On Oct. 11, MADSA and Ga. Tech Young Democratic Socialists of America, with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Mijente, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and others marched and picketed at Amazon headquarters in Buckhead during the workday, to protest the company’s contracts with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency that separates families, jails people legally seeking asylum in the U.S. and puts children in cages. The action was coordinated with events taking place throughout the U.S. during the weekend leading up to Indigenous People’s Day (AKA Columbus Day). Below is the statement issued by the demonstrators:

From the day he took office, Donald Trump escalated a failed and cruel immigration policy into an all-out war against immigrants, banning Muslims, slamming the door on refugees, tearing children from their parents’ arms. Each new affront has been met with outrage and protest, but even when he has retreated, Trump has sought new lines of attack: concentration camps, workplace raids, new bars to green cards and citizenship.

Meanwhile many immigrants are being terrorized in their own communities, afraid to answer the door, take children to school, or go to work. These communities need to see and feel the solidarity of the majority that stands with them.

We call on all those who oppose the raids, family separation, deportations and incarceration to unite against this reign of racist persecution. It is time to say, “¡Basta Ya!” Enough is enough!

This indigenous people’s day weekend let us act together –whether with a march, vigil, rally or direct action– against those who would give us a future of division and white supremacist hate. Let us unite in broad regional coalitions drawing together people of faith, unions, anti-nativist fighters and other progressives to target camps, jails, shelters or other parts of Trump’s anti-immigrant, deportation machinery.

Let us act in the knowledge that no human being is illegal anywhere, not least in a country formed through violent colonialism. Most of all, let us open our arms to immigrants in our country or at our borders with a greeting of friendship: Mi casa es tu casa. Our home is also your home.

Photos: Reid Freeman Jenkins

Most of us in the United States’ capitalist society work for someone else — our “employer.” Employers run on two main principles: profit maximization and cost minimization. These principles have a direct and immediate impact on workers’ lives.

Under capitalism, we as workers surrender our autonomy to our bosses by providing our labor and adhering to workplace rules and instructions in exchange for the payment of a wage. Standing alone, workers have very little power over our working conditions and wages.

However, workers in the United States have come together in the past to make demands of their employer by withholding their labor, and effectively halting the profit maximization/cost minimization machine, until their employer complies with their demands. Workers have demanded fair wages, safe working conditions, better hours, stronger healthcare coverage, freedom from harassment and discrimination on the job, and a number of other issues.

Employers need workers because our labor is the source of our employer’s profits. Therefore,  employers negotiate with us and give a little to ensure that we will continue to work for them  so that they can continue to profit— but it is important to recognize that most employers will only give as much as is demanded of them.

Workers know that when we band together, larger demands can be made of our employers. Standing in solidarity puts more pressure on the employer than does standing alone. A boss can shift responsibilities to cover the work done by a few workers, but an entire striking workforce becomes more difficult to ignore.

Workers hold the power; our actions require employers to comply with our demands or risk losing profit.

Employers know this. It is the reason that employers fight back against workers when we attempt to organize, when we make demands, or when we go on strike. Employers use all their tools—by putting financial pressure on workers or by using social and political capital to give themselves an advantage.

For decades, employers have fought pro-union legislation in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures. Employers and their peers are behind right-to-work legislation that attacks unions by attempting to erode funding and membership, shifting power to corporations, and forcing communities to compete for business, instead of businesses competing for customers. The entire goal is to convince workers to decline to join the union in an effort to diminish the union’s political power and deplete the union financially.

We have seen it in our state. Here in Ohio, Governor Kasich, through Senate Bill 5, attempted to strip public sector workers of their collective bargaining rights. Luckily, Ohio voters were able to destroy that attempt through a statewide ballot initiative that repealed the legislature’s decision, but in the meantime, Kasich was still able to rob child care and in-home health care providers of their rights. Nationally, Supreme Court cases like Janus — which ruled that government workers can’t be required to pay for a union’s negotiations, even when these free-riders benefit from those negotiations— have been used as tools to weaken the union and attempt to disintegrate power from the inside.

Workers do not have to sit back and take these attacks. We can work together, by organizing ourselves and forming a union, to speak out against unfair treatment and to stand up for our rights in the workplace. By coming together, workers can keep each other educated and prepared to mobilize when important policies are threatened.

