We’ve asked our readers of all faiths to send us brief meditations on what brought them to democratic socialism and/or religion. Some examples can be found here, here and here. In what follows, Jon Hochschartner describes his understanding of Marx and religion.—Eds.

When I first started to form an independent political identity, as a high-school senior in the mid-2000s, New Atheism was ascendant. Politicized spirituality was almost wholly associated with the right wing. Dogmatic atheism seemed to be the price of admission to the socialist Left, and so, with some struggle, I paid it.

However, in recent years, as I’ve faced various personal challenges and the increasingly chaotic world we’ve all experienced, I’ve sought to reconcile a spiritual perspective with my political commitments. Religious tradition and historical materialism are two schools of thought that seem contradictory on a surface level. Historical-materialist analysis divides society into categories of base and superstructure, arguing that the former, which represents the economic foundation, primarily determines the latter, which represents the ideological system. Thus, the classic Marxist view of religion is that, as part of the superstructure, it will wither away as the base changes and no longer serves an ideological purpose.

Friedrich Engels expressed this consensus perspective in his 1877 text Anti-Dühring. “All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life,” he wrote. “When society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage… only then will the last alien force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect.”

Following the totalitarian experience of the Soviet Union and the way in which state atheism was so often used in Red Scare propaganda, modern-day democratic socialists are still burdened by outmoded beliefs about socialism and religion. U.S. socialist pioneer Eugene Debs has long been an inspiration to me, and I think his example in this respect is a better model for our time. Although he was suspicious of organized religion, he peppered his political commentary with biblical references and had a portrait of Jesus of Nazareth hanging in his cell during his imprisonment for opposing the First World War.

Emma Goldman’s most famous apocryphal quote  goes, “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.” In a similar vein, I would argue, “If I can’t pray, it’s not my revolution.” This is not only because I feel a genuine pull to spirituality, which I think anyone should be free to pursue, but also because I think government crackdowns on religion of the kind seen in the Soviet Union are indicative of a wider authoritarianism that will ultimately move beyond spiritual communities and affect the whole of society.

I’m not an academic, but  reconciling religious tradition and historical materialism doesn’t seem too difficult theoretically. If we concede that specific forms of religious expression are influenced by a society’s base, then the historical materialist view must acknowledge that at least some people have an innate drive toward spiritual life. It may not be possible for “hardliners” in each school of thought to admit these suppositions, but others should find them easy to adopt. 

For instance, these days, I think of myself as a Christian perennialist, by which I mean I feel most at home in the Christian tradition but interpret it through the lens of perennialism, the belief that all religious traditions are describing a single, universal truth; differences between faiths can be ascribed to different cultural filters through which seekers perceive that truth. Mapping historical materialism over this outlook appears fairly easy. I would argue that these cultural filters, which might be called the superstructure, are largely determined by the base.

Jon Hochschartner lives in Connecticut. He is the author of a number of books, including The Animals’ Freedom Fighter: A Biography of Ronnie Lee, Founder of the Animal Liberation Front. He blogs at SlaughterFreeAmerica.Substack.com.

The post Base, Superstructure, and Perennialism: How I Reconcile Religious Tradition and Historical Materialism  appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

DSA is on a winning streak. We must be open to the change that comes with rapid growth and new political power.

The post Catching the Car appeared first on Democratic Left.

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By: Matt Wolfinger

BOSTON – Last month, the Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a long-sought victory, setting the stage for the mass deportation of roughly 356,000 people out of the United States. The landmark decision paves the way for the cancelation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian and Syrian immigrants. The TPS program allows nearly 1.3 million people from 17 countries to live and work in the U.S. while conditions in their home countries are designated as unsafe by the U.S. State Department.

Temporary Protected Status and its Healthcare

TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportation to countries destabilized by war, natural disasters, or any other set of circumstances that would place deportees in danger. Haiti was granted TPS status in 2010 after a devastating earthquake left hundreds of thousands dead and more than one million displaced. The Biden administration extended TPS for Haiti after the assassination of the Haitian president in 2021.

Although many Haitian immigrants have been deported since 2010, none were TPS holders. Those who apply and are accepted for TPS gain a special legal status and work authorization that protects them from deportation.

