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. 4 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/

Behind-the-Scenes in a Growing Org

Over the past year, the DSA has had a huge boom in membership nationally, a surge in membership here in Madison, and an increase in name recognition after Zohran Mamdani’s recent high-profile win in NYC (as well as other wins across the nation!). MADSA saw several new work groups form throughout 2025, as well as new projects, book clubs, potential candidate endorsements, and events for members and the community at large. These efforts all remain underway!

As MADSA has scaled up, we’ve also contended with more mundane operational questions– How do we handle marketing and social media posts, now that there are so many more events? How are we feeling about our electoral endorsement process when it’s for re-elections? How can we keep developing comradeship among members? What is a good venue for our monthly meeting?!

Here is a small behind-the-scenes look at some changes as we expand:

• The Communication Committee (Comms) is working on appointing “liaisons” within each working group and project, so that Comms can stay better oriented to the chapter’s marketing/posting needs;
• Comms and Executive Committee are also working on increasing direct posting access for various Working Groups so that they are not solely reliant on Comms for posting information about events and actions;
• The Electoral Working Group has been exploring endorsement for several candidates running in state and local races, as well as discussing and reviewing the endorsement processes themselves;
• Various members continue their efforts to revitalize Red Madison for internal and public readership – this has included identifying people who are open to contributing, as well as making calls for submissions at our general meetings;
• The chapter will be publishing a resource to prepare for the 2026 Chapter Convention, where members will continue shaping the direction of MADSA;
• The chapter has been experimenting with a few different venue options for GMMs to accommodate our new numbers and the geographical distribution of our membership.

It is our hope that these changes will support the continued growth of the chapter, both in scope and in activity levels. 

Social Events

Our chapter had two reading groups wrap up in November:

• 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. 

As the year comes to an end, we’ll be reaching out to members and asking about their experiences in MADSA this year, and their socialist resolutions for 2026. We’re also planning a New Year’s party on New Year’s Eve, details forthcoming!

Protest Song of the Month

For a November protest song, I’d like to highlight an artist from an indigenous background and ties to the Midwest – John Trudell. John was a Santee poet, musician, actor, speaker, veteran, and activist, at one point chairing the American Indian Movement (AIM). Here is the Listening / Honor Song, a spoken word piece over traditional music. The lyrics can be found here. 

And that concludes our monthly round-up!

Chapter and Verse: a Summary of Chapter News for November 2025

The post Election Victories Across U.S., Socialist Caucus Coming to Minneapolis and More appeared first on Democratic Left.

Author: Barbie A

Day in and day out, more and more people are disappearing off of the streets of our communities. From migrants going in for routine immigration check ins and being detained, being targeted in traffic stops, being sought out on their way to work, or out right having their paperwork revoked from them and hunted down like animals. All across the United States, including here in Cleveland, people who call this place their home are having their lives destroyed by the racist and inhumane Trump administration. A country that once guaranteed safety and sanctuary is now trapped within a shifting system in which anyone could find themselves entangled with ICE or DHS, including U.S. citizens. 

Living in the most diverse country in the world, with a long history of immigration, racism, colonization, imperialism, and injustice, as democratic socialist, it is our duty to show up for the marginalized groups of our community and stand up against fascism. During Trump’s campaign for presidency there was a lot of talk about expanding ICE operations and abilities to go after criminals, or “the worst of the worst” as he put it. For those of us familiar with the immigration system and the terminology around immigration, we understood clearly that they were going to use this opportunity of power to abuse their authority and go after undocumented migrants, child U.S. citizens, and various documented legal immigrants. A majority of immigrants who are undocumented did not come into the United States without being vetted first. Most immigrants enter the United States with legal status and end up falling out of status because of expiring paperwork, financial barriers, changes in their life situations, or for most it being that they do not have a legal way to obtain permanent residency or citizenship from the status they do have. 

