The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are joining local union leaders in calling on the Milwaukee Common Council to include a raise for city workers in the upcoming city budget.

The call comes after members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union working across multiple departments in the city of Milwaukee said they are supporting an omnibus package of amendments that includes a 3% raise for all city workers and a 4% raise for city workers who live in the city, a compromise that will slow the erosion of workers’ quality of life as it fails to meet cost-of-living increases brought on by inflation.

“This campaign is a first step toward obtaining economic justice for some of the hardest-working people in Milwaukee,” Ian Gunther, Chief Steward of AFSCME Local 47, said. “At both of the public hearings on the 2026 budget, city workers gave their personal accounts of how they are struggling to make ends meet while providing critical city services and working on crucial city infrastructure. The members of the common council rely on the labor of DNS employees to take care of their constituents’ issues, yet some DNS employees work a second job just to get by; Milwaukee residents rely on Water Repair Workers to get safe drinking water, and yet only a couple years ago, many of those workers banded together in a sick-out to draw attention to their punishing working conditions and low pay—all this, while the city administration failed to provide any raise in last year’s budget.”

The omnibus amendment to the 2026 budget proposes to give city workers a compromise raise and gives city leaders the chance to pay workers wages near what those same workers made last year, before the most recent round of inflation.

“As a Socialist elected official, my office stands with the workers of the City of Milwaukee,” Alderman Alex Brower, the sole DSA-endorsed member of the Common Council, said. “It’s time for this city to appreciate its workers by giving them a well-deserved raise.”

DSA organizers are asking their members to push their alders to support the raise amendment on Budget Adoption day, November 7.

“While the police demand a 15.75% raise and threaten our city with an invasion by the National Guard, our city workers are asking for the first real cost-of-living adjustment in years,” Autumn Pickett, Co-Chair of Milwaukee DSA, said. “Our workers deserve more: I’m proud of DSA-elected Alderman Alex Brower for his proactive conversations with city workers ahead of the budget process to understand the real needs of our community, and I commend the rest of the budget committee for pushing these raises forward to the whole of the common council. Milwaukeeans are paying attention and will remember any alder who votes against the working people who make our city run.”

Milwaukee DSA is Milwaukee’s largest socialist organization fighting for a democratic economy, a just society, and a sustainable environment. Join today at dsausa.org/join.

Events & Actions

Events with a are especially new-member-friendly!

Tuesday, November 4 (8:00 AM – 4:30 PM): ICE out of SF courts! (in person at 100 Montgomery St)

Tuesday, November 4 (4:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Zohran Mamdani Election Night Party (in person at The Plough and the Stars, 116 Clement St)

Tuesday, November 4 (6:00 PM – 7:30 PM): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, November 5 (6:45 PM – 8:00 PM): Tenant Organizing Office Hours (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Thursday, November 6 (5:30 PM – 6:30 PM): Education Board Open Meeting (zoom)

Thursday, November 6 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Immigrant Justice Court Action Orientation (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday, November 7 (8:00 AM – 4:30 PM): ICE out of SF courts! (in person at 100 Montgomery St)

Friday, November 7 (7:00 PM – 11:00 PM): Comrade Karaoke (in person at the Roar Shack, 34 7th Street)

Saturday, November 8 (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM): No Appetite for Apartheid Training and Outreach (meet at 1916 McAllister St)

Sunday, November 9 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM): Physical Education + Self Defense Training (in person at William McKinley Monument)

Sunday, November 9 (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM): Palestine Study: There is No Socialist Israel (in person at 1916 McAllister St, San Francisco, CA 94115, USA)

Sunday, November 9 (5:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Capital Reading Group (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, November 10 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Tenderloin Healing Circle (in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday, November 10 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St, San Francisco, CA / Zoom)

Monday, November 10 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Labor Board Meeting (zoom)

Wednesday, November 12 (6:45 PM – 9:00 PM): DSA SF General Meeting (zoom and in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Friday, November 14 (5:30 PM – 6:30 PM): Social Committee Meeting (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday, November 15 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Homelessness Working Group Food Service (in person at Castro Street & Market Street)

Sunday, November 16 (1:00 PM – 3:00 PM): SF EWOC Flyering (location TBD)

Sunday, November 16 (3:00 PM – 6:00 PM): Organizing Mindset Training (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, November 17 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Labor Board x Divestment Priority Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates.

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ICE Out of SF Courts!

Join neighbors, activists, grassroots organizations in resisting ICE abductions happening at immigration court hearings! ICE is taking anyone indiscriminately in order to meet their daily quotas. Many of those taken include people with no removal proceedings.