Deciding what countries qualify for TPS is up to the Secretary of Homeland Security. By the end of her 14 month term, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had canceled or attempted to cancel TPS for Venezuela, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Nepal, Honduras, Myanmar, and Haiti.

According to the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), a large number of Syrian TPS holders in Massachusetts work in healthcare and education. “When someone loses work authorization, it is not only their paycheck that disappears,” a MIRA representative wrote on their website.

It is the shift not covered at a hospital, the shuttered main street business, the family unable to make rent. Entire communities absorb that loss.

More than 45,000 Haitian residents in Massachusetts rely on TPS while playing vital roles in the state’s healthcare and homecare industries. Immigrants make up 54% of the nursing assistant workforce in Boston and 40% of Massachusetts nursing facility workers. Roughly one in four healthcare workers in Massachusetts are immigrants. By 2030, the U.S. will face a shortage of 3.5 million healthcare workers.

The largest nursing strike in Massachusetts history kicked off July 8, as Brigham and Women’s Hospital nurses became fed up with mediocre pay, little to no healthcare benefits, and severe understaffing. Mass deportation of TPS holders not only destroys lives and livelihoods; it further strains the healthcare shortage and places the burden on an already burnt-out and underpaid workforce. Decades of research have found worsening working conditions for healthcare providers also worsens the quality of patient care.

According to the American Immigration Council, the number of healthcare job postings requiring bilingual skills increased over 91% from 2018 to 2022, to communicate and establish connections with ESL patients, who will also have fewer multilingual providers available to them.

Roughly 75,000 Haitian TPS holders work in labor-short industries with significant workforce gaps. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump’s favor, Massachusetts could lose around 2,000 long-term caregivers. TPS recipients contribute more than just front-facing patient care – they play vital roles in keeping the rest of the gears turning.

“Salvadorans and Haitians are also drivers in public transportation,” Doris Landaverde, Coordinator of the Massachusetts TPS Committee, told Working Mass.

Salvadorans drive trucks that sometimes deliver clothes to the hospitals, and a large number of members in the Haitian community drive school buses. That will be impacted, too.

In 2000, Landaverde fled her home in El Salvador after the Reagan-orchestrated civil war of the 1980s made the country increasingly dangerous. Her mother fell ill and her family was left without the means to pay for healthcare. The next year, twin earthquakes hit El Salvador, and the U.S. granted TPS to Salvadorans. Landaverde applied and was accepted a few months later.

She said that the empowerment and courage she gained through labor organizing during her time at Harvard University inspired her to fight for permanent pathways to citizenship for her fellow TPS holders.

Immigration and the Workforce

In just the first year, Trump’s mass deportation blitz has already had devastating impacts on labor across the country. A study published last month by Boston Indicators and MassInc Policy Center found that Trump’s second term deportation blitz poses a massive threat to three key industries: healthcare, higher education, and construction. The study estimates that Massachusetts will need 60,000 new immigrants each year by 2030 to avoid worsening already dire labor shortages and slow economic growth. This is exacerbated by an aging population.

While immigrants make up only 17% of workers in America, they contribute 25% of GDP growth.

Research from the Economic Policy Institute found that if Trump achieves his goal of four million deportations in his second term, the supply of labor will plummet, and nearly six million jobs would be eliminated. For each immigrant deported, members of their family with legal status who wish to stay together would be forced to relocate as well.

The study also found that increased rates of immigrant arrests or deportations have left many immigrants fearful of seeking new work, settling for worse wages and working conditions. Some immigrants may hesitate to organize their workplace for fear of the boss retaliating by reporting them to ICE. Workplaces with more vulnerable Latine workers see less reporting of workplace safety violations and more frequent minimum wage violations.

Those decreased wages and conditions drag down the rest of the industry for both immigrant and non-immigrants workers. In turn, U.S.-born workers become increasingly unlikely to work in industries where wages continue to fall.

A press release from the office of Congresswoman and Co-Chair of the House Haiti Caucus Ayanna Pressley projects that “by 2050, the U.S. population aged 65 and older is projected to grow by 50%, while the country faces a shortage of 3.5 million healthcare workers by 2030.” A large number of Haitian TPS workers have patient-facing roles in hospitals, nursing homes, and home care, and Pressley has introduced legislation that would extend TPS for Haitians in Massachusetts by an additional three years.

