for us in office, will be all the stronger if we take the time to cement relationships, practice open organizing democracy, and welcome new people into our movements.

So what is Jared Golden thinking? It turns out it’s the same thing as Schumer. In their estimation, sacrificing trans people, immigrants, civil liberties, and federal workers unions are just the cost of doing a certain kind of business in American politics. We need something entirely different. 

[Read next: The future of housing is public.]

The post Jared Golden leads, Schumer follows, Trump wins. appeared first on Pine & Roses.

The strike, backed by the powerful Teamsters union, is an early bet that strike action can overcome Trump-administration backtracking on the rights of student-workers. 

Undergraduates, Teamsters Launch Strike Action

WORCESTER, MA – As of Thursday March 13th, 6am, Clark University undergraduate workers have gone on strike, demanding the university agree to their request for card check neutrality. Card check neutrality is a legal agreement between the union local and the management to have a neutral third-party check the list of workers in the unit and match those names with union cards the workers signed; if a majority of the names of workers are card signers, a union is formed without an election. The group is organized under the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 170, the same unit that represents the Clark University Graduate Workers Union; CUGWU went on strike in April of 2022, winning its strike in five days. This undergraduate strike will be a 24-hour-a-day picket line over an indefinite length of time, at least running through this Saturday, March 15, which is Admitted Students Day.

The Clark campus was met with an armada of Teamsters trucks early Thursday morning– the trucks drawn from across the New England Jurisdiction of Teamsters, namely Locals 25, 170, 191, 340, 361, 671, and 1170, with more expected to follow. Staffers, organizers, and local presidents came out to show the IBT solidarity with the striking undergraduate workers. Despite it being 31 degrees and six in the morning, nearly fifty students and Teamsters lined Main Street.

Fighting For A Fair Contract

The organizing committee has outlined a few salient targets for a contract. Namely, these student workers hope to establish standardized undergraduate contract language across all departments, alleviating vast inconsistencies across a range of positions. Standardized pay increases for all workers, more guaranteed hours every week, safety precautions, support systems, and job security in the form of guaranteed positions are all top priorities. The latter, in particular, is of utmost importance for the labor pool at Clark. The modus operandi of the university’s administration and the Office of Student Employment has been to cut positions and downsize various low-staffed offices often and capriciously. For example, during the spring semester of 2024, the Human Resources office had five student assistant workers. By the fall semester of that year, that number had been cut down to a single position. 

Bringing this group under a single collective bargaining agreement would build unity and collective power among the undergraduate workers. 620 workers is a sizable labor force, and unification across the departments would strengthen and amplify the negotiating power the workers hold. University administration would have to sit across the bargaining table against the collective will and agency of hundreds of workers together, which empowers organizing for larger and more consistent gains, whereas atomized departments may struggle against both management and one another for resources.

Cross Campus Solidarity

Since going public in January, the undergraduate workers have garnered massive solidarity from the Graduate Workers Union.

In a letter of support, CUGWU wrote, “We are excited for and proud of you coming together to seize a seat at the table and make your jobs and workplace secure, rewarding, and respectful for yourselves and your coworkers! … We are proud to stand beside you as you organize your union and we will be proud to have you by our sides as we begin our own next contract negotiation!”

A letter of support from faculty, too, read that, “It is our hope that by supporting the unionization effort, all students and faculty members will benefit from the fortification of our campus’ community and continue to uphold the values of Clark University. We could not be more proud that our undergraduates are working together and lifting each other up to unionize!”

The Fight Over Columbia

This strike was not the intended outcome for this group of workers. A month earlier, IBT Local 170 filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board(NLRB) for an official union election. However, that petition had to be rescinded due to the fear it would allow the Trump-controlled NLRB to overturn the 2016 Columbia precedent which holds that student workers are allowed collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Unions representing student worker groups have advocated against filing for elections and ULPs during Trump’s second term, because this would provide a case by-which a Trump-controlled NLRB could overturn the Columbia ruling, throwing back the legal protections for student-worker organizing. Nevertheless, IBT 170 – both the field organizers and the legal team – felt comfortable the Columbia precedent wouldn’t apply in this case, mainly because of the nature of work Clark undergraduate workers do for the university. Clark University evoked the Columbia Decision as a casualty that would come from the undergraduates filing for an election, and so the local and the organizing committee pivoted to a strike for card check neutrality.

