Public land should be used for the public good.

On January 25th, 2024, five local organizations sent a letter to the Columbus Land Bank making this demand and asking it to commit to reserving all its properties suitable for residential development for projects that are 100% and permanently affordable. The Columbus Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America authored that letter because we believe a just future depends on our public institutions committing to bold action in order to provide housing for all.

The Columbus Land Bank is the government body responsible for acquiring land using public funds and making it available for housing. Along with its partner organization the Franklin County Land Bank, it has the potential to address one of the primary obstacles to the construction of affordable housing: the high cost of land. In recognition of this potential, Mayor Andrew Ginther announced that his administration would allocate 25% of 2022’s $200 million affordable housing bond to the land banks.

This is welcome news, but only if the Columbus Land Bank takes steps to avoid the developer-friendly policies that have plagued much of the rest of the City’s housing strategy. For example, Ginther and City Council recently decided to expand their controversial residential tax abatement program to the entire city. Under this program, developers are eligible to receive a 15-year 100% property tax break in exchange for pricing 20% of their units at below-market rents for 15 years–or by buying their way out of the affordability requirement entirely. Aware that many Columbus residents are opposed to this program, City Council also voted to award $75,000 to a marketing firm to educate the public about the “benefits” of tax abatements.

The Columbus Land Bank has sometimes operated as though its primary purpose is to redistribute cheap public land to developers. According to public sale records, in one instance, the Land Bank has sold public land for as little as $5,700 to a private developer who resold it for $490,000 after building a single-family home on it. This is unacceptable in a county where at least 52,000 households are severely burdened by housing costs and many others struggle to make rent or pay property taxes. At a time when City leaders are bending over backwards to grant additional tax breaks and other financial incentives to developers, reserving public land exclusively for projects that benefit the public is more important than ever. 

Publicly-owned land is one of the most valuable assets the City has at its disposal to address the housing crisis. Selling off this land at a pittance to private developers to build expensive single-family homes is not only a poor policy choice but also morally indefensible. We are sick and tired of the City prioritizing the financial interests of wealthy developers over the wellbeing of its residents. That is why we are calling on the Columbus Land Bank to live up to its institutional purpose and use public lands in a way that actually serves the public.

Letter sent to the Columbus Land Bank on January 25, 2024

To the Columbus Land Bank,

The signatories to this letter are organizations committed to the principle that every member of our community deserves to live in truly and permanently affordable housing. As such, we broadly support the Columbus Land Bank’s mission to acquire land and make it available for housing. High land prices are one of the primary barriers to the construction of affordable housing. By purchasing land using public funds, the Land Bank has the ability to bring down housing costs and facilitate the creation of additional affordable housing. Unfortunately, the Land Bank has not always operated in this fashion.

Over the years, the Land Bank has sold many of its properties at a steep discount to for-profit developers. In some cases, these for-profit developers have built single-family homes on the properties, while in others, they have merely rehabbed existing ones. In all cases, they have benefited financially by buying public land on the cheap and selling it at market rates.  Developers have resold some former Land Bank properties for over $400,000, many in historically-deprived neighborhoods. These unaffordable single-family developments make it harder to build the dense housing the city needs and instead incentivize landlords to raise rents. 

As organizations committed to housing justice, we believe that publicly-owned land should be used exclusively to further the public good. Providing low-cost land to for-profit developers does not advance a public aim. Providing low-cost land for the construction of affordable housing does. That is why we are calling on you to commit to reserving all Land Bank properties suitable for residential development for projects that are permanently and 100% affordable. 

You recently announced your intention to reserve most of your inventory for affordable housing projects going forward. This is welcome news, but it does not go far enough. The Land Bank has a vital role to play in creating and preserving affordable housing in Columbus. The Land Bank should join us, and all concerned Columbus residents, to help truly address the housing crisis.