During a debate on the House floor in April, Pressley shared the story of a Haitian constituent in her district named Rebecca, who came to the U.S. on TPS after surviving the 2010 earthquake and multiple kidnapping attempts. TPS allowed her to become a certified nursing assistant and carry out her work “with great joy, pride, and dedication.” Pressley argued:

Rebecca is not our enemy, and she should not have to live with shame nor fear of being deported solely because of where she was born.

ICE agents have been deployed to dozens of major U.S. cities to conduct mass arrests and deportations of people, both citizens and non-citizens, and have detained hundreds of TPS holders despite their legal status.

Trump’s Assault on Immigration

By the State Department’s own admission, Haiti is unsafe for U.S. citizens to visit. Yet that hasn’t stopped Trump from attempting to deport hundreds of thousands of people to the country. Since taking office last year, Trump has siphoned billions out of public services and increased ICE’s annual budget to more than $85 billion. ICE agents have been deployed to dozens of major U.S. cities and detained hundreds of TPS holders illegally.

A report from the Leah Zallman Center for Immigrant Health Research found that between 2024 and 2025, the amount of ICE removals in New England increased tenfold (from 933 to 9,987), including the notable abductions of the Allston Car Wash workers before their return. At least 53 people have died in ICE custody since the start of Trump’s second term, beyond those executed by the secret police. Overturning TPS would risk throwing 1.3 million people into this ruthless, inhumane system within the system.

DHS announced they’re offering $2,100 bribes to any former TPS holder willing to self-deport, a practice they’ve employed in the past. 

“Either try to fill out the paperwork and be here underneath a permanent ​status or we’ll help you get back to your country,” Mullin said on CNN’s State of The Union.

This is a common line from Trump and his supporters, that immigrants should simply obtain lawful permanent residence (a green card), but the same administration has intentionally restricted pathways to obtaining asylum or citizenship. By definition, TPS does not provide holders with a path to a green card or citizenship. Instead, the government decides whether to renew these protections every six to 18 months.

A TPS recipient who has entered without inspection (EWI) to the U.S., meaning they entered without stopping for inspection by immigration officials, cannot apply for permanent residence. To try and adjust their eligibility, they must leave the U.S. and go through the visa process outside the country. For many TPS recipients, however, this would bar them from re-entering the U.S. for up to 10 years.

Last December, Trump halted all immigration applications from 19 countries – Haiti being one of them. 

The Trump administration is now attempting to make it more expensive to apply for citizenship. Those who do attempt to follow the rules and obtain citizenship “the right way” are being arrested by ICE at their own immigration hearings.

Mullin claims they’ve offered immigrants a choice, but the system DHS has designed tells a different story. The goal is to block as many immigrants as possible from obtaining citizenship and deter anyone thinking to apply – fearful they’ll be deported even if they follow all the rules.

During the first year of Trump’s second term, the number of ICE detentions in Massachusetts courthouses increased 117% compared to 2024. ICE has continued to conduct courthouse arrests despite a recent ruling from a federal judge banning the practice.

This is, at least in part, due to perceived immunity, exemplified by the lack of prosecution of the ICE agents who killed Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller has promised ICE agents they’ll be shielded from any consequence.

In January, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed an executive order to prevent ICE from entering schools, hospitals, courthouses, and places of worship without judicial warrant. ICE seems to be ignoring the order and taking advantage of those unfamiliar with the law, as Healey feebly continues to issue reminders and guidelines.

Massachusetts is the only blue state with a 287(g) contract, which deputizes local law enforcement to act as de facto ICE agents. The agreement lets city and county cops question anyone’s immigration status and detain them indefinitely until ICE arrives to take them. Healey has been pressed on the contract multiple times over the years, and every time the answer is the same – she has no intention of ending it.

The aforementioned executive order restricting ICE activity seems to address the 287(g) agreement, but its language is misleading. While the bill forbids any state agencies in Massachusetts from entering into new 287(g) contracts, the existing deal between ICE,the Department of Correction, and by proximity also the Healey administration still stands.

TPS in the Context of U.S. Empire

Once TPS for Haiti and Syria expires, hundreds of thousands of people will be placed directly in the crosshairs of ICE, with no legal protections to prevent mass arrests, deportations or disappearing to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison, whose conditions and use of torture have been compared to those of concentration camps.