For example, those with temporary protected status (TPS), and people with other statuses of immigration, do not have a pathway to citizenship despite being legal documented migrants who must obey the law, pay taxes, and are excluded from social welfare, unemployment, social security benefits, and other rights afforded to US citizens. In most cases of immigration the only way to obtain citizenship is by being sponsored for a green card by an employer or by marrying a U.S. citizen. TPS holders and others are having their paperwork revoked or denied under the Trump administration. Migrants come to the United States seeking refuge and they have created lives with families, jobs, homes, businesses, and more, and yet they could lose everything they have paid and sacrificed for because this administration would rather punish the innocent than negotiate fair immigration reform. Migrants being deported who have U.S. born children have to decide between figuring out living situations for their kids here in the United States or bringing them to the countries where the parents are from but are of no familiarity to the children. This disenfranchises child U.S. citizens from having access to medical care, education, food, and many more opportunities.

We are watching the Trump administration abuse their power. The escalation is something we must be prepared for as we know anti-immigrant agencies have been rewarded $170 billion dollars via the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”. It’s imperative that all people in our country and region understand their rights under the constitution and what they’re lawfully protected to exercise. 

So far we have seen Donald Trump use executive orders to try to revoke birthright citizenship (14th amendment) from people. We have seen the attacks on the fifth amendment by blatantly denying people their rights to due process, including denying people their rights to a fair hearing, to challenge deportation, or to their rights to challenge their unlawful detention (habeas corpus). Regardless of any person’s status they’re guaranteed the rights to the first amendment, in which we have seen the invasion of these protections and discriminatory practices used to target people for their rights to freedom of speech, rights to protest, rights to assemble, rights to petition the government, freedom of press, and the freedom to practice whatever religion they choose. Across the country we have also seen an overwhelming amount of evidence showing violations of the fourth amendment, which protects all people from themselves and their personal belongings illegally being searched or seized without a judicial signed warrant that would prove that there is substantial evidence to have this protection breached. 

Recently the Supreme court has ruled (6-3) in favor of Noem (Kristi Noem) v. Vasquez Perdomo, in which it allows for racial profiling and discrimination. This opens the door to allowing immigration, and other enforcement, to violate the rights of all people. Agents are now permitted to bother people based on their appearance and ethnicity, language and accent, location and occupation, and other suspicionless stops. This has led to the arrests of U.S. citizens who are being treated inhumanely and having their rights violated. Cleveland DSA has vowed to commit to helping prepare the community and support immigrants during these turbulent times.

Cleveland DSA’s mission with our immigrant solidarity priority project is to show up for the communities of people who are many times forgotten about. Through preparation of our comrades to take part in our rapid response network, building and participating in extensive coalition efforts in greater Cleveland and surrounding areas, and showing up to support our communities in courtrooms, check ins, their places of employment or business, worship, and social activities; we want to meet people where they’re at and show them our commitment to justice and solidarity. 

First we will start by preparing all comrades through various know your rights (KYR) training so that they can help our community to observe and document people’s interactions with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and/or local law enforcement. When our chapter is prepared we will begin canvassing through Greater Cleveland’s businesses and organizations, churches, and public spaces, to prepare them for potential illegal raids. We will support the immigrant community by showing up in solidarity during court proceedings and check ins, time spent in detention centers, rapid response networks, protesting, and various mutual aid efforts. During this period we will build trust within the community and build our reputation to prove that democratic socialists care about the real issues facing the people in our neighborhood. 

No matter anyone’s race, sex, age, language, origin, or status here in the United States, this fight impacts us all. To challenge the structural injustices that divide workers and communities, we must recognize that affirmation of the rights and humanity of immigrants is inseparable from the struggle for socialism and justice, because it confronts the very systems of exploitation, exclusion, and inequality that a society must overcome in order to truly be free. We must fight to dismantle the entrenched structure of the injustices that constrain human possibility, forging a path towards a society rooted in collective ownership, democratic empowerment, and genuine social equality!

The post Immigrant Solidarity Priority Project appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day.  When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have  talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice  of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind. Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not. So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things. What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music is.

-Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Tacoma seemed to bloom on November 11th, 2025. Beautifully painted clouds permitted plenty of sunshine to cast down on city streets. A lively crowd numbering just over one hundred trickled into the plaza bringing flags, or signs, or wearing a reminder of service. They all brought their fears, hopes, gripes, and their ideas about themselves and the land they grew up walking. It was a gorgeous backdrop for the city to recommence the annual observation of Armistice Day. The crowd respectfully encircled a motley group of tattooed, long-haired, sometimes bearded, always opinionated veterans wearing fatigues and patches. No dress uniforms, no military drills. It was about leaving all that behind.

Armistice Day opened with a land welcoming ceremony led by veteran Toby Joseph, Sr. He performed a moving rendition of his father’s love song and reflected on militarism from an indigenous perspective. Veterans spoke to pressing problems such as Veterans Affairs and LGBTQ+ medical care, the right to refuse illegal orders, and the history of active duty resistance. In one of the more memorable moments a physician and current conscientious objector spoke poignantly about his courageous decision to choose peace. Flanked by veterans stoically holding large pictures of Zahid Chaudhry in uniform and with family, Melissa Chaudhry delivered a tour de force keynote about her husband, moving me and many others to tears. Melissa sharply defended Zahid, elucidated the militarism that led to his detainment, and articulated beautifully the meaning of Armistice Day.

Zahid is a disabled veteran and immigrant; he is the President of Veterans for Peace 109 and for years has been an immovable fixture of the peace movement. He didn’t get to see the beautiful sky that day. He has been a comrade of mine for over a decade, going back to when I began organizing against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Zahid is wrongfully detained in the concentration camp known as the Northwest Detention Center on the Tacoma tideflats, two miles and a world away from city hall. As I write this, Zahid is experiencing cruel medical neglect and risks blindness if he is not released for required medical procedures soon. We would agree every person deserves excellent healthcare. It’s just especially cruel that a disabled veteran, with private health insurance in Olympia, risks blindness in the unnecessary custody of the U.S. government.

The day concluded with a memorial ceremony led by Pastor Shalom of First United Methodist Church. It was a wholly dignified ceremony that seemed to me life-affirming, peace-affirming, and inclusive. The enhancement of the remembrance ceremony to include not just our WWI veterans but all victims of militarism was beautiful, and only natural, given the armies can’t seem to keep the wars to themselves. The ceremony honored the original purpose of the day as imagined by folks like Kurt Vonnegut, while maintaining the universality that so many must have felt in the wake of the Great War. It is a high standard that future remembrance ceremonies will be based upon.

The weather was great for Armistice Day. The political climate was another matter; we gathered on stolen Puyallup land against a backdrop of hegemonic struggle, military belligerence, terror campaigns, genocide, and the rise of the authoritarian right across the breadth of the international system. At home we face surveillance, extra-constitutional policing, mass deportations, wanton nuclearisation, and the militarization of our streets. Political assassinations are on the rise. There is a massive military build up off the coast of Venezuela and already western operatives on the mainland. Domestically, our coffers are ransacked and public institutions are seized. Homeland Security has been allocated an unprecedented wartime budget to terrorize immigrants and urban dwellers for the delight of an increasingly openly white nationalist base. Trans rights are being ripped away. Peace is questioned as a value, human rights as a cause, and the worthiness of empathy itself is mocked by our leaders. The U.S. regime foolishly stokes dormant embers in the Caribbean and saber-rattles in the Pacific. The United States has funded, provided intelligence and abundant material support, and suppressed public knowledge of Israel’s genocide. We face a very real and imminent threat of ethnic cleansing and a collapse of LGBTQ+ and women’s rights. We face war.

So we celebrate peace. But we cannot simply enjoy the peace there is; we are without peace. It is only through resistance that we can create peace. It is only through solidarity that we can resist. And it is through love that we find solidarity. So we celebrate Armistice Day: Peace through Resistance.

by Eric Ard

The Oregon White Oak, also known as the Garry Oak (Quercus Garryana) is the only native Oak species in Washington state. A keystone species needed for endangered lifeforms like the Western Gray Squirrel, Garry Oaks occurs in the endangered South Sound Prairie ecosystem, and as such are also called Prairie Oaks by a select few enthusiasts. Prairie Oaks grow slowly in open areas, and support more species of wildlife than any other tree species in the region. This is due to the abundant food they produce (acorns), and their tendency to form cavities that become homes for various types of wildlife. On average, Prairie oaks don’t begin producing acorns until 30 years of age. 