Clark undergraduate workers do not solely hold academic positions, such as teaching and research assistantships, like is typical of unionized student workforces; most of the undergraduate workers at Clark hold non-academic positions, like trash collectors, administrative office workers, and IT workers. It is generally uncommon to staff such positions at a university with undergraduate students. Each department is separate from the rest, pay is not standardized across departments – discrepancies arise from different amounts of funding for each position – and assigned work hours fluctuate or are removed by management on a whim.

However, Clark University’s administration vehemently disagreed with this characterization of its workforce. In an email to his campus community, Clark’s president, David Fithian wrote, “The University believes that our undergraduate students are, first and foremost, students, who are at Clark primarily to study and learn. Therefore, they are not eligible for union representation.”

On top of this, during the meeting between IBT 170 officials and Clark Administrators and its lawyers, career-anti-union lawyer and Clark’s primary lawyer, Damien DiGiovanni, proclaimed that, were this petition to remain filed, Clark University would appeal it as high up in the court circuit as it needed to be, and specifically announced it would be the university’s position to try to appeal the Columbia Decision. DiGiovanni would be thrilled to be the lawyer whose name is attached to overturning Columbia; he boasts about defending a charter school for firing the primary organizer of a unionization campaign.

University Hypocrisy Under Trump 2.0

This example of Clark University directly siding with the Trump Administration is another instance of the hypocritical stance of “Institutional Neutrality” the university’s administration has taken recently. Clark University’s motto is “Challenge Convention; Change our World.” The advertising message of the university is that the institution is predicated on social justice and a deep commitment to community. However, when it comes time to put that motto into practice, the university’s attitude quickly changes.

In 2024, the Clark University Student Council put forth a referendum to gauge support of Clark students for amending university endowments in accordance to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement against the state of Israel’s commitment of genocide and maintenance of ethnic apartheid. The referendum passed at a monumental 86% approval for the call for divestment. However, the Board of Trustees refuses to reallocate investments, stating that its endowments are not to be used to make political statements.

More recently, Clark’s administration has slashed the university’s Office for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. It has also gone on the record stating that it will comply with all Federal policy covering ICE and immigration raids, and that the university will not be an immigration safe-haven.

A new unit of organized student workers at Clark shows management that the workers they exploit are constantly building power and are willing to take a stand against any form of injustice; collective bargaining agreements as nearby as at Worcester Polytechnic Institute include language around protecting international student workers from hostile federal agencies.

Give up… or Strike!

This strike and the fight attached to it is bigger than Clark University, and represents a larger struggle within Higher Education.

“Give up or strike.” This is the choice which Clark Administrators, and through them the Trump administration, have forced upon organizing workers in higher ed.

If we fear doing any sort of advocacy work within the NLRB in fear of allowing Columbia to be overturned, it sets the ground for universities to block and roll back organized labor on campus, leaving unions paralyzed, so long as they stick within the confines of the system of collective bargaining laid out by the NLRA. .

But the Clark undergraduate workers are reminding their administrators that labor has its own system for sorting out disputes between the workers and the boss — the strike. If the Clark undergraduate workers win, they will show that any move to overturn the rights gained from Columbia is just ink and paper in the face of a united and militant campus workforce.

We will no longer be burned by the petty dictatorship that are higher education administration. This strike continues to set the precedent that the power is in the hands of the workers, and will not be subservient to the managerial class. Higher education exists to make commodities of its students, and more specifically, its student workers, and this is them beginning to shed the shackles.

A chant heard on campus today lays it out more simply,

“We are the Teamsters! And if they forget it, they’ll live to regret it.”

Ezra Schwerner is a Worcester DSA member and a student organizer at Clark University.

The post Internationalism Working Group appeared first on Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America.