El Salvador is one of many countries the U.S. has spent decades attempting to destabilize. The U.S. spent over $1 billion to arm and train El Salvador’s right-wing government during the country’s civil war in the 1980s. The government used those resources to slaughter civilians and leftist revolutionaries. More than 75,000 civilians were killed in this brutality. After bankrolling twelve years of bloodshed and throwing El Salvador into chaos, the U.S. refused to help the country rebuild.

“When people ask who is responsible for me being in this country, it’s the United States,” said Landaverde. “They invest $1 billion in El Salvador to buy bombs and weapons, but they don’t invest in education after the peace treaty was signed. They really forgot about El Salvador.”

This pattern of U.S. foreign intervention applies to multiple countries formerly or still on the TPS list. The U.S. continues to fund Israel’s scorched earth slaughter of civilians in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. The U.S. government shielded Meta from consequence after Facebook’s algorithm spread hateful rhetoric, igniting a genocide in Myanmar. The U.S. armed and trained the Afghan Mujahideen in a proxy war with the Soviets that decimated the country, then invaded Afghanistan as part of their post-9/11 war on terror. The U.S. orchestrated the 2004 coup d’etat of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, playing a large role in the destabilization of the country that goes on to this day. 

In January, Trump invaded Venezuela to kidnap former president Nicolás Maduro and seize control of its oil industry. Discussions are ongoing about escalations and even direct military action against Cuba. The necessity of the TPS program comes as a direct result of the U.S. government’s constant, rapacious, and extractive foreign policy machine imposed on the rest of the world. These destructive policies create the conditions for people to need to seek asylum in the safety of the imperial core.

Collective Protection and Community

On the steps of the Boston Public Library, a woman stands with the flag of Colombia draped over her shoulders. Wearing a Colombian soccer jersey, Paola shares the stories of the immigrant families she works with in East Boston as a youth worker and organizer with a crowd gathered to demonstrate against ICE on June 14.

“My heart breaks,” said Paola. She continued:

Knowing that behind every Colombian restaurant worker, housekeeping worker, community salon worker, and lunch monitor who smiles at me and the kids … they’re choking down the fear that it might be their last day, here in a country where they deserve to feel safe and welcome.

Less than 24 hours prior, an ICE agent killed 25-year-old Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian immigrant, in front of his three-year-old daughter in Biddeford, Maine. On July 7, ICE agents in Houston, Texas shot and killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father to three children. ICE is now attempting to deport the three men who witnessed his murder.

ICE once again rolled out the story used to justify the murder of Good, claiming Durán Guerrero and Salgado Araujo attempted to use their vehicles as weapons.

Even if those allegations were true, which witness accounts indicate is highly unlikely, no one, regardless of their race, history, or legal status deserves to be subject to the violence and dehumanization that ICE has made its calling card.

Paola said:

‘Guerrero’ in Spanish means ‘warrior’. To be a Guerrero now is to not give in to fear tactics and to trust that the majority of us believe in justice and in citizenship for all, and then to turn that belief into a fight, because together we can beat back their terror.

There is no reforming an organization that refuses to cease its killing spree and whose agents ignore any laws passed to limit their power. The vast majority of Americans want ICE reform or abolition. But it is not enough to abolish ICE – the agents responsible for these gross misuses of power must be prosecuted, and reparations paid to every family robbed of their loved ones.

At a legislative level, organizations like the Mass TPS Committee and MIRA point to S.4814, a bill co-sponsored by Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren that, if passed, would require the DHS Secretary to extend TPS for Haitians through early 2029. While the bill would protect many TPS holders, there must also be a long-term, concrete solution for everyone.

The Safe Environment from Countries Under Repression and Emergency (SECURE) Act would provide a path to green cards and eventual citizenship for all eligible TPS holders. The bill is supported by the National TPS Alliance, the Massachusetts TPS Committee, and the AFL-CIO as a more permanent solution, as protections would extend to all TPS holders, including those who’ve had their status revoked by the time it’s enacted.

While the exact date the Supreme Court’s ruling takes effect is unclear, Massachusetts home and nursing care facilities have already begun to lay off TPS holders. The Supreme Court’s siding with the Trump Administration will put 356,000 more people at risk of deportation. A dangerous precedent has been set for the remaining countries with TPS, and despite the narrow rejection of Trump’s attempt to abolish birthright citizenship, the lawsuits over TPS cancelation for other countries now face considerable hurdles. As the next few years unfold, the fates of nearly 1.3 million people have been placed in the hands of nine.