The city of Lakewood in Pierce County is home to one of the highest concentrations of these oak trees in Washington state, once part of a vast oak prairie stretching beyond Pierce County into Thurston, Lewis and Skamania counties, then on into Oregon. There are isolated groves of these oak-prairies around Puget Sound as well in Shelton, Port Townsend, and Whidbey Island. The town of Oak Harbor on Whidbey proudly exclaims its oaken character, providing a map of the towns catalogued oak trees, and serious protections for these trees. Their resident Garry Oak Society successfully created a culture of appreciation for the gnarled specimens that dot the town. The state of Washington designates oak stands critical habitat for conservation, and in 2020-2022, I was a part of an effort to develop priority tree protections for Lakewood’s oak trees. 

None of this has stopped the proliferation of warehouses in Pierce County, who often set up shop on prime oak habitat. 

During the covid pandemic, a global logistics market that was hurdling towards more online shopping went over a ledge. Millions of people were stuck and home, and a new warehouse boom began. WallStreet firms read the writing on the wall, and invested big in logistics. Private Equity and investment firms rallied behind a new concept: the speculative warehouse. That is a warehouse built with the hope of attracting tenants. Many of these warehouses have been built and sit empty in Lakewood.

In 2023, Lakewood activist Christina Manetti saw her worst fears realized. She had sparked the effort to save Lakewood’s Garry Oaks after learning of a speculative warehouse slated for the Springbrook neighborhood that would cut down over 50 oak trees in the floodplain of Clover Creek. Some of these trees were over 150 years old. Bisected by I-5 and the McChord Air Force Base, Springbrook is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Pierce County, and is considered overburdened by air pollution. In spite of protests, the project broke ground, and put the oaks under the axe. This marked a string of defeats for oak activists in Pierce county, as we watched concrete and cement seal over our aquifer for more Wall Street speculation for the fourth or fifth time. In spite of protections for the rare Prairie Oaks, our laws do not allow us to truly get in the way of capitalism. The developers pay minor mitigation fees, and the habitat is lost for the next hundred years. 

The State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA) allows a permitting body (city or county) to authorize an environmental review and request mitigation. It also authorizes these bodies to waive this process via a determination of non-significance. 

As chair of TDSA’s Ecosocialist committee, I learned of a proposal to build one of the largest warehouses in Washington state in south Tacoma, and organized our small membership to build opposition to the project. We knocked doors and drove turnout to a public hearing, where we learned just how far along the project already was.

The Bridge Industrial Warehouse was fast-tracked by the city of Tacoma as the lead permitting agency, and we quickly learned the limit of the state’s environmental protections laws. The project, which is now under construction, seals over even more of our non-glacially fed sole source aquifer with 2.5 million square feet of warehouse. We had no path within the law to defeat the warehouse. 

Front and Centered, a Washington-based legislative advocacy group introduced a bill in 2023 that would have created a lever to stop the Springbrook and Bridge Industrial warehouses. The CURB Act would effectively create a veto option for communities suffering from the cumulative effects of environmental harm. Lack of tree canopy and green space, air pollution from I-5 and Air Force Base McChord, and the existing burden of polluting industry would all be taken into account, as well as public voice. This bill did not make it to the house floor for a vote, in spite of democratic party control of the house, senate, and governor’s office. 

