It’s never been easy to be a front-line retail or customer service worker at the holidays, and with a dramatic surge in COVID cases affecting New York City, this year is even harder. For our Revolutions per Minute holiday special, we’re joined live by Eric Dirnbach of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, DSA’s national project in partnership with the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, as well as Aria, a retail worker who participated in a successful strike last year at the Good Vibrations sex shop in Massachusetts with support from EWOC.

Plus, a special correspondent, Shen, visits the picket line in Chinatown to speak with Liang, a restaurant worker at the historic dim sum restaurant Jing Fong.

We are fundraising for the WBAI end of year Tower Fund with some help from our NYC-DSA chorus, Sing in Solidarity. Give to the Tower Fund at towerfund.wbai.org and follow our chorus on Twitter @nycdsachoir.

Sign the petition to support Jing Fong workers and stop displacement in Chinatown at bit.ly/stopdisplacement.

Are you a retail or service worker looking for support organizing your worksite? You are not alone. Support and help is available. Visit https://workerorganizing.org/support/. 

2021 has been another incredibly tough year, with the pandemic and climate crisis exacerbating income inequality and dire living situations for working class people across the globe.

 

Tonight we’ll catch up with a few DSA working groups to talk about the organizing they’ve done to build working class power and solidarity this year and what’s coming up for 2022. Our guests tonight are Joel from the BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group on the Boycott Puma campaign and the power of a consumer boycott, Emma Claire from the Healthcare Working Group on universal healthcare and labor rights for home health care workers, and Josh and Robert from Eco-Socialists on the Green New Deal for Public Schools and the New York Public Power campaign.

 

To learn more or get involved with NYC-DSA's eco-socialist organizing, visit https://ecosocialists.nyc/join-us/.

 

Find NYC-DSA's Healthcare Working Group on Twitter or Facebook @NYCDSAHealth or email the organizers at healthcare@socialists.nyc.

 

Curious about the BDS movement and DSA's Palestine solidarity work? View the primer and FAQ: https://palestine.dsausa.org/palestine-and-bds-faq/.

 

Throughout this episode and all our remaining 2021 episodes, we are fundraising for WBAI's rent on the transmitter at 4 Times Square. We encourage all who are able to donate what they can, even a small amount, toward this important community institution. Visit towerfund.wbai.org to give. 

Gary Dorrien's new book American Democratic Socialism is a comprehensive look at the deep roots, many of them religious, of democratic socialism in this country. Rev. Andrew Wilkes spoke with Professor Dorrien at a live event in New York City at Judson Memorial Church, where this podcast was recorded.

*and Cypress Hills, and Ocean Hill!

Believe it or not, 2022 is right around the corner and will bring with it a new electoral cycle and a new slate of DSA-endorsed socialist candidates for office. On tonight’s show, we kick off our series of interviews with NYC-DSA’s 2022 slate as we speak LIVE with Samy Nemir Olivares, candidate for Assembly District 54 in Bushwick, Cypress Hills, and Ocean Hill. Hear from Samy on their experience as a community organizer in North Brooklyn, the radical legacy of queer and trans people of color, the next steps for socialists in Albany, and smashing gender binaries right alongside capitalism.

 

We also speak to Gabriel Hernandez of NYC-DSA’s Queer Caucus on building queer community and mentorship for socialists. Finally, we hear a brief update on the struggle for free, equitable higher education for all from the New Deal for CUNY coalition.

 

To learn more about Samy Nemir-Olivares and support his run for Assembly, visit: https://www.samyfornewyork.com/

 

To learn more about NYC-DSA’s Queer Caucus, sign up for their mailing list here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/queer-caucus-interest-form

 

For more on the December 11 action for a New Deal for CUNY, visit: https://psc-cuny.org/SatDec11

Working class struggle continues to spread across New York City and the rest of the country. Wirecutter workers at the New York Times have launched their strike, joining the 3,000 Columbia academic workers on the picket line. 14,000 Kroger workers in Houston have authorized a strike while 24,000 academic workers at the University of California have done the same. Rank-n-file reform slate Teamsters United won a sea-changing victory in leadership elections. New leadership has promised more labor militancy and committed the 1.3 million member union to organizing Amazon facilities and drivers across the country. Earlier this month the New York Taxi Workers Alliance declared victory after a hunger strike forced the city government to acquiesce to their demand to cancel millions in debt and restructure their loan. We’re joined by Jaslin Kaur and Augustine to hear about this fight and what it means for working class New Yorkers. Last week a Wisconsin court allowed Kyle Rittenhouse to walk free despite the fact that he shot, wounded, and killed protesters in Kenosha. We’ll play you sounds from the streets as protesters reacted to this injustice here in Brooklyn.

Today we’re talking with Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest and her district manager Justin Freeman about how they are bringing their socialist office directly to the community they represent and are building power not just to win elections, but pass legislation that meaningful changes the lives of the working class in Brooklyn like the Less is More bill, which was signed into law this year, and Public Power and ‘Good Cause Eviction’ bill which are top priorities for DSA electeds this upcoming legislative session.

 

And it’s not just the power in the halls of government that is being challenged by organizers in New York City right now. Workers are taking on one of the most powerful and influential Ivy League universities and newspapers in the country at the same time. We’ll hear from RPM’s own Chris Carr who is one of many union members of the Student Workers of Columbia currently on strike and from one of the New York Times’ Wirecutter union members who plan to strike on Black Friday.