“Allowing the administration to strip TPS from these essential workers would severely disrupt care delivery, worsen workforce shortages, and directly threaten patient safety and access to care,” the Massachusetts Nurses Association said in a statement.

Haitian and Syrian TPS holders are long-standing members of our communities who work, pay taxes, and contribute meaningfully to the social and economic fabric of Massachusetts. They have followed the rules, built lives here, and earned the respect that comes with years of service. Their labor should be honored, not scapegoated.

Matt Wolfinger is a data journalist and a contributing writer to Working Mass

The post Supreme Court’s TPS Decision Threatens Millions, Precipitates Mass. Healthcare Staffing Collapse appeared first on Working Mass.

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“Freeze the Rent,” a key promise in the Mamdani campaign, was fulfilled. Will it be enough to halt gentrification and rising rent burdens?

The post Housing, Tenancy, and Organizing for Dignified Living  appeared first on Democratic Left.

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By: Chris Brady

BOSTON – Healthcare is in a private-equity induced freefall. But after a historic strike and ongoing negotiations, including a lock-out confrontation with the bosses, nurses at Brigham Women’s Hospital stand in between the Commonwealth’s healthcare unions and coordinated management destruction.

On Wednesday, July 8, 4,700 Mass General Brigham (MGB) nurses and home care clinicians at Brigham Women’s Hospital went on a 24-hour strike after 99.6 percent of Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) members at MGB voted in favor of the largest nurses’ strike in state history. The work stoppage comes after 23 failed negotiation attempts since November and after the nurses’ contract expired in early April. 

Hospital management responded to the strike with a five-day lockout so they could justify shipping in 1,300 travel nurses, understood by union nurses as scabs for management. Management also retained a notorious union-busting law firm at the heart of many employers’ anti-labor inventory.

Mnagement still hasn’t conceded any demands and nurses are back working for patients, in spite of the historic action, but the workplace issues and the war associated with them remain — now louder than ever before.

Wages, Safety, and PTSD

Nurses point to a long list of grievances, including but not limited to pay.

Kelly Morgan, chair of the Massachusetts Nurses Association bargaining unit at Brigham Women’s Hospital and a labor and delivery nurse, told Working Mass that the strike came after months of stonewalling from hospital management.

Nurses were offered a laughable 0 percent cost-of-living increase for almost all nurses. MGB is one of the best hospitals in the country, and nurses deal with patients with some of the most complex conditions in the world. Brigham’s prestige requires high-level skill, but nurses said that their compensation doesn’t come close to meeting the job’s demands.

“We deal with the sickest of the sick,” Jim McCarthy said, a PACU nurse and vice chair of the bargaining committee. “We want to make sure the nurses that we have stay skilled, but also that they want to stay here.” 

Despite Brigham’s assurance that their nurses are the best in the country, Dana Farber Cancer Institute nurses are paid more than MGB. The union is seeking pay parity with Dana Farber and compensation commensurate with their experience, McCarthy indicated. Morgan added that MGB is located in Boston’s affluent Longwood Medical area, subjecting nurses to significant commuting and cost-of-living concerns, each another brick in their walls. Nurses are demanding a reasonable wage adjustment for the growing expenses of living in Greater Boston.

“To live in the city of Boston, you need as a single person to make $120,000 a year at a minimum,” she argued. On June 15, MGB Anesthesiology posted a CNA job application which advertises $18.50 to $27.50 an hour.

Another chief concern was healthcare costs, an almost ironic fact not lost on strike organizers.

This demand had some historical context, Morgan said, as hospital management had bungled a 2024 health insurance plan offered to nurses. The resulting benefit put some nurses at risk to pay Massachusetts tax for technically having inadequate coverage. The hospital consequently renegotiated and raised worker deductibles to cover themselves from their own error.

“That really put a sour taste in our mouth,” Morgan said.

In a remarkable demonstration of shamelessness, hospital management attempted to force yet another increase in nurses’ premiums. The 0 percent cost-of-living increase is causing MGB nurses to be pushed to accept an effective across-the-board pay cut due to the increased premiums.