Bridge Industrial, the company behind the South Tacoma warehouse, rode a new trend: developing polluted land. Companies like BI offer municipalities a path to clean-up EPA-designated pollution sites that they couldn’t afford to remediate on their own. The “South Tacoma swamps”, where BI is constructing its mega-warehouse, is one such EPA superfund site, a former dumping ground for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail company. Companies like BI also peddle public safety, turning sites that function as homeless encampments and illegal dumps into trucking, concrete, and jobs. While this makes communities shudder, this offer makes neoliberal politicians and economic planners salivate. Under this form of capitalism, all economic growth is considered good growth, and even helps fund the government through new tax revenue to appease even some moderate social democrats. Never mind that they’re allowing Wall Street to carve up our communities and economic destinies how they please. 

Neoliberal economics has been the name of the game for some time in the county. Under the leadership of the Master Builders Association, a powerful developer lobbying group, Pierce County has consistently chosen to forget environmental protections in favor of economic development. The MBA fielded several County Charter Review candidates this cycle, and until recently held the seat of County Executive under their lobbyist Bruce Dammier. The unincorporated Pierce County community of Fredrickson is a prime example of this legacy. Designated a new industrial and logistics hub, Fredrickson today is more asphalt than anything else. Here the headwaters of Clover Creek, once the main drinking water source for the city of Tacoma, is besieged by a massive Amazon warehouse, Boeing plant, and the Niagara bottling facility, devastating the natural recharge of the aquifer and causing dry conditions downstream. 

A preemptive tool granted to municipalities is zoning. It was industrial/light commercial zoning that created the modern Fredrickson. Municipalities are granted this level of planning, if done ahead of time. Zoning cannot be changed once an investor has submitted a project, no matter how much the locals dislike it. This is playing out today in Dupont, where the city will have the distinct embarrassment of having a warehouse built directly across from their city hall, destroying over 20 acres of forest and a section of the beloved Sequalitchew Creek Trail. The Dupont West project, another speculative warehouse, is a product of poor planning, loopholes in regulation, a polluted site, and a city leadership afraid to confront an economic giant. My watershed-based advocacy organization, the Clover Creek Restoration Alliance, organized against the Dupont West project, which was unanimously opposed by the town residents. Large projects with environmental impacts like Dupont West are arbitrated by an appointed judge called a hearing examiner, who reviews state law, as well as county and city code to determine the legality of a project. During this time, public comment is accepted into the record as a part of the consideration. On rare occasions, members of the public are able to persuade hearing examiners that development proposals are not consistent with the law and must be rejected. More commonly, mitigation measures are recommended and projects are approved. In the case of Dupont West, the project is to be on a site steeped in history, the site of the first Methodist Mission in the state, as well as the first Fourth of July Celebration in the Washington territory and thousands of years of indigenous history primarily associated with the modern Nisqually tribe. The hearing examiner ruled that the project be approved, but ordered the developer to provide a small buffer around the historic mission marker as mitigation. The historic Methodist Mission Marker will now be cartoonishly placed as an island amidst a sea of asphalt. 

The last option available to cities is that of eminent domain, a power to force the sale of private property for the public good. While we made a strong case for the city of Dupont to do so, the timid town councilors refused to consider this in spite of public support, fearing the financial burden and a potential legal battle. 

As a solely rain-fed system, the watershed I advocate for, the Clover-Chambers watershed, is uniquely harmed by these warehouse projects. The impervious surfaces created by large buildings, asphalt, and even the non-native turf grasses repel the water needed to replenish our wells and flush them into storm drain and retention ponds, picking up pollutants like the salmon-killer 6-PPD, found in most tire dust, along the way. Add in the state of drought we find ourselves in today, with rainfall at 50% of average (75% is considered drought conditions), and we find ourselves in a water crisis. Lakewood, Spanaway, Dupont, JBLM, and Parkland all rely on water drawn from aquifer wells. Tacoma also considers the aquifer its back-up water supply, should water from the Green River run low. Warehouse impacts are being felt in the rest of the county as well, like in Puyallup, where the Puyallup tribe has filed an appeal against the city and a new mega-warehouse that would pave over critical farmland. To neighboring King County, we also must remember the loss of the farmlands in the Kent valley, which are now almost entirely warehouses. 