We’ll be meeting every Tuesday and Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM at Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery. We need all hands on deck. The 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM window is when we most need to boost turnout, but if you can’t make that please come whenever works for you. 1 or 2 hours or the entire time! We’re also holding orientation sessions for folks, but that is not required to attend. See the Immigrant Justice Court Action Orientation event for more details.

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Take Action: Support a Green Public Bank for San Francisco

San Francisco has the chance to make history by creating a green bank: a publicly-owned institution that invests in affordable housing, small businesses, and clean energy instead of Wall Street profits. A Green Bank Resolution was recently introduced by our Socialist in Office Jackie Fielder, and we need to show the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Lurie that San Franciscans support it.

A public bank would keep our money circulating in our communities, fund climate solutions, and help build a city that works for everyone — not just the wealthy.

Take two minutes to send an email to the Mayor and Supervisors using our email tool.

Want to help build the campaign? Join the #public-bank channel in Slack or email ecosocialist@dsasf.org to get plugged into organizing efforts and stay updated on next steps.

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NYC Mayoral Election Night Watch Party

Join us on tonight, November 4 to watch LIVE election night results for the NYC Mayoral race! DSA SF members are proud of NYC DSA member Zohran Mamdani and the tens of thousands of volunteers and comrades that have built the historic movement backing him. We will be cheering Zohran on from across the country as we watch for results. Solidarity!

The Plough and Stars, 116 Clement St
Tuesday, November 4, 4:00 – 8:00 PM

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Immigrant Justice Court Action Orientation

Come one, come all to 1916 McAllister St for our court watch orientation! You’ll learn how we are resisting ICE , how you can help, and participate in a biweekly art build. Bring questions and anti-ICE slogans! This event will take place every other week on Thursdays starting at 7:00 PM and the next one is November 6th!

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Comrade Karaoke Night

Come meet your friendly neighborhood socialists and blow off steam at Comrade Karaoke Friday, November 7 at 7:00 PM at the Roar Shack (34 7th Street). Whether you want to sing your favorite protest song or your favorite childhood banger, we’ve got you covered! No singing ability required, only enthusiasm! Drinks will be provided for cost and there’s a $10 suggested donation to help cover the venue and raise a little money for the chapter, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds!

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No Appetite for Apartheid Training & Canvassing

No Appetite for Apartheid is a campaign aimed at reducing economic support for Israeli apartheid by canvassing local businesses to boycott Israeli goods. Come and canvass local businesses with the Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group!

On Saturday, November 8 from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, we will be doing a training on how to talk to stores in your neighborhood, then going out and talking with stores together! Meet at 1916 McAllister St. RSVP here!

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Palestine Study: There is No Socialist Israel

How should socialists understand the topic of Labor Zionism with its many contradictions, and how does that understanding inform our resistance to the Zionist project?

Join DSA SF’s education series on Zionism + Imperialism as we debunk the myth of a “leftist Israel”.
RSVP here to join us Sunday, November 9 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM at 1916 McAllister St.

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Organizing Mindset Training

Organizing is at the core of what we do as socialists — and it’s a skill that can be developed and practiced. Come join fellow comrades as we learn and discuss how we can incorporate organizing fundamentals into our day-to-day actions so that we can build stronger, more cohesive, and more active communities that can rally together against the unjust capitalist system. Whether it’s our neighbors, coworkers, friend groups, fellow transit-riders, or any other communities we interact with daily, we will always be stronger when we are organized, aligned on the most critical issues we are facing, and ready to act in unison and put our collective people power behind our demands.

Join us at 1916 McAllister St on Sunday, November 16th from 3:00 – 6:00 PM for the first iteration in what we hope will become a recurring, multi-part Organizing Mindset training. All are invited and encouraged to attend, whether you are new to DSA, new to organizing, or a more seasoned member/organizer. This first session in particular is a great one to attend if you are interested in helping shape future iterations of this training. RSVP here!

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Join DSA SF in Demanding Equitable Transit Funding

In response to Mayor Lurie’s office considering a parcel tax to address the Muni funding crisis, we joined Muni Now, Muni Forever, a coalition of community advocates and organizations, in demanding that the measure:

• Generate enough revenue to expand Muni service by 10%
• Be structured fairly, with a variable rate so smaller properties pay less and larger properties pay more
• Protect tenants from additional costs
• Scale with inflation and rising costs to prevent a similar crisis in a few years

Read the full letter here.
Make your voice heard by joining us in these demands: muniforever.org/speak-up

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Reportback: Growing Community: Urban Food Production with Alemany Farm

This past Saturday, 20+ DSA members volunteered and learned at Alemany Farm (@alemany_farm on Instagram)! We cleared weeds from a plum orchard and hauled brush for compost, contributing our labor to a local producer of free, fresh fruits and vegetables. As SNAP benefits are cut and food security is put in jeopardy, it’s important to get involved with local efforts to feed the community and teach useful skills. Stay tuned for future community gardening and farming events led by the Ecosocialism working group! Thank you Alemany Farm for hosting us!

