by Sean Arent

Background

1. In February of 2025 members of the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America approved a resolution stating “DSA membership encompasses a wide range of experiences, political perspectives, and projects. Adding a blog to our chapter website would be a fantastic way to showcase the amazing contributions our members bring to the table. Inviting members to submit articles would also provide an invaluable opportunity for them to develop their communication and writing skills. An elected editorial board would help solicit and review articles on topics such as local issues, political strategy, and chapter campaigns. Let’s put our best foot forward in 2025 by sharing our politics and perspectives with our members and community!” Since then members have met to continue to flesh out ideas and expand and define what else the Defiance can be. 
2. A five person Editorial Board was elected by the chapter membership in April of 2025. The current members of the editorial board are Asha Berkes, Caitlin Murphy, Tim Vega, Ryan Taylor, and Sean Arent. 

Purpose

3. The purpose of the Defiance is to provide a critical socialist perspective to local, state, national, and global events, capture personal essays, art, blog posts, DSA politics, provide coverage of local events and issues, and to create a digital archive of the work of Tacoma and Pierce County’s DSA chapter. We hope the Defiance will be the unabashed leftist news source that is missing from our local news ecosystem, creating a greater awareness as to what’s really going on in our community. 

Submission Guidelines

Submissions to the Defiance are now open! We are looking to platform the leftist and progressive perspectives that are underrepresented in corporate media. We are looking for writing and audio/visual content under the categories of News, Chapter Updates, Deep Dives, Opinion, and Arts and Creative Writing. Submissions can be pitched or sent in full to the Editorial Board at defiance@tacomadsa.org.

Despite many flaws, the United States was founded on a radical experiment with political democracy. We need that same kind of radical experimentation with economic democracy today. 

The post We Need Economic Democracy to Save the American Experiment appeared first on Democratic Left.

By: Nate Foster

PEABODY, MA – Over 400 sanitation workers across Massachusetts went on strike on Tuesday, July 2, amidst contract disputes with the waste disposal corporation Republic Services.

The workers are represented by Teamsters Local 25. The union statement on the strike has called out Republic for refusing to concede competitive wages and benefits to their employees. Republic, the second largest waste company in the U.S., now faces a work stoppage that has already affected waste collection in 14 cities and towns in the North Shore area. 

The Teamsters warned of potential nationwide strikes as over 3,500 sanitation workers across the country face similar negotiating difficulties with Republic; the strike expanded on Wednesday, July 3, to include workers of Teamsters Local 179 in Ottawa, Illinois. Sanitation workers in other unions across the sector are similarly embroiled in strike battles across the United States. In Philadelphia, 9000 municipal workers — including sanitation — organized with AFSCME DC33 went on strike on July 1.

Republic has called the strike “disappointing.” The company claims to already provide fair compensation and benefits. This opinion was not shared by the workers, the union, or experienced labor organizers such as Beth Kontos, Vice President of the North Shore Labor Council:

I know health insurance is part of the problem. I’ve been told that [the workers] make on average five dollars less per hour than people in the same industry in surrounding towns. [Republic Services] is not going to be able to hold talent… you’ve got to pay people to stay, you know.

In response to the work stoppage, Republic has brought in replacement workers, or scabs, to carry out a limited collection schedule while pressure and curbside trash mounts on the company for an agreement. Many picketing in Peabody on Wednesday, July 3, expressed doubt in the ability of the scabs to make up for the absence of over 400 unionized laborers of the Republic workforce, especially given the possibility of additional strikes breaking out in other areas, should corporate negotiation efforts continue to fall short of workers’ expectations. 

Affected towns and cities have created alternate waste drop-off points to accommodate residents’ needs during the strike. These present hurdles for people without cars, those with physical disabilities, or anyone with a packed schedule during a massive American holiday weekend, direct impacts of Republic Services’ refusal to meet the union’s demands.

As trash piles up in the July heat and North Shore towns scramble for solutions, the immediacy of the strike’s impact after just two days makes the essential nature of sanitation work blisteringly clear. When such important labor is taken for granted, the resulting consequences are felt not just in Republic boardrooms, but among the Massachusetts public as a whole. Making sure that workers are appropriately compensated in a North Shore area with serious affordability concerns is going to benefit a lot more people than the RSG listing being higher on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Kontos urged those affected by the strike to help towards a fair agreement between the Teamsters workers and Republic by calling elected representatives to drum up solidarity, as well as coming in-person to the picket lines. 