As climate change worsens, it’s expected that a majority of alpine glaciers will vanish in the next 25-50 years, meaning more water demand and less availability from here on out. Global temperatures are rising as well, as is population and demand for electricity. There is absolutely more that can be done for mitigation. Warehouses are a blank canvass for the production of solar energy. Permeable pavement and eco-friendly design like green roofs, tree retention, native landscaping, or even submerged structures would reduce the blight on the environment. And at the core of the issue, communities need to be able to democratically plan the communities they live in, and if needed, reject economic plunder. Under the madness of capitalist development, we must stop condemning our future to a hydrophobic, polluting, heat island Warehouse Hell.

by Sean Arent

By: Kristin Daniel

[Editor’s note: Detroit and Huron Valley DSAers fanned out across the metro area November 22 to support Starbucks workers — especially those on strike — in our biggest labor solidarity action since picketing with the Marathon Teamsters last year. DSAers picketed and leafleted at Starbucks in Ypsilanti, on 8 Mile, in Royal Oak, and on the East Side, with groups of comrades self-organizing to hold down the lines. The struck store in Ypsilanti has been completely closed since November 20, with management giving up on trying to reopen.

[As the national Starbucks strike continues, check DSA’s Labor Working group Slack for future actions.]

As the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) unfair labor strike continues into its second week, hundreds more baristas from over 30 additional stores have joined the picket line nationwide. The Carpenter Road location in Ypsilanti is the first location in Michigan to officially join the strike, and more locations in Southeast Michigan are planning to join the strike in waves over the next few weeks.

“We’re going to have a bunch of stores around here also joining the fight,” noted Topanga Hass, a barista, strike captain, and bargaining delegate from Carpenter Road. Topanga has been helping to coordinate strategy.

SBWU is on strike demanding a fair first union contract and protesting more than 700 unresolved unfair labor practice charges. Damien, another strike captain, said at their location, “management has been kind of a nightmare. Lots of really direct as well as subtle ways with the different union-busting tactics, and just straight-up incompetence.”

$96 MILLION FOR CEO

This strike is in part attempting to address the fact that Starbucks has a higher CEO-to-worker pay gap than any other business in the S&P 500; baristas are demanding higher take-home pay. The median Starbucks worker makes $14,674 a year, while Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol was granted a $96 million pay package for 2024.

SBWU’s demands could be met with just the cost of a single day’s sales, but Starbucks claims that workers are adequately compensated when benefits are included. However, many baristas are scheduled just under the number of hours required to qualify for benefits. “I can’t save money. I’m not paying bills properly. It’s really hard,” said Angie, one of the striking baristas.

Besides unfair labor practices and low wages, the baristas at Carpenter Road are fighting for fairer scheduling. Isabella, a barista and shift supervisor, said, “We tend to have the issue of getting either less hours than what we want or more hours than we want.” This, paired with the fact that “a lot of [the baristas] are definitely overworked, and this store specifically has been really understaffed,” has led to high turnover.

Angie explained that many baristas have multiple jobs or are also students, and the inconsistent and unfair scheduling makes it unsustainable to stay at Starbucks: “They’ll hire people, have them put in their availability, and then schedule them outside their availability, so those people quit.” These scheduling issues have also led to constant short-staffing, where the baristas are “expected to have one person do the work of five people for very low pay…the newer people get overwhelmed by how much is going on and they quit.” When baristas have tried to resolve these issues directly with management, they are typically swept under the rug and ignored.

Many baristas want to draw attention to how many of their concerns also impact customers. Understaffing leads to longer wait times, but some problems could be even more dire. Angie said she has seen many baristas “being threatened for calling out sick, which happens a lot, which is a massive problem because by health regulations you can’t come in when you’re throwing up, when you have the flu. Some people were pressured to come in when they had Covid.”

Similarly, disabilities are not being handled appropriately, according to workers. Damien said, “At our store specifically, our previous manager, who just left, was making a lot of moves against individuals who were using their disability support and various accommodations. She was being incredibly harsh or downright demeaning regarding how those were implemented and made a point to absolutely put on blast the individuals who needed those accommodations, for no reason. It was very cruel.”