Beyond this, McCarthy outlined that nurses are fighting for fair nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, one of the most common bargaining issues in healthcare. Management prefers to stretch nurses as thin as possible in order to save on labor costs. Consequently, nurses are often forced to work in overwhelming conditions and patient care suffers as a result, he said.

“They don’t hire enough staff,” McCarthy continued, adding that management prefers to rely on travel nurses or frantic ‘please come in’ messages blasted to staff before busy periods. 

This status-quo is preferable for management than hiring union nurses. But travelers, in particular, are another point of significant contention. McCarthy believes that sometimes up to 30 to 40 percent of nurses at the hospital are non-benefitted, non-union travel nurses. Travel nurses typically constitute 8 to 10 percent of total nurses in any given hospital on average. He contested that relying on travelers is problematic because they take away from what should be union jobs, and given a general lack of experience, put patient lives at risk.

“It’ll turn your hair gray. They’re like mercenaries,” he said.

When the scabs take over — this is so scary — but the death rate in the hospital goes up.

Working Mass could not independently verify this claim.

The most pressing issue, though, is safety. Morgan outlined truly concerning instances of systemic violence nurses face:

The violence in the workplace is ridiculous. It’s there every day,  verbal assaults on nurses, by patients, patients’ families.

Morgan described that nurses repeatedly identified “frequent fliers,” or patients that regularly came into the hospital and threatened nurses. Despite flagging them to security, she said that the officers were rarely helpful. The day after one such patient had been identified as threatening, she continued, the patient attacked a nurse, grabbing her by the throat and reportedly slamming her head against the wall. Morgan said:

That nurse has not been back to work since. She has significant PTSD. She doesn’t even know if she wants to return to nursing.

She explained a separate incident where a nurse checked bathrooms looking for an absent patient, also previously flagged to security, only to be greeted by the patient cooking synthetic tranquilizer in the bathroom. Morgan recalled that the nurse inhaled the fumes and “had an altered mental status” that required an emergency room visit immediately. Nurses have even begun calling 911 to deal with physical threats because in-house security is less responsive than the Boston Police.

“(Management) was like, we have to look into that further,” Morgan said, in response to nurses raising concerns about workplace safety. “We don’t have all the details, blah, blah, blah. Then it’s crickets.” 

Morgan said multiple workplace issues have shown that nurses and patients are relegated to second-tier for the hospital. The decision to strike was not just about wages, or safety, but about the dignity of patients and nurses themselves.

The Board of Chuds

MGB’s Board of Trustees provides a glimpse into why the hospital has stonewalled its workers.

Out of the 26 Trustees, 15 of them are former, current, or the spouses of corporate CEOs. An additional four Trustees are executives at private equity or venture capital firms.

There are some familiar faces among the Trustees as well. One os Jonathan Kraft, son of militant Zionist and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and brother to Josh Kraft, who ran a failed primary campaign against Boston Mayor Michelle Wu in 2025. Another familiar face is that of the president and CEO of Lockheed Martin, James Taiclet, helming the world’s largest weapons manufacturer while also serving on the hospital board. Taiclet has overseen military transfers to Israel including: F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, which comprise 80 percent of the Israeli military’s fighter aircraft, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. 

Diane Patrick, retired law partner at Ropes & Gray and spouse of former Governor Deval Patrick, also sits on the board. Her law specialty is employment law — on behalf of employers, naturally — with particular specialization in the healthcare sector.

Former Boston Mayor and Secretary of Labor and current NHLPA union Executive Director Marty Walsh is another Trustee. Despite his seeming labor bonafides, he hasn’t been very visible during the nurses’ strike. Morgan told Working Mass in a text message that Walsh has always been supportive of the union and likely continues to be, but that nurses believe “the MGB Board is silencing him.”

There are only two actively practicing physicians on the board, and predictably, no nurses. As the governing authority of the hospital system, the board has significant sway in contract negotiations. Given the overrepresentation of billionaires and absence of workers on the body, class-war delineations of the negotiations become clear. 

MGB paid its executive staff a total of $35.9 million in 2024. MGB CEO earned over $8 million in compensation, prior to her bonus. Again, nurses were offered a 0 percent cost-of-living increase. The hospital is a non-profit organization.