Columbus Democratic Socialists of America

Central Ohio Food Not Bombs

First Collective

Heer to Serve

People’s Justice Project

[[{“value”:”

By Eli Gerzon and Henry De Groot

MALDEN — More than 300 union members and community activists picketed outside the constituent offices of Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) on Wednesday evening, calling on her to endorse a ceasefire of the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza. Clark is the second most powerful Democrat in the House and has built her career as a progressive who opposes gun violence and supports unions, women, children, and democracy.

“Katherine Clark has the power to put an end to the bloodshed. What has she done? Nothing!”

Yousif Abdallah, North Shore Labor Council – AFL-CIO

A union delegation met with Clark’s staff inside while picketers chanted “Ceasefire Now!” on the sidewalk. A delegation from Jewish Voice for Peace had previously met with Clark to discuss the ceasefire and told Working Mass she responded: “If I thought calling for a ceasefire would save lives, I would have already done it.”

Later in the evening, a second picket was formed in Belmont outside the Unitarian Universalist church, where Clark was speaking at an event on the state of democracy along with Massachusetts Senate President Pro Tempore Will Brownsberger (D-Belmont). Three activists interrupted her speech to call for a ceasefire before being escorted out by security.

A Ceasefire Would Save Lives: The Ongoing Genocide in Gaza

Despite what Clark says, a ceasefire is necessary to stop the horrific mass killings of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military and the Israeli blockade of necessary food, fuel, and medical supplies.

In over 100 days of fighting since October 7, more than 32,000 have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank, including more than 11,000 children. On October 7, Hamas forces killed approximately 695 Israeli civilians and 373 Israeli soldiers

The BBC reports that almost 2 million Gazas — 85 percent of the population — have been forced from their homes. All schools in Gaza remain closed, and infectious diseases are spreading rapidly among refugees. Israel is using water and food as a weapon against Palestinians: “Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide.” Israeli Defense Forces have intentionally targeted hospitals; UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that only 16 of 32 hospitals “are even partially functioning.”

South Africa has sued Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, calling on the court to immediately grant emergency measures to stop the war in Gaza; South Africa has accused Israel of conducting a genocide and maintaining an apartheid regime.

Clark represents the 5th Congressional District, which includes suburbs north and west of Boston, including Malden, Melrose, Revere, Framingham, and parts of Cambridge. She has served as the Democrats’ House Minority Whip since last year, making her the second-ranking House Democrat after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was Clark’s top donor in the 2023-24 cycle.

From the all-Democratic Massachusetts federal delegation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, as well as Reps. Stephen Lynch, Jim McGovern, and Ayanna Pressley have all endorsed the call for a ceasefire. In addition to Rep. Clark, Sen. Ed Markey, as well as Reps. Bill Keating, Richard Neal, Seth Moulton, Jake Auchincloss, and Lori Trahan have failed to call for a ceasefire. Markey and Warren voted in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Senate Resolution 504 which would have conditioned U.S. aid to Israel on an investigation into human rights abuses.

Labor Moves in Support of a Ceasefire

The double demonstrations were the state’s first labor actions in support of the Palestinian people and a ceasefire since the escalation of the fighting after October 7. The rally was largely organized through Massachusetts Labor for a Free Palestine, an informal group of union organizers that has come together since October 7.

The event was endorsed by several major labor unions including the Massachusetts Teachers Association, SEIU Local 509, the Harvard Graduate Student Union-UAW, and UAW Region 9A, as well as the North Shore Labor Council – AFL-CIO, the Western Mass Area Labor Federation – AFL-CIO, Pride At Work-Eastern Mass, Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston, One Fair Wage, and the Boston Democratic Socialists of America.

Several speakers expressed that if Clark failed to endorse the ceasefire demand, the progressive movement would put forward a challenger in the next Democratic primary, calling on the crowd to chant “Vote Her Out!” Clark has not faced a primary challenge since 2014.