Get involved by reaching out to ecosocialist@dsasf.org or joining #ecosocialism on Slack.

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 publishing the weekly newsletter. Members can view current CCC rotations.

Interested in helping with the newsletter or other day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running? Fill out the CCC help form.

By a Comrade

This article is written by a DSA member and does not formally represent the views of MADSA as a whole or its subgroups. 

Welcome to Vol. 3 of the monthly round-up! The content in this publication overlaps significantly with our DSA newsletter and monthly General Membership Meetings. To sign up for the newsletter or check out an upcoming General Membership Meeting, visit: https://madison-dsa.org/events/

Union Efforts Continue in Madison

In August we celebrated the successful union elections at Festival Foods, and Hilton Monona Terrace. Another union battle continues in Madison, however, led by healthcare workers at GHC, and supported by patients and community members.

The GHC union effort was able to initiate a Special Member Meeting on October 13, where patients with GHC could express opinions on unionization, and conduct an “advisory” vote directing GHC to support the union. Members unanimously supported the union, and asked GHC’s board for transparency around how much money they’re spending on union busting.  Read more here! 

Beating Back the Political Doom

MADSA members have been creating more opportunities to learn and be in community, for members AND non-members. These are crucial antidotes to the doom, overwhelm, and helplessness that many people are feeling about the current state of the world. 

This month, these events included:

• A discussion with Copaganda author Alec Karakatsanis about policing, media, and narratives around safety;
• A presentation, for people of all knowledge levels, on understanding the mechanisms of capitalist exploitation, titled Marx’s Capital and Global Capitalism Today;
• An Organizing 101 workshop for people to learn about workers’ rights and the union process.

The Electoral Working Group is also busy at work in this realm. Members of this WG have been canvassing local residents to learn more about the issues that matter most to them, and what solutions they hope to see. The working group also organized a public Madison Community Town Hall, with the goal of creating a space for community members to express grievances and connect around possible next steps.

There was also fruitful internal discussion this month about a potential change to a MADSA voting policy, and how this interacts with the role of meetings in our organization. Some members made compelling points about meetings as a space for developing important leadership skills, refining our ideas and worldviews, changing each others’ minds, and strengthening community bonds; on the other hand, other members discussed concerns around accessibility and inclusivity, and encouraged the chapter to ensure that people can participate meaningfully in major decisions if they have limitations around meeting attendance. Debates like this reflect the chapter’s process of growth, and ongoing work around participatory and inclusive democracy. 

Further Organizing Highlights This Month

Our work continues in many ways thanks to our dedicated membership. Here are other key organizing efforts taking place this month in MADSA. This summary is not exhaustive! 

• No Kings, No Bosses – The “No Kings” protests had a massive presence across the country this month, and this included Madison, WI! MADSA members showed up with a strong presence at the rally.
• The petition process begins for potentially endorsing candidates in statewide elections. When MADSA endorses a candidate, it is not just a symbolic seal of approval; the chapter is also pledging to provide consistent labor and organization to help that candidate win and to collaborate with them throughout their term. Candidates who wish to gain backing from MADSA must go through a process that includes collecting petition signatures, meeting several times with various chapter bodies, and ultimately winning a chapter-wide endorsement vote. The candidate must demonstrate their commitment to following the expectations outlined in the chapter’s endorsed candidate policy, found here.
• MADSA’s No Appetite for Apartheid contingent is supporting members in making a pledge to boycott Israeli products. Click here to take the pledge, and to get updates about stores who commit to being an Apartheid Free Store.

Social Opportunities

Our chapter has several ongoing reading groups, including:

• Skyscraper Jails, discussed in the Abolitionist Working Group meetings;
• Wretched of the Earth, discussed on Sundays, in a hybrid virtual/in-person format.

We continue hosting recurring social events – New Member Orientations, Coffee with Comrades, Crafting with Comrades,  MADSA Run Club, and the Rosebuddies program.

Protest Song of the Month

The song I choose for this month is “Freedom Now” by Tracy Chapman! This song was dedicated to Nelson Mandela and his work in the anti-apartheid movement. I think that the sentiments in this song still resonate to this day.