Anybody that lives in the cities that are affected by this, and anybody who cares about public health and safety, they need to call their city councilors, their mayors, and their state representatives and senator and ask them to call and put pressure on this [issue]… and anybody who wants to should show up here in person; if your trash is not getting picked up, you need to come walk this line with us.

The workers, the union members, and the solidarity of local labor organizers has put Republic Services between a rock and a hard place. It is pivotal for people in Massachusetts to support the strike, and those who do essential work in their communities, so that crucial social services aren’t undermined by the interests of a few shareholders. Collective action is what will yield collective results.

Nate Foster is a member of Boston DSA and contributing writer to Working Mass.

The post Sanitation Workers Strike for Fair Compensation Against Waste Disposal Giant appeared first on Working Mass.

Slightly different versions of the “Big Beautiful Bill” have passed in the House and Senate. Wildly unpopular among the American people, this bill has barely squeaked through Congress. Passing in both the House and Senate by only 1 vote. Now, it goes back to the House. Trump is calling for it to be on his desk for July 4th.

Time is short, act now! Use the form below to tell you reps to pressure their Republican colleagues to vote NO!

NO cuts to SNAP and Medicaid!
NO funding for ICE abductions!
NO handouts for billionaires!

Cuts to vital services are dwarfed by the handouts to billionaires. The “Big Beautiful Bill” would be one of the largest cash grabs by billionaires in world history.

ICE has terrorized communities by abducting people off the street. Masked men have grabbed people off the street and put them in unmarked vehicles. Holding them without charges, deporting them without due process. The “Big Beautiful Bill” will reinvigorate an agency that kidnaps our neighbors.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” makes massive cuts to vital programs. More than 40 million Americans will lose vital help putting food on the table. As many as 17 million poor and disabled Americans will lose their healthcare. Cuts to rural hospitals and nursing homes will leave many without access to medical care.

Many will go hungry and many will die because of this bill. Tell your representatives to use all their power to stop this Big Bullshit Bill!

The post Time is short, act now! Tell you reps to pressure their Republican colleagues to vote NO! appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

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.

A recent closure of several public schools in Denver is just one example of how public education is under attack all across the country. Socialists should take this threat seriously and organize against privatization efforts. 

The post Socialists Should Organize to Preserve Public Education  appeared first on Democratic Left.

Denzel McCampbell is running in District 7 for Detroit City Council. He has spent more than a decade working on issues such as voting rights, water affordability, and equitable transportation. He’s also aiming to improve public safety by investing in preventative measures, community violence intervention programs and mental health services. Denzel’s primary is on August 5th!

Denzel is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

Events & Actions

Tuesday, July 1 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom)

Tuesday, July 1 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Reading Group: The Housing Question by Friederich Engels (Part 1 of 2) (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, July 2 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour (In person at Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

Thursday, July 3 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, July 3 (5:50 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Socialist in Office + Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, July 5 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): No Appetite for Apartheid Consumer Pledge Canvass (Meet at Harry Bridges Plaza)

Saturday, July 5 (12:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Outreach and Outreach Training (Meet at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, July 5 (1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.): Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee Training: Planning Sync (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, July 5 (2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Phonebank to Stop the Billionaire’s Budget Attack on the Unhoused (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, July 6 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Capital Reading Group (Zoom & in person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, July 6 (10:30 p.m. – 1:30 a.m.): Screening of The Room at the Balboa Theater (In person at Balboa Theatre, 3630 Balboa)

Monday, July 7 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom & in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, July 7 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Wednesday, July 9 (6:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): July General Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, July 10 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, July 11 (7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Comrade Karaoke (In person at The Roar Shack, 34 7th St)

Sunday, July 13 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Physical Education + Self Defense Training (In person at William McKinley Monument, Panhandle Park)

Monday, July 14 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates. Events with a are especially new-member-friendly!

Reading Group: “The Housing Question” by Friedrich Engels

Join us in reading the seminal text on the political economy of housing. Written in 1872, “The Housing Question” is Friedrich Engels’ critique of the housing market and the solutions promoted by his contemporaries. 150 years later, his work resonates just as much, if not more, with tenants’ current struggles.

This two-part series will have readers discuss the various historical attitudes and debates around housing and apply those lessons to our modern housing crisis.

Join us for session 1 at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St. on July 1st at 7:00 p.m. A full PDF of the book can be found here.

Summer Social(ist) Events!

Mark your calendars for our Summer Social(ist) event series!

• July 6th @ 11:00 p.m. – Screening of The Room at the Balboa Theater! We’ll meet outside at 10:30.
• July 11th @ 7:30PM – Comrade Karaoke at the Roar Shack (34 7th Street) – Come hang out and do some FREE karaoke with your fellow DSA SF comrades or cool people you want to impress with your incredible singing voice! No songs refused, no entry denied! Suggested Donation: $10. Drinks: Wine + Beer Available / BYOB
• July 27th @ 1:05PM – Oakland Ballers vs Northern Colorado Owlz baseball game + “Halloween in July Night” (at Raimondi Park) – RSVP here by July 13th so that we can put in a group order of tickets! Group tickets are are $15 per ticket, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds!

Apartheid-Free Bay Area Consumer Pledge Canvassing

Help build public support for stores that have pledged to go apartheid-free at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, Harry Bridges Plaza, this Saturday, July 5 from 11:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m.! You will receive basic training, and then you will put that training into practice by collecting signatures at the Ferry Plaza Building Farmer’s Market. Please sign up here. Bring a tote bag and make sure to wear your DSA merch. New members encouraged to join!

Oppose the billionaire budget

Call your comrades to oppose the billionaire budget! Join the DSA SF Electoral Board this Saturday, July 5, 2:00 p.m. to – 4:00 p.m at 1916 McAllister to phonebank members and urge them to send letters opposing Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Billionaire Budget. The proposed budget forces austerity upon the most vulnerable San Franciscans by redirecting Prop C Our City Our Home funds away from effective solutions to homelessness to temporary measures which do not address the root causes of homelessness.

EWOC: How to Talk About Organizing

EWOC (Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee) is a project of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and DSA working to build a distributed grassroots organizing program to support workers organizing at the workplace. To learn more about the work EWOC does, come by the DSA SF office to pick up a copy of Unite and Win or tune into the Labor Board’s weekly meetings every Monday at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

The next EWOC event hosted by DSA SF features EWOC staff members conducting a training on generating workplace leads and conducting organizing conversations on July 16th from 6:30 p.m to 8:30 p.m. Let us know if you can make it! Hope to see you there!

Support the Blue Bottle Independent Union

Nestlé is one of the biggest corporations in the world charged with decades of human rights violations in the global south. They’re now in our backyard intimidating baristas with surveillance, firing, and bad-faith bargaining. Last week, baristas in four Bay Area locations of Nestlé-owned Blue Bottle presented management with a super majority of union cards and demanded voluntary recognition. Instead, Blue Bottle fired one of the organizers, B.B. Young. This comes at an especially bad time for B.B. since their husband was also recently laid off.

Blue Bottle workers are asking for our support

• Donate at this GoFundMe page 
• Sign the petition to demand that the company voluntarily recognize the Blue Bottle Independent Union
• Join the Blue Bottle Independent Union email list  or follow on Instagram to stay in touch
• If you are an employee of Blue Bottle, fill out this intake form to get involved with organizing the union at your own store

Social Housing Reading Group

What could social housing look like in San Francisco, and how do we get there? Join DSASF for a reading of the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report on how the city can build its own publicly owned, deeply affordable housing. We will also read the SF Berniecrats report, Housing for the 99%, which lays out a vision for social housing for all in San Francisco. Join us at 1916 McAllister Tuesday, July 22 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Reports

Physical Education Training

On June 28th, DSA SF held its first physical education training. Five comrades got together in the park to learn and practice basic movement and self defense skills like falling, squatting, lifting, and palm striking. The next one will be held on July 13th at 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at the William McKinley Monument in Panhandle Park. Join us for some fun and inclusive physical education, aimed at building the strength and flexibility to build a better world.

Ecosocialist Office Gardening

The Ecosocialist Working Group held their first office gardening event last Tuesday, with 12 attendees, including 5 non-members. We discussed native plants in the bay area and the various tools to help with plant identification, and labeled our garden with popsicle sticks. Our comrade Lizzie even brought a microscope to take a closer look at petals and leaves.

Stay tuned for the next office gardening event! To get involved, join #ecosocialism on the DSA SF Slack, or reach out to ecosocialist@dsasf.org.

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.