The rally comes days after SEIU, the nation’s second largest labor union, endorsed a ceasefire. SEIU is the largest U.S. union to support the ceasefire movement yet; the UAW, the nation’s sixth largest union, endorsed a ceasefire in December.

The growing support in the U.S. labor movement for a ceasefire is a marked reversal in labor’s orientation since fighting escalated more than three months ago. The days following the October 7 attack were marked by labor unions expressing support for Israel, and union activists who expressed solidarity with Palestine faced harassment, intimidation, and doxxing.

Labor calls for a ceasefire were initially confined to an online petition backed by UFCW Local 3000 and United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). Activists organizing in locals around the country have gradually won local union support for the ceasefire demand.

Eli Gerzon is an editor of Working Mass, a member of Boston DSA, and an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace.

Henry De Groot is an editor of Working Mass, a member of Boston DSA, and the author of the book “Student Radicals and the Rise of Russian Marxism.”

Featured image credit: Yousif Abdallah of the North Shore Labor Council – AFL-CIO addresses the picket on January 24, 2024. Photo by Clare Kelley/Working Mass

Additional photography contributed by Pine McCabe.

“}]] 

This episode of Revolutions Per Minute explores the life and legacy of Pablo Yoruba Guzman, who co-founded the New York chapter of the Young Lords, and later became a prominent television reporter on local news channels in the city. We are joined by Mickey Melendez, a fellow Young Lord, to discuss the group's occupations of the First People’s Church in Harlem and Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx. We will also hear from New York City Council Member Charles Baron, the organizer Denise Oliver-Velez and CUNY scholar Johanna Fernandez on the legacy of the group. 

On Monday January 22, 2024, one of our comrades was walking on E Market St, with a Palestinian flag and on their way to City Council, when a police officer approached them and ordered them to walk on the sidewalk. They walked off and the police offer threw them to the ground. They were arrested and taken in a cage to the Summit County jail. They were released on the 23rd with charges of obstructing official business and resisting arrest.

This incident is a blatant and outrageous example of police brutality, of political repression, and a prime example of the profound sense of arrogance and hostility with which APD treats the Akron community. This incident and others like it are the direct result of the police being allowed to act with impunity.

Akron DSA

By Eli Gerzon and Henry De Groot

MALDEN — More than 300 union members and community activists picketed outside the constituent offices of Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) on Wednesday evening, calling on her to endorse a ceasefire of the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza. Clark is the second most powerful Democrat in the House and has built her career as a progressive who opposes gun violence and supports unions, women, children, and democracy.

“Katherine Clark has the power to put an end to the bloodshed. What has she done? Nothing!”

Yousif Abdallah, North Shore Labor Council – AFL-CIO

A union delegation met with Clark’s staff inside while picketers chanted “Ceasefire Now!” on the sidewalk. A delegation from Jewish Voice for Peace had previously met with Clark to discuss the ceasefire and told Working Mass she responded: “If I thought calling for a ceasefire would save lives, I would have already done it.”

Later in the evening, a second picket was formed in Belmont outside the Unitarian Universalist church, where Clark was speaking at an event on the state of democracy along with Massachusetts Senate President Pro Tempore Will Brownsberger (D-Belmont). Three activists interrupted her speech to call for a ceasefire before being escorted out by security.

A Ceasefire Would Save Lives: The Ongoing Genocide in Gaza

Despite what Clark says, a ceasefire is necessary to stop the horrific mass killings of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military and the Israeli blockade of necessary food, fuel, and medical supplies.

In over 100 days of fighting since October 7, more than 32,000 have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank, including more than 11,000 children. On October 7, Hamas forces killed approximately 695 Israeli civilians and 373 Israeli soldiers

The BBC reports that almost 2 million Gazas — 85 percent of the population — have been forced from their homes. All schools in Gaza remain closed, and infectious diseases are spreading rapidly among refugees. Israel is using water and food as a weapon against Palestinians: “Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide.” Israeli Defense Forces have intentionally targeted hospitals; UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that only 16 of 32 hospitals “are even partially functioning.”