And that concludes our monthly round-up!

DSA-endorsed candidates will be competing for office across the country.

The post DSA Campaigns to Watch on Election Night appeared first on Democratic Left.

Chapter & Verse: a Summary of Chapter News for October 2025

The post 80,000 Members nationwide, Divestment Wins, Progress on Public Bank and More appeared first on Democratic Left.

DSA is beginning to engage in the fight against Trump, while simultaneously building the socialist wing of the movement. By Twin Cities DSA members Ramy K, Sam G, and Emma F October 18th was one of the largest days of political protest in US history!  (See crowd-counting estimate) On April 5th, 2-3 million protestors participated […]

November 3, 2025 (PORTLAND, OR) – Portland Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) condemns in the strongest possible terms Mayor Keith Wilson’s decision to begin enforcement of the city’s “public camping” ban, a policy of profound cruelty that criminalizes poverty and will exacerbate the city’s homelessness crisis.

This enforcement begins on the same day that federal SNAP benefits expire for over 15,000 homeless individuals in Multnomah County, stripping them of essential food aid while the city simultaneously threatens them with fines and jail time. Many low-income renters will also risk eviction and homelessness. Rather than offering support and leniency in the face of this federal abandonment, the Mayor has chosen to pile on penalties.

“Mayor Wilson’s decision to unleash the police on our most vulnerable neighbors on the very day they lose their food assistance is an act of stunning inhumanity,” said Chris Olson, Co-Secretary the Housing Working Group in Portland DSA. “He is exploiting a national tragedy to advance a policy of sweeps and cages that we know, from overwhelming evidence, kills people. To call this ‘compassion’ is a lie. It is a deliberate choice to inflict suffering in a misguided attempt to make poverty invisible.”

The Mayor’s punitive approach is further underscored by his recent decision to place the Director of the Portland Housing Bureau — a national expert in social housing — on administrative leave. This move signals a clear rejection of the long-term, housing-first solutions that are proven to work, in favor of a failed strategy of criminalization. 

The shelter system remains hundreds of beds short of need, operates with restrictive hours that fail to meet the needs of many, and does not address the root cause of the crisis: a catastrophic lack of affordable housing. This misallocation of funds has directly deprived proven, cost-effective solutions — like direct rental assistance, food aid, and public housing — of critical resources.

“Mayor Wilson promised us he was an innovator,” said Nathan Johnson, Co-Chair of the Housing Working Group in Portland DSA. “Now he’s slammed the door in innovation’s face to insist on the same discredited approach that has given us a continuously declared housing state of emergency since 2015.”

Portland DSA questions the fiscal prudence and underlying motives behind the Mayor’s rushed push for a shelter-based solution. The organization calls on the Portland City Council to immediately launch a formal investigation into whether the Mayor’s office wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to prop up a temporary shelter system that was designed to fail.

“We have serious concerns that public funds were squandered to create a pretext for this camping ban,” said Brian Denning, Co-Chair of Portland DSA. “Did the Mayor waste money on a shelter system he knew was insufficient, just to create a veneer of ‘available shelter’ and justify a punitive crackdown? The City Council has a duty to investigate this potential misuse of taxpayer money. Every dollar spent on a failed shelter strategy is a dollar stolen from a rental assistance program that could have actually kept a family in their home.”

The “Finding Home” report recently published by the Welcome Home Coalition and Sisters of the Road confirmed that 91% of homeless Portlanders need rental assistance, and 65% want to live in a house—not a congregate shelter or a temporary bed. The Mayor’s focus on coercion and criminalization is a direct rejection of what people actually need and want.

Portland DSA stands in solidarity with the unhoused and joins Councilor Mitch Green and community advocates in demanding a radical change in direction. A first step would be passage of the Renters’ Bill of Rights — a landmark set of protections which would stem the deepening houselessness crisis. We must stop criminalizing poverty and start investing in real, permanent solutions: social housing, lowering the cap for the eviction relocation ordinance, universal rental assistance, and low-barrier services that offer a hand up, not a sweep away.

The post Portland DSA Condemns Mayor Wilson’s Cruel Camping Ban, Calls for Investigation into Misuse of Public Funds appeared first on Portland DSA.

Multiple exchanges between DSA and MORENA this fall has strengthen connections between the two organizations.

The post Solidarity Knows No Borders: DSA Builds Ties with MORENA through People-to-People Exchanges appeared first on Democratic Left.

Management is already using the hype over AI to make workers fearful. We need a plan to get a say over the tools we use and how we use them.