 

Follow Phara and Justin on twitter @phara4assembly and @JustinR_Freeman

and get involved with Phara's office at bit.ly/pharaoffice 

Election day was Tuesday and DSA’s 30+ nationally-endorsed campaigns were put to voters. With a nearly 70% win rate for DSA's campaigns nationally, there's much to discuss about organizing for socialism at the ballot box and the rising tensions between the left and the existing Democratic establishment. On tonight’s show,  we'll share provisional election results and an interview with a DSA-endorsed candidate for Somerville, Massachusetts City Council, Tessa Bridge.

 

Here in NYC, Eric Adams has -- unfortunately -- swept to victory as mayor. Adams has publicly distanced himself from the left and socialism, so to extend the courtesy, let us just say that *all* cops are bastards.  How are we going to beat Adams and the bourgeois, capitalist interests he represents? We discuss that question live with our comrade Robert Cuffy, a union city worker and police abolitionist who organizes with NYC-DSA's Labor Branch and Afrosocialist Caucus.

 

We also hear a report from RPM's antifascist correspondent Amy Wilson on the rise of far-right organizing in New York City around the wedge issue of mandates for COVID-19 vaccine.

 

Keep up with the results of DSA's nationally-endorsed races as they develop, thanks to our comrades at Metro DC DSA: https://washingtonsocialist.mdcdsa.org/station-z/dsa-races-2021

 

You’re listening to Revolutions Per Minute live from the new WBAI studios, a socialist radio show and podcast from members of New York City Democratic Socialists of America. The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with 95,000 members nationwide and NYC-DSA is its biggest chapter. We are run by our 9,000+ members and organizers who are working together to build democratic socialism in all five boroughs. A UAW worker on strike at a John Deere facility in Iowa was killed on the picket lines early this morning. We send our love and solidarity to his loved ones and his ten thousand union brothers and sisters still out there fighting for a dignified life. His sacrifice will not be forgotten. Unionization efforts and the strike wave continue to spread. Amazon workers in Staten Island announced an NLRB petition earlier this week. Thousands of academic workers unionized at the University of Pittsburgh while thousands more at Harvard today launched a three day work stoppage. Columbia academic workers walked out today are prepared to hit the picket lines next week here in New York. 45,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente have authorized a strike. NYC-DSA members this past weekend stood in solidarity with 2,000 healthcare workers on strike at Catholic Mercy Hospital in Buffalo. We’ll hear from Charlie Baker on this struggle and the rally for DSA endorsed Mayoral candidate India Walton. Dozens of DSA candidates are running in races across the country from Massachusetts to New York to Florida. Jorge from Joel Brooks campaign in Jersey City joins to discuss their city council campaign in its final week. We’ll also hear a special report from Lee on the victorious struggle led by NYC-DSA Ecosocialist Working Group to prevent a fracked gas power plant from being built in Astoria.

As regular listeners of Revolutions per Minute know, we are living in a time of many overlapping campaigns for justice for the working-class. Sometimes, organizing campaigns result in victory and opportunities for celebration while looking toward the next goal. Other times, campaigns require strategic escalation. On tonight’s show, we’ll speak to New York for Abortion Rights about a key victory in the struggle to protect access to abortion for all.  We’ll hear from NYC-DSA member and Assemblymember from District 36 in Astoria Zohran Mamdani on the New York Taxi Workers Alliance sit-in at City Hall and why he’s going on hunger strike alongside taxi workers to demand debt forgiveness.

Finally, we travel to Little Rock, Arkansas, with Malik, a former NYC-DSA organizer, who is using lessons learned from NYC to build socialism in his hometown.

Follow New York for Abortion Rights at abortionrights.nyc.

Follow Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani at @ZohranKMamdani and learn more about the New York Taxi Workers Alliance sit-in at @NYTWA. 

Follow Central Arkansas DSA at @CentralARKDSA.

Thank you for using our 2021 municipal voter guide for the Nov. 30th runoff elections! This guide was written by the Atlanta DSA Electoral Committee and is limited in scope to address the Atlanta elections for Mayor and City Council. Authors approached writing this guide with socialist values and a progressive, pragmatic lens. We see this as an opportunity to share information with fellow Atlanta DSA members, Atlanta voters, and other community members about the central questions shaping Atlanta politics.

Key issues that resurface throughout this voter guide include the vote to clear-cut the South Atlanta forest and build an 85-acre, $90 million Cop City, the long-running campaign to close the Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC), and grassroots efforts to defund the Atlanta Police Department, including the Rayshard Brooks Bill and the vote on the FY22 police budget. Where applicable, we assess the candidates based on their stances and votes on these topics. (Special thanks to Mainline Zine for their thorough coverage of these issues!)

Atlanta DSA’s membership votes on endorsements, and we only campaign for endorsed candidates. However, many people already plan on voting and want guidance from a socialist perspective. Where we can, we provide assessments of candidates and identify those we believe are likely to cause the least harm. These assessments come from Atlanta DSA’s Electoral Committee, not the entire Atlanta DSA chapter.

Read the Full Guide Here:

Read our original November 2 2021 Voter Guide here.

Updated November 18, 2021