By Reid Jackson

Stop & Shop Threatens Freetown Distribution Center with Shutdown Over Healthcare Policy

FREETOWN, MA –  Jason Linhares, a leasing contractor working with the Teamsters at the Stop & Shop Distribution Center in Freetown, MA, is handed a pamphlet from the union. He can’t believe what he’s reading. Ahold Delhaize, a multinational holding corporation, has his workplace in their sights for termination, unless the union cuts the healthcare benefits of all 900 union workers at the facility. He takes to Facebook to raise the alarm on the raw deal he and his fellow workers have been handed from their employer: 

“With this job I’ve made a ton of sacrifices. Missing both of my daughter’s growing up because I have to work nights, holidays, and weekends[…] We came to work everyday to make sure Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut had food on their tables. 

Unfortunately, Stop & Shop has seemingly forgotten how essential we were not so long ago.”

He was joined by many of his fellow union workers, outlining the need for a strike if this deal is not reconsidered by both Stop & Shop and Ahold Delhaize. This prompted the standoff between the union and the companies that lasted until February 28th, the deadline for the proposed healthcare cuts. Luckily, this story did not end in a strike for the company or punishment for the union.

Teamsters Come to Tenative Agreement for the Next Six Years

Late that Friday evening, the Teamsters announced that they have reached an agreement with Stop & Shop and Ahold Delaize to secure workers’ healthcare and continued work at the distribution center. “Stop & Shop tried to strong-arm our members by pushing a nonunion, substandard company health care plan, but our members refused to be intimidated by the company’s corporate threats,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien. “We fought back against Stop & Shop’s corporate greed and sent a clear message that our members will not be bullied into accepting anything less than what they are worth.”

This contract comes with the largest wage increase in the union’s history, with new hires receiving an 80 percent pay increase over the six year contract, and veteran employees a greater than 30 percent increase. This contract win for the union came with congratulations from Local 25 president Tom Mari: “We held Stop & Shop accountable and secured one of the strongest contracts in the supermarket industry. I want to thank our members for their strength, our UFCW allies for their unwavering solidarity, and the community for standing with us. This victory shows what happens when workers refuse to back down.”

While many held their breaths for an eventual shutdown of one of the largest food distributors in the state, cooler heads prevailed and delivered a just outcome for the union and its members.

 Reid Jackson is a freshman journalist at WorkingMass and a former member of the YDSA at the University of Rhode Island. 

“Our demands are humble. We want only the earth.” — James Connolly

It is quite common in mainstream progressive politics to hear “Tax the Rich!” Some will point to the social democratic countries of Europe, where more equitable tax policy has allowed for the funding of strong social programs, allowing more people than would otherwise be possible to enjoy more comfortable living conditions. Some point to the legacy of the New Deal era in the United States, when similar progressive taxation policy and state subsidization of the economy resulted in what many consider the strongest most prosperous period in American history. They may point to how decades of tax breaks for the wealthy have left the state unable to afford projects that the private sector simply refuses to undertake. And lastly, they point to how the wealthiest people in the country have far more money than they could ever hope to spend in one or even many lifetimes. There is simply no compelling argument against increasing taxes on the wealthy.

[Read next: We’ll need popular resistance to defend trans rights in Maine]

Socialists wholeheartedly support raising taxes on the rich. Here in Maine, Gov. Mills proposed eliminating cost of living raises for workers who provide Medicaid services in order to save a few millions dollars. In response, those workers went on strike and gave the whole state a lesson in how to fight budget cuts, leading the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee to vote against the governor’s proposed cuts. This leads to a larger question: why is there a budget crisis? Of course, Trump is doing his best to make our state pay for opposing his transphobic attacks on highschool athletes by threatening to withhold hundreds of millions in federal aid. That’s a big chunk of the state’s two-year $11 billion budget, and we’ll have to fight every step of the way to stop him. But we can also look closer to home to find funding. 