Nurses understand that healthcare is in a precarious position, over a year out from damaging Trump cuts to research and Medicaid/Medicare has impacted industry staffing, as reported previously by Working Mass. But nurses consistently highlighted that they are cognizant of these factors outside of the hospital’s control. Management, however, is less motivated to cut a deal. McCarthy said:

If they had come to us and said, look, we’re in a tight bind, we could come back and say, yeah, I can understand that. But that’s not the case. You have a board of directors, run by hedge funds, venture capitalists.

The hospital has hired law firm Littler Mendelson to fight the nurses’ union effort. Littler Mendelson is the largest employment law firm in the country, pushing ethical boundaries for anti-worker outcomes, assisting Starbucks, Amazon, and Delta Air Lines with union-busting efforts. In an interview with SFGATE, labor lawyer Stewart Weinberg said that the firm has a nickname among union lawyers: “Hitler, Mussolini, and Fascist.” 

“How much money are they paying them?” Morgan wondered, arguing that the cost of the law firm’s services, travel nurses-lodging and wages, and lost patients from the strike exceeded the cost of settling with the union by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.

Management’s strategy, she argued, is not motivated by near-term finances, but a once-in-a-generation opportunity to weaken MGB’s various healthcare unions. 

“They’re making a long-term financial play,” she said. “They’re looking 20 years down the road. If they can break us, that means that the other (unions) are an easy target.”

Chris Brady is a member of Boston DSA and an editor of Working Mass.

The post “Union-Busting” Law Firm and Business-Backed Trustees Lead MGB Nurses to Largest Nurses’ Strike in State History appeared first on Working Mass.

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Events and Actions

Tuesday July 21 (4:30 PM – 7:00 PM)  Jackie Fielder Town Hall & Tenants Rights Lit Drop (16th St. Mission, Qa, 2000 Mission St)

Tuesday July 21 (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM) Social Housing Working Group (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday July 21 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing (1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday July 22 (6:00 PM – 7:30 PM) Phonebank for the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act – Hybrid (Syzygy SF, 395 S Van Ness Ave,)

Wednesday July 22 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM)  Socialist Shop Talk (1916 McAllister St)

Saturday July 25 (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM)  No Appetite for Apartheid – Store Canvass (1916 McAllister St)

Sunday July 26 (1:00 PM – 2:30 PM)  What Is DSA? (1916 McAllister St)

Sunday July 26 (5:00 PM – 6:00 PM)  Tenderloin Healing Circle Working Group (zoom)

Monday July 27 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM)  Tenderloin Healing Circle (220 Golden Gate Ave)

Tuesday July 28 (5:30 PM – 7:30 PM)  Phonebank for the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act (1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday July 28 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday July 29 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) DSA SF Electoral Board x WFP Happy Hour (Teeth Bar SF, 2323 Mission St)

Wednesday July 29 (6:45 PM – 8:30 PM) Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (1916 McAllister St)

Thursday July 30 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM)  ICE Out Orientation (1916 McAllister St)

Saturday August 1 (1:00 PM – 3:00 PM)  Immigrant Justice KYR Canvassing – Pacific Heights (Raymond Kimbell Playground Park, 1901 Geary Blvd)

Monday August 3 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St

Apartheid-Free Bay Area Outreach Training and Canvassing

Come join our store canvass for the No Appetite for Apartheid campaign on Saturday 7/25! We will meet at 1916 McAllister St for the training at 10. Snacks will be provided. Canvassing starts at 11:30, and will run until around 2.

This event is very new member friendly! We hope you can make it!

RSVP here.

Immigrant Justice Know Your Rights Canvassing Event & Social

Join the Immigrant Justice Working Group for Know Your Rights (KYR) canvassing Saturday August 1 at 1:00PM at Raymond Kimbell Playground Park!

We will be distributing red cards and KYR materials to businesses and community members in the Pacific Heights neighborhood.

We will meet at Raymond Kimbell Playground Park on the corner of Geary Blvd. & Steiner St. to receive training and materials before canvassing.

Join us after for a social/debrief session at a local spot and grab food/drinks!

New to canvassing? No worries! There will be a brief how-to training before we go out in pairs or small groups.