South Africa has sued Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, calling on the court to immediately grant emergency measures to stop the war in Gaza; South Africa has accused Israel of conducting a genocide and maintaining an apartheid regime.

Clark represents the 5th Congressional District, which includes suburbs north and west of Boston, including Malden, Melrose, Revere, Framingham, and parts of Cambridge. She has served as the Democrats’ House Minority Whip since last year, making her the second-ranking House Democrat after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was Clark’s top donor in the 2023-24 cycle.

From the all-Democratic Massachusetts federal delegation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, as well as Reps. Stephen Lynch, Jim McGovern, and Ayanna Pressley have all endorsed the call for a ceasefire. In addition to Rep. Clark, Sen. Ed Markey, as well as Reps. Bill Keating, Richard Neal, Seth Moulton, Jake Auchincloss, and Lori Trahan have failed to call for a ceasefire. Markey and Warren voted in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Senate Resolution 504 which would have conditioned U.S. aid to Israel on an investigation into human rights abuses.

Labor Moves in Support of a Ceasefire

The double demonstrations were the state’s first labor actions in support of the Palestinian people and a ceasefire since the escalation of the fighting after October 7. The rally was largely organized through Massachusetts Labor for a Free Palestine, an informal group of union organizers that has come together since October 7.

The event was endorsed by several major labor unions including the Massachusetts Teachers Association, SEIU Local 509, the Harvard Graduate Student Union-UAW, and UAW Region 9A, as well as the North Shore Labor Council – AFL-CIO, the Western Mass Area Labor Federation – AFL-CIO, Pride At Work-Eastern Mass, Jewish Voice for Peace – Boston, One Fair Wage, and the Boston Democratic Socialists of America.

Several speakers expressed that if Clark failed to endorse the ceasefire demand, the progressive movement would put forward a challenger in the next Democratic primary, calling on the crowd to chant “Vote Her Out!” Clark has not faced a primary challenge since 2014.

The rally comes days after SEIU, the nation’s second largest labor union, endorsed a ceasefire. SEIU is the largest U.S. union to support the ceasefire movement yet; the UAW, the nation’s sixth largest union, endorsed a ceasefire in December.

The growing support in the U.S. labor movement for a ceasefire is a marked reversal in labor’s orientation since fighting escalated more than three months ago. The days following the October 7 attack were marked by labor unions expressing support for Israel, and union activists who expressed solidarity with Palestine faced harassment, intimidation, and doxxing.

Labor calls for a ceasefire were initially confined to an online petition backed by UFCW Local 3000 and United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). Activists organizing in locals around the country have gradually won local union support for the ceasefire demand.

Eli Gerzon is an editor of Working Mass, a member of Boston DSA, and an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace.

Henry De Groot is an editor of Working Mass, a member of Boston DSA, and the author of the book “Student Radicals and the Rise of Russian Marxism.”

Featured image credit: Yousif Abdallah of the North Shore Labor Council – AFL-CIO addresses the picket on January 24, 2024. Photo by Clare Kelley/Working Mass

Additional photography contributed by Pine McCabe.

How would an ecosocialist Green New Deal change work and labor, and what is the role of unions, bargaining for the common good, and rank-and-file organizing to help us win GND struggles in the near and long term? DSA’s GND Campaign Commission and National Labor Commission hear from organizers from across the country about their work and how it fits into the theory and practice of a just transition and socialist horizon.

Panelists:

• Vanity Amano – Vanity is a public school teacher and a member of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA).
• Sydney Ghazarian – Sydney is a former GNDCC organizer who works for Labor Network for Sustainability. She is a member of DSA LA.
• Gustavo Gordillo – Gustavo started and led the campaign to win the Build Public Renewables Act in New York. He’s a union electrical worker and member of NYC DSA.
• Marcelina Pedraza – Marcelina has been a union electrician for 25 years and is currently a member of UAW Local 551 at Ford Chicago Assembly Plant. She is also a member of UAWD, a rank-and-file caucus of UAW members. She is a community organizer passionate about environmental and workers’ justice, and as Board President of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, is fighting for a cleaner neighborhood.