The post How to organize your co-workers around AI appeared first on EWOC.

This piece addresses the reactionary threads and narratives of blame, spoken and unspoken, that exploded in the direct wake of the CK assassination. It argues that the marginalized parties that fascists dishonestly blame (for a wide variety of social effects) can find solidarity with one another’s struggles through a critical examination of the rhetorical moves this blame employs. 

In the wake of the events of September 10, much has been said about the identities of the two people directly involved. Here I want to situate the event and its consequences in a broader political discourse, based on threads of narratives and events that seem to be revitalized in the week now since the event. On the one hand, the narrative of blame which is explicitly formulated has had an extremely gendered component. As Judith Butler (a queer Jewish scholar of gender who is themself presently under attack from the administration) points out, gender is an overdetermined site, which many social anxieties both cluster around and find articulation through. The language of gender is used, hegemonically, to voice anxiety, and people pushing on the boundaries of normative gender are used as screens upon which to project this anxiety. We can certainly see how many existential anxieties have attached to trans people, which fascists “justify” by invoking the “deviance” of transness: anxieties about things like social order, demographic futurity, normative sexuality, the multivalenced term “safety”, children & their development, the body and its permeability… indeed we have seen many of these anxieties intersecting and amplifying one another in transantagonistic narratives. 

Even if we abstract away the question of the perpetrator, the assassination itself represents a severe rupture in hierarchy, and in the ordering of who is supposed to be safe and why. Any violence Kirk incited was meant to play out on other bodies, other flesh. (Indeed, the outsized reaction seems to attest to how unthinkable his death was as a young white conservative man beloved by the regime.) Again regardless of the perpetrator, the intensity and spectacle of the event has offered an opportunity for power to consolidate itself around the production of an enemy who bears responsibility. This narrative production has been able to ground itself in both liberal elegies and in a reactionary constellation of ‘trans’ and ‘antifascist’. To this point, as of writing this, the terms have been fully elided into Project 2025’s recently released info sheet on “trantifa”. These have been the two threads of explicitly formulated narrative formation: 1) the posthumous praise and laundering of Kirk’s figure and 2) the triangulation and amplification of a political enemy. Maga accomplishes this latter move by reaping the already-sown seeds of anxieties projected onto and through gender, and by having rhetorically associated trans people with threat through many vectors.

At the same time that there is this narrative above the surface, I want to also suggest that there is a parallel narrative of blame. This parallel narrative is, as yet, running beneath the level of formulation– it is not explicitly spoken– and we instead have seen it play out in direct political actions that have as their basis racialized violence. I am thinking here about the bomb threats that targeted HBCUs immediately following the shooting, despite there being– and remaining– no connection of any suspects to HBCUs. I am thinking of the opinion writer who was fired for merely being a Black woman and quoting Kirk’s own words on Black women. I am thinking about the 18 year old Texas college student who was arrested and expelled, images of her arrest and mugshot rapidly populating the internet. I am also thinking of the early reports of mysterious hangings of black and homeless men in Mississippi, from the week following the shooting. Each of these stories, of course, become spectacles in themselves of racialized violence for the American appetite. Of course we know that the founding gesture of the formation of the United States is a program of racialized violence called genocide; we know, too, that the foundation of all the capital accumulated here is the brutality of slavery. Racialized violence is our national unaddressed symptom, recurring and recurring because we have not made real conditions to heal it.

What I want to suggest with this piece is that there is an (at least) double motion of gendered and racialized blame and reaction happening in the wake of September 10. I want to argue that this multiple articulation displays the intimate solidarity between all groups scapegoated and targeted, explicitly or implicitly, as threats to (white supremacist) order. This “threat to order” is both the basis of our targeting, and the potential strength of our solidarity. The specificities of the order that is being enforced are written over and over in this country’s history, and we continue to see its living edicts today in the racialized and gendered violence that unfolds in front of us – in the media, in hateful chats, in bomb threats to HBCUs, on the streets in traffic stops, at the detention center just down at the port. In light of that I want to invite us to think together about the question of how to frame and use this moment, and any coming moments like it, for the necessary project of solidarity. How can we build new relationships in principled rejection of what Kirk stood and advocated for, in principled rejection of the logics of gendered and racialized violence that his assassination has been recruited to justify, in principled rejection of the nationalism coalescing around his figure? This seems to be the task before us, and it is imperative we do not imitate the Democrats’ cowardly collapse into silence or forced honor for this man who wanted so many of us dead, and who is now, instead, himself dead. 

by Caitlin Murphy