SCORCHED EARTH UNION BUSTER

The union has filed over 125 unfair labor practice charges, leading the National Labor Relations Board to declare that Starbucks “engaged in a scorched earth campaign and pattern of misconduct in response to union organizing at its stores across the United States.”

Still, the baristas at Carpenter Road and across Southeast Michigan are ready for the fight. The experience has led to a palpable feeling of solidarity. “Working with the union has been awesome. It’s been great to be a part of this and learn more about community building and being able to gather around with my fellow workers and being able to support them,” Damien said.

When asked what she wants the public to take away from the strike, Angie said she wanted everyone to realize that “the working class deserves better. Baristas deserve better. Everyone deserves to be paid better, better working conditions, and the union should be supported, always.”

To support the union and the baristas on strike, consider some of the following action items proposed by the baristas:

• Do not cross the picket line. Do not purchase coffee, gift cards, or any other product from Starbucks during the duration of the strike. Spread the message to friends and family; use social media to advertise your stand.
• Sign the No Contract, No Coffee pledge so that the baristas can demonstrate public support while in negotiations.
• Financially support SBWU baristas striking in Ypsilanti via GoFundMe.
• Join local actions, including pickets, sit-ins, and rallies. Stay tuned for Detroit DSA’s next support action.
• Stay up to date through social media (@sbworkersunited on social media and @carpenterroadswu on instagram for the Ypsilanti location).

Kristin Daniel is a member of Metro Detroit Democratic Socialists of America.

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Brewed for Solidarity: DSA Starbucks Strike Support Gains Steam was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As the attacks on federal workers escalate, and the necessity becomes clearer for disruptive mass action that confronts the oligarchs, the East Bay DSA / Federal Unionists Network (FUN) / Fighting Oligarchy campaign has accelerated its solidarity activities in support of federal workers and begun building the infrastructure needed for mass action. The FUN campaign is linking this work to the DSA National Labor Commission May Day group. Through organizing trainings, social gatherings, canvasses at federal buildings, and turnout to mass events, the campaign is organizing toward May Day 2028.

Because the campaign has relationships with key labor organizations and Bay Area resistance groups, is organizing turnout for mass actions, deepening our solidarity work connecting local and federal labor struggles, and is the priority campaign for the EBDSA chapter, it is well-positioned and resourced to contribute to the local organizing necessary to build a May Day 2028 event at the required scale.

On the front lines

It’s increasingly clear that federal workers are on the front lines of the oligarchy’s plan to impose a fascist regime. The oligarchs serve and profit from Trump’s corrupt “personalized authoritarianism.” The fascist and oligarchic program depends on transforming and controlling the federal workforce— to place all federal government workers under the ideological and personal control of Trump. Billionaires benefit economically through privatization and government contracts, as these oligarchs influence policy and executive decisions. 

Here are key elements of the authoritarian oligarchy:

• Elon Musk owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of US households and has been granted a $1trillion paycheck;

• The Top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 93%;

• Concentration of ownership is unprecedented: A handful of multi-national corporations in healthcare, transportation, financial services, and Big Tech determine what is produced, how employees are treated and the prices we pay;

• Three Wall Street firms—BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street—are major stockholders in 95% of S&P 500 corporations. (Bernie Sanders, “Fighting Oligarchy,” 2025)

As socialists we assert the right of workers to make the economic and political decisions that determine our lives, so we must organize against the oligarchy that destroys workers’ power. Through the FUN campaign we show solidarity with federal workers and oppose the attacks on them.

The attacks on federal workers include forced work without pay during the government shutdown, furloughs, lay-offs, and elimination of all collective bargaining rights for Veterans Administration workers. FUN campaigners hear stories about these attacks when they participate in weekly canvass outside federal buildings.

Turnout focus
A focus of the campaign this Fall has been turnout to mass events. These included a Labor Day event in Richmond that FUN activists helped organize, and at which two federal workers spoke. Thirty DSAers participated and five hundred workers rallied and marched, led by the United Teachers of Richmond and Contra Costa Central Labor Council.

With more lead time and a multi-pronged organizing program, including one-on-one recruitment, phone banks, and digital outreach, the FUN/Fighting Oligarchy campaign generated an even larger turnout of DSAers to the No Kings action on October 14th. Over one hundred members participated in Oakland, where a sea of “Fighting Oligarchy” signs were distributed and a federal worker spoke. The campaign brought class politics to this big tent event.

The FUN campaign participation in these events reflects the campaign’s objectives to help shape the politics of the Bay Area resistance movement and to link federal and local struggles. At the No Kings event, FUN joined contingents from SEIU 1021 and the Alameda Central Labor Council. As with the Labor Day action, the chapter’s FUN campaign organized the chapter to endorse No Kings.

"Our campaign contacted the lead organizers for No Kings 2 in Oakland and asked them to feature a speaker from the FUN," said Richard Marcantonio, a campaign co-chair. "Our request was initially declined—in fairness it was a late ask and a short speakers list—but as the event approached, the FUN's Bay Area organizing committee chair was invited to speak. Coming in the midst of the government shutdown, her remarks were powerful."

A primary objective of the campaign is to organize federal workers, for which the canvasses at federal buildings are an important tactic. In addition, experienced EBDSA organizers help train federal workers to recruit their co-workers to the Federal Unionist Network. Most recently, a "conversations with co-workers” workshop on November 9th addressed how joining the FUN is a key to combat the frustrations of how federal workers are treated in the workplace. These are ways for DSAers to help grow the FUN. 

Josh Z, a leader in the Federal Unionists Network described the impact of these trainings: “The organizing trainings provide an important opportunity for federal workers can come together, to discuss our goals and intentions and how to best protect and fight to expand critical civil services. They also provide an opportunity to bring in federal workers that are new to workplace activism and build more solidarity and strength in the federal sector.”

Social events are also part of the organizing program, in the form of federal worker happy hours organized by the Federal Unionist Network and supported by the FUN campaign, and monthly “Union Takeover” nights at a local bar where workers from different unions gather to build solidarity.

To Josh, “The FUN is about a democratic movement of rank-and-file federal workers across unions and agencies. The social events provide opportunities to meet more federal unionists, to learn about the issues and challenges that are being faced across agencies and helps us to build community.”

Two to three million federal workers is a huge workforce, and as Josh pointed out: “If we could get organized, we would have a tremendous amount of power and influence, and getting to know each other is a key part of starting to build together.”

Election night watch party for Mamdani

Combining the social with the political and coalitional, the FUN campaign joined with the electoral committee of EBDSA to organize an election night watch party that turned into a full house roaring celebration of DSAer Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral election. 

Dani H, organizing lead for the FUN campaign, who built turn-out for the watch party, commented that “the electric energy and over 200 people who turned out to watch Mamdani's historic win proves the Bay is ready to take on a campaign of this magnitude.” Dani also noted that we have to remember who this victory belongs to—"the people of New York.” She reflected on the feeling in the room: “It was a joy to be in community that night with so many people ready for change, and I hope to see each and every person who attended activated in the fight to elect candidates who work for us, not the billionaires.” The joint was rocking with pride and solidarity, the result of one-on-one recruitment of members and non-members. Short speeches included a pitch to join the FUN. 

Inspired by the momentum of Mamdani’s victory, the campaign is gearing up for more mass action, outreach to federal workers, one-on-one recruitment, and increasing the organizing chops of EBDSA.

The FUN campaign urges DSA members around the state to join them as they build toward a big action on May 1, 2026, and ultimately toward a General Strike on May Day 2028. Along the way, let’s keep the struggles of federal workers front and center, including the VA workers fighting to re-gain their union rights.

DSA chapters around the country have come a long way since I joined in 2020. With our local electoral project, DSA Los Angeles has elected four (of 15) members to the LA City Council, a council member in Burbank, and two members to the LAUSD school board. We also aided in the passage of rent control in Pasadena and a mansion tax in LA city.

Even with our huge successes over the last