Files:

• Audio (.m4a)
• Transcript (.vtt)

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, 1/24 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): HWG Reading Group: Mean Streets (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, 1/26 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 1/27 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group (HWG) Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 1/27 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): HWG Sock Distro (Meet in person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, 1/28 (11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.): January Office Cleaning/Organizing (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, 2/1 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Ecosocialist Monthly Meeting (Zoom)

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

Events & Actions

Homelessness Working Group Sock Distro Mutual Aid on 1/27

Come join the Homelessness Working Group this Saturday, January 27th for our sock distro mutual aid project! We’ll be meeting at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St. at 1:00 p.m. before heading out to different neighborhoods to pass out socks, sandwiches, and hygiene products. Feel free to show up an hour early if you’re able to help prep sandwiches!

Join the Tenant Organizing Working Group for SHOP Training!

Come join the DSA Tenant Organizing Working Group for the final session of a three-part training to develop successful socialist tenant organizers.

Part 3 of the Socialist Housing Organizing Program (SHOP) covers the basics  of an organizing conversation to recruit your neighbors to the tenant union.

You can attend upcoming training on Tuesday, February 6th at 6:30 p.m. at 1916 McAllister.

All trainings to take place at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister. Zoom is available upon request. Register today!

Show Your Smolidarity at the February Chapter Meeting

The Priority Mutual Aid Working Group will be providing childwatch at the chapter meeting next month on February 14th!

Parents and caregivers can fill out this form before the meeting to help ensure we have enough volunteers and supplies on hand. We hope to see you and your kiddos there!

Behind the Scenes

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

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

Questions? Feedback? Something to add?

We welcome your feedback. If you have comments or suggestions, send a message to the #newsletter channel on Slack.

For information on how to add content, check out the Newsletter Q&A thread on the forum.

The California Faculty Association, a union covering the 23 campuses of the California State University system, is pushing back against the non-response of CSU administration at the bargaining table. Negotiations began this summer. As of California Red copy deadline, picket lines are expected to go up at all campuses first thing on Monday morning, January 22. 

CFA’s demands include:

• A 12% pay increase for all faculty

• A full semester of paid parental leave

• pay equity for lowest-paid faculty

• safe and accessible lactation spaces 

• safe and accessible gender-inclusive restrooms and changing rooms, and 

• the limiting of police power on campuses.

First, a one-day strike with DSA support
The CSU’s response of a 5% pay raise and persistent rejection of other demands precipitated a one-day strike across four campuses in December, including San Francisco, Pomona, LA, and San Diego. DSA and YDSA support for these labor actions was strong and well appreciated. Bottom line, this spirit has been shown through tabling, phone-banking, and union building, and fight-back efforts with picket-line participation and presence at CSU Board meetings. Our message: we are in; faculty and students are not alone!

At San Francisco State, YDSA member Cami Dominguez reports that she sees the big picture of this contract struggle as an example for other faculty and unions, and DSA’s solidarity with the wider struggles of class action. Cami was part of a scab patrol that confronted a faculty member conducting a class during picketing. She and other strikers spoke to both the faculty member and students present about the problem of crossing a picket line. Cami also remarked that participating in the strike “changed the dynamic we had with faculty”, seeing this as a “united effort” to maintain a positive learning environment.

DSA aligns itself with rank-and-file causes and action, such as this strike, and sees its involvement as integral to a class struggle on campus and building solidarity among students, faculty, and socialists. “We are not going to be quiet about being socialists,” commented Ellie Gomez, with whom I spoke in the SF DSA office. 