As incredible as it may seem, just a handful of billionaire Mainers could fund the state for years out of their own pockets and still live out their lives as multimillionaires. So when socialists say tax the rich, we mean more than raising what billionaires pay by 1% or 2%, we mean raising their taxes by 25% or 50% or more to start with. We mean we should take back the wealth they have collected by exploiting all the people who have worked for them, all the land they have stolen, and all the resources they have grabbed all around the world. In the meantime, socialists often support smaller measures whenever we feel like they are a way to raise funds to help our class, raise consciousness, and build organization. 

However, increasing taxes on the wealthy isn’t a permanent solution to the persisting problems of capitalist society. It’s a good start, but it’s not enough. 

In capitalist society, production is oriented around the accumulation of profits through the sale of goods and services in the form of commodities. The class that controls this process and accumulates the profits is the capitalist class. Production under capitalism is generally organized so that investments, in the form of money, are used to purchase either ready-made goods or the means to produce them, which are then sold as commodities for a price above what it cost to produce them and bring them to market. Marx concisely outlines this process as a cycle of money-commodities-profit (M-C-M’) in chapter 4 of volume 1 of Capital.

There is a problem with organizing production and exchange in this way though. In order for the capitalist to realize a profit from their investment, they cannot be the consumer of their own commodities, as this would simply be more money out of their pocket. This would also be the case in an economy where workers owned large sections of the means of production—large scale cooperatives, for instance—but production and exchange remain organized in a manner identical to our current economy. The capitalist cannot realize a profit by selling their commodities back to the workers that produced them either, as this would require the workers to purchase the commodities for more money than the workers were paid to produce them.

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In order for the capitalist to realize a profit, they must sell their commodities to a party from outside their specific sphere of production. In order to accomplish this, the capitalist takes their commodities to the market, but everyone who appears on the market as the seller of the commodity is there because they have the same problem. In other words, at the end of each productive cycle there is always a greater amount of commodities than can be sold. The inevitable result of this overproduction of commodities is an economic crisis whereby unprofitable enterprises go out of business, profitable businesses reduce their expenses in reaction to economic uncertainty, and a great many workers are thrown out of work through no fault of their own.

After an indeterminate amount of time, economic conditions reset, and the cycle of capitalist production begins again.

What does any of this have to do with taxing the wealthy? Very little, and that is precisely the problem. Increasing taxes on the wealthy can shorten or prolong cycles of production, but taxation itself cannot transform the underlying cause of periodic economic crises which result from how production is organized under capitalism. All taxation accomplishes is an alteration in the distribution of the profits. Politically, socialists want to fight on this terrain by increasing to the greatest possible degree the portion of production that goes to the working class. Alongside our brothers and sisters and siblings in trade unions, we want to improve the living standards of the working class by achieving higher wages for the workers, but we are not content to cease fighting until we abolish exploitation entirely and change the underlying organization of production. 

So are we arguing against raising taxes on the wealthy? Absolutely not. By all means tax them at a rate of 95%, 99%, 100%, 200%! Take back everything they have stolen from us. Truly solving the causes of social inequality cannot happen until the property of the capitalist class has been expropriated, but for the reasons explained above, simply taxing them at any rate will prove ineffective given enough time.

Moreover, tax increases tend to antagonize capitalists. Sooner or later, as we are seeing very clearly now in Washington, they will transform their economic might into raw political power to claw back even the small social costs that generations of social movements and trade unions have imposed on them. During such times, as grim as our prospects may seem, it becomes clearer than ever that so long as the capitalists have all the power, even the most progressive public policy can only be temporary. 

How much longer will capitalist industry be allowed to pollute the planet? How many more times does the economy have to crash? How many more wars will we be forced to fight on the behalf of these robber-barons? How many more lives will be ruined by debts, mass layoffs, denied insurance claims, and more? Why should we tolerate a system that exploits those whose labor keeps society functioning? 

What we demand is all power to the workers. The problems plaguing modern society can only begin to be solved once the means of production are freed from their capitalist relations of production. Accomplishing this is no easy task. But as the great socialist leader Rosa Luxemburg put it when addressing the question of reform or revolution: “At first view the title of this work may be found surprising. Can the Social-Democracy [as the socialists of her day called themselves] be against reforms? Can we contrapose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, our final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal–the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor. Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the Social Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim.”

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