Organized workers can ensure that all employees, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, age, race or ethnicity, national origin, religion, genetic information, disability, or pregnancy, are treated fairly in the workplace. Through grievance proceedings and collective action, unions can be powerful advocates and allies when addressing issues of discrimination, retaliation, and/or harassment.

Organized workers can also fight against wealth disparity. Workers with union contracts make more on average than their non-union counterparts, and the pay gap between races and sexes shrinks when workers negotiate their wages together. Through collective bargaining, workers have been able to earn a higher percentage of the wealth that our labor produces.

Additionally, organized workers can fight to establish strong safety protocols and work rules at work sites that ensure employers comply with state and federal safety standards. Every day in this country, an average of fourteen workers die because of job injuries, and this figure doesn’t include the estimated nearly 95,000 workers each year who die from occupational diseases. It does not have to be this way.

The power of organizing is not simply limited to a person’s particular workplace. Unions empower workers who have more in common with each other — despite their various differences — than they ever would with their bosses, the politically connected, or shareholders who profit from their labor. Coming together as a group of workers at a particular workplace is a good way to start building worker power, but it is not where our solidarity ends.

In a country where Trump tax cuts will cost the nation $1.9 trillion over a decade, where Ohio tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest citizens will cost more than $6 billion a year, and where working families are falling farther and farther behind, something has to change. As workers, we have the power and the momentum needed to change it. The time is now.

If you are interested in learning more about unions and how they work, your rights at work, how to build power in the workplace, or how to support local worker struggles in Columbus, come to Columbus DSA’s Labor 101 event this Saturday (October 11th) from 11am – 1pm at the Northwood High Building, 2231 N. High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43201.

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You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com or sign-up for our newsletter to get links to what we talk about on the show. You can do that on at our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com. You can also find us on twitter @nycRPM.

MADSA’s general meeting Sept. 28 included our annual officer elections. We chose Councilman khalid for our new chair; Cole Reardon treasurer; Brandyn Buchanan membership secretary; Nate Knauf recording secretary; and three at-large members: Q Benford, Rara Imler and Catie Elle, who will help make the many decisions that our officers face and take on other work as needed. Thanks to outgoing officers Jen Garcia, chair and membership secretary; José Perez, treasurer; Barbara Joye, recording secretary; and at-large officers Jeff Corkill and Wendell Bohannon (Q also served this past year).

A representative of Ga.Tech YDSA (TBA) and any other Atlanta YDSA chapter that is chartered by national DSA will also have a seat on the MADSA executive committee. Two are on the way: Emory and Ga. State U., and three other area campuses may join them soon.

Councilman khalid volunteered to organize our traditional contingent in the Atlanta Pride parade that starts at noon on Sunday, Oct. 13 (see other Atlanta Pride events here). Meet at Civic Center MARTA station, 11am, parade steps off at noon.

On Friday, Sept. 27, MADSA, Extinction Rebellion and 10 other local organizations participated in the Global Climate Strike, calling for “rebellion against the government for criminal inaction in the face of climate catastrophe and ecological collapse,” saying: “The science is clear. The planet is steadily warming as carbon is released unabated into our atmosphere. Ice caps are melting, ecosystems are collapsing, and natural disasters are becoming more and more common. Meanwhile, in the shadow of this unprecedented threat to life on earth, the rich and powerful continue business as usual, upholding the status quo of the economic system that depends on the unlimited and unsustainable use of our planet’s resources. Our goal is to stand against those who wish to ignore the evidence and continue business as usual.”

MADSA member Michael Roberts reported:

Today MADSA comrades joined over 100 protesters in a climate strike. The strike began at the Buckhead MARTA station, then quickly moved across much of north Atlanta in an attempt to stay ahead of the police, who were prepared with a small army equipped with bikes,trucks, and buses. The police prevented access to the streets and even arrested many protesters, including some MADSA members. Despite being out-matched by the police, the protesters held strong and lasted the day, constantly asking the police “Who do you serve?” as a reminder and a call to action.

MADSA stands in solidarity with any group of grassroots activists who are willing to highlight and call into question the unquenchable greed that has brought on this climate crisis, and stand ready to defend all oppressed people to prevent further victimization while trying to hold back the exctinction of the human race.
Photo: Michael Roberts

See also AJC report and Channel 11.

Comrades Daniel Hanley and Lorraine Fontana were among 20 demonstrators arrested (all have been released). Donate to the bail fund: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/extinction-rebellion-mass-action-bail-fund

“You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com or sign-up for our newsletter to get links to what we talk about on the show. You can do that on at our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com. You can also find us on twitter @nycRPM.

By Julian Prados Franks

In early September, Metro Atlanta DSA’s Immigrant Rights Working Group organized a second solidarity visit to the infamous Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. Even compared to other ICE detention centers, Stewart, a private prison owned by CoreCivic, has a particularly gross penchant for abject cruelty and abuse. With the solidarity visit, we intended to provide some of the detained immigrants, especially those without family members to visit regularly, one hour of open conversation outside of the monotony of life inside Stewart. A group of four DSA members (Julian Prados Franks, Kaitlyn Barnes, Daniel Hanley, and Israel Tordoya Henckell) met at the Edgewood MARTA station before sunrise to make a two-and-a-half-hour trek to Lumpkin.

Before arriving at the detention center, however, we received a house tour and orientation from volunteers at El Refugio. El Refugio, which coordinates the visits with the men detained in Stewart, is a nonprofit established in the late 2000s by members of Georgia Detention Watch for the purpose of providing safe lodging and warm meals free of charge to families and individuals wanting to spend the weekend with their loved ones detained by ICE.

After orientation, our members waited multiple hours in processing, allowing us to experience the grueling wait that immigrant families will endure to spend one hour in direct contact with the men at Stewart. We each spoke to one man. Many of the personal details shared with us must remain confidential, but we can confirm that they were in good spirits during our conversations and felt excited to speak with new people from outside the prison. Some acknowledged the deplorable conditions inside, while others wanted to focus on happier things.

El Refugio encourages volunteers to debrief and decompress after the visits, so we made our way back to their lodging house to share our thoughts and feelings. Additionally, El Refugio provides volunteers with the information necessary to write letters and send gifts to the people they visited.

Reflecting on the experience, our own Daniel Hanley said, “El Refugio does incredible work to connect families and friends with their loved ones detained at Stewart, giving otherwise isolated immigrants an appreciated connection to the outside world. Detainees confirmed accounts of torture (such as solitary confinement and tasers), routine human rights violations, psychological trauma, years of valuable time wasted. Despite these abuses, we met with detainees who are resilient and hopeful they will emerge from detention to pursue their dreams, possibly with the assistance of popular mobilization outside the facility. One friend inside the detention center recounted a grueling intercontinental journey to escape threats to their life. They described an inspiring sense of unity, solidarity, and mutual aid among fellow migrants, and they were welcomed with smiles and open arms throughout the countries of Latin America, until they encountered scowls along the U.S. border. Now they struggle in Stewart for greater access to education as months of their life are pointlessly wasted in a privately owned cage.”

We left the house feeling a deeper connection with the immigrant community and a heightened sense of concern for their future. We also felt a little more hopeful experiencing the radical love of the volunteers at El Refugio and observing the perseverance of the immigrant families visiting Stewart.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com or sign-up for our newsletter to get links to what we talk about on show. You can do that on at our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com. You can also find us on twitter @nycRPM.

By Jeff C.
On September 13, 2019 members of the Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America and the North Georgia Socialist Rifle Association met up in Atlanta to car pool to Dahlonega to protest the white supremacist rally taking place there. We did not arrive as outside agitators but as invited guests of the community, led by the Socialist Coalition of North Georgia and faith leaders from local places of worship. We were proud to be part of a united front against fascism and white supremacy, putting up a non-violent counter protest to the Nazis who intended to take over the square in the center of town. While at least two comrades were arrested, we were able to outnumber the fascists by at least 2 to 1 during the entire day, making it a victory for antifascism. The counter protesters numbered over 100, while the fascists began with under a dozen and could only marshal fewer than 40 to their cause by the end of the day. Solidarity today. Solidarity forever! Always Antifascist. Photos by Steve Eberhardt.