Full week of strikes coming
More labor actions are in the works. There will be a full week of CFA strikes across the entire system January 22-26. Because the SFSU campus does not begin classes until January 29, it will do informational picketing and leafleting for those faculty there during strike week, support picketing at East Bay and San Jose campuses, and promote pro-labor syllabi for faculty during the first week of classes. This may be the largest higher-education faculty strike in US history. 

Teamster Local 2010 members who work for the university were planning to strike alongside the faculty for their own demands, but settled on January 19. Although its contract does not allow sympathy strikes, the local is encouraging its members to honor the faculty picket lines.

Picket lines on all campuses will go up Monday at 8 a.m.  If you’d like to join in, go to the CFA web page to sign up.  The CFA Executive Board welcomes the ongoing contribution by DSA and YDSA as a vital element towards its success in fighting for its members.

An orientation to labor opens a unique opportunity for solidarity

For years, EBDSA has worked to reforge the link between union militants and the socialist movement. This places a strategic wager that rebuilding unions into fighting, democratic vehicles for working-class struggle and organization is not just desirable in and of itself (although it is), but that it’s also a necessary condition for a vibrant, strong socialist political current to survive and thrive in this country. 

In EBDSA this work has taken the form of a chapter jobs program, a local EWOC formation (the East Bay Workplace Organizing Committee or EBWOC), impressive labor solidarity work on the picket lines, and robust political education around the centrality of workplace struggle to winning material gains for the working class. This multifaceted approach means that EBDSA members have built relationships with union members and workplace militants in a variety of workplaces, brought some of them into DSA, or gone into union workplaces themselves. 

When it became clear in October that Israel was engaging in a genocidal military campaign against Palestinians, EBDSA Labor Committee members sprang into action and began meeting to pull together unions around concrete demands on the US state in a public rally, and created a template resolution for union members to adapt and try to pass through their unions. 

Within a few weeks, the effort had spread beyond EBDSA and began calling itself Bay Area Labor for Palestine (with the blessing of the pre-existing national Labor for Palestine formation). Members of more than a dozen local unions were soon attending Bay Area Labor for Palestine’s weekly meetings and comparing notes on how to pass resolutions through their unions, counter bad faith smears on their unions from pro-Israel groups, and prepare for a December rally. 

Bay Area Labor for Palestine successfully coordinated rally plans with local Palestinian- and Arab-led organizations, which meant that the rally formally brought together the local Palestinian liberation movement and representatives of the local labor movement. A boisterous spirit of unity and solidarity permeated the rally and march, with two thousand participants.

What’s next?

Some socialists worry about an overemphasis on workplace organizing, pointing out the importance of politics and principles to build beyond just “trade union consciousness”. The involvement of workers from newly formed unions who we’ve supported through EBWOC (like the Trader Joe’s Union local 4 in Rockridge and the Berkeley Ecology Center) and existing unions where EBDSA has members or relationships (like OEA and SEIU 1021) in Bay Area Labor for Palestine show that we’re not just cultivating a workplace only focus, but a broad politics of solidarity beyond the workplace. Union members where we didn’t have pre-existing relationships are also involved, indicating that this spirit of solidarity attracts like-minded workplace militants who see the connection between workplace struggle against the boss and global struggles against militarism and imperialism.

Bay Area Labor for Palestine is not just an EBDSA project. It’s a grassroots grouping of union members seeking to support and develop workplace organizers who can advance the cause of Palestinian solidarity in our unions. In some union locals, that means passing a ceasefire resolution. In others, where that’s already been accomplished, it can mean trying to divest pension funds from Israeli companies, or pressuring the AFL-CIO to back a ceasefire. 

Our experience in the East Bay shows that a multi-faceted approach to labor organizing can pay unexpected dividends in other areas of our work, like international solidarity. As DSA chapters continue to deepen our labor work across California, our ability to move in concert with unions and union members will hopefully increase the leverage, power, and will of the labor movement to challenge US imperialism at home and abroad.