Reportback: EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing Week #1 

Last Tuesday we held our first session of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) course Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing, a four week course that goes into the basics of organizing: from organizing committees to inoculation against the boss. A group of 10 met in person at 1916 McAllister to watch the course plenary before diving into a discussion about the material we covered. This week’s topic was “Developing Leadership” and was focused on the organizing committee, the core group of workers who lead a union campaign. We heard from a worker-organizer at Attaboy, a newly-unionized cocktail bar in Manhattan. She recounted how they identified leaders in the workplace, assembled an organizing committee, and eventually charted every member of their workplace. Her account emphasized how the organizing committee model played a decisive role during the unionization campaign. The plenary kicked off our discussion, where we compared our own experiences to the blueprint laid out in the plenary. We also talked about the differences between organizing in a small and large workplace and how we have spotted leaders in our own jobs.

The next session will take place on Tuesday, July 21th at 7PM, hosted at 1916 McAllister and will cover the organizing conversation.

If you’d like to get involved with the SF local chapter of EWOC, reach out to the lead coordinator Caitlin S or email labor@dsasf.org. EWOC is a standing topic at meetings of the Labor Board, which are held every other Monday at 7:00 PM, both in-person at 1916 McAllister and over Zoom. Anyone is welcome to attend, and we’re always looking for people interested In workplace lead canvassing, organizer trainings, and volunteer outreach. If you’re interested in organizing your workplace and would like to be connected with an EWOC organizer, fill out the request form here.

New York City’s Economic Development Corporation turns public assets into private profits. Will Mamdani keep, kill, or reform the agency?

The post Neoliberalism Versus a New Economy appeared first on Democratic Left.

U.S. socialism is back after a long absence. What’s the big idea?

The post Meet DSA appeared first on Democratic Left.

Collective study and public debate lead to collective liberation and the advance of socialism. Socialist Forum is DSA’s main platform for airing the thorny but necessary theoretical, political, and cultural issues that confront us in an age of U.S. hegemony and empire. The editorial board of the publication—writers, organizers, and political educators—are  committed to a vehicle to present ideas and analysis that would prove useful to winning socialism. We develop thinkers and writers who can provide clarity for our peers and comrades looking for ways to understand the world as is and ways to resist. We seek pieces that explore how capitalism leverages structures and institutions to exploit the peoples of the world. Analysis, inquiry, and discussion into forms of effective resistance are vital in fighting for the liberation of all peoples from exploitation and domination. 

As the late great thinker and writer, Ghassan Kanafani had once stated, “Scientific revolutionary thought is clear thought whereby the masses are able to understand their enemy, his points of weakness or strength and the forces that support and ally themselves to the enemy. Likewise, the masses should understand their own forces, the forces of revolution, how to mobilize, how to overcome the enemy’s points of strength and take advantage of the weakness of the enemy, and through what organization, mobilization and political and military programmes, they can escalate their forces until they can crush the enemy and achieve victory.” Theory and written analysis is a foundational part of our ability to grow as a movement and to some day, succeed, finally winning a world freed from capitalism, colonialism, and U.S. hubris. 

Socialist Forum, therefore, is an avenue for DSA members not only to publicly present their thinking but to work with one another. Our editors are themselves constantly learning and developing ways to strategically address the dilemmas facing the movement. Inspired by thinkers like Kanafani, we are not just a publication. Our aim is to help generate theory that can aid in practice. Moreover, DSA as a multi-tendency, big tent organization creates the ideal circumstances for struggling through ideas together. Pushing ourselves to engage with thinking and debate across the various socialist traditions forges  more robust analyses. We are a stronger organization when we discuss and debate our ideas openly in our publications.

Socialist Forum publication is organized into quarterly-themed issues. We accept pitches on a rolling basis on a variety of topics, and encourage all members to pitch on the current theme topic. Send us pitches that present the general topic of your article, the main argument you hope to emphasize, and its connection to DSA’s larger project. While our sister publication, Democratic Left, reports on the news and events, our publication prioritizes longer form writing and analysis with a global view. As such, our articles typically range from 3,000 to 8,000 words. We also strongly encourage engagement with previous articles and ongoing debates within the publication.

We look forward to writing from seasoned experts on an issue as well as comrades exploring a topic for the very first time. We are all revolutionaries and, at Socialist Forum, we want all revolutionaries to be heard. 

The revamped Workers Deserve More program lays out a vision of a comprehensively democratic society. The Right’s response speaks volumes.

The post DSA Launches New Program appeared first on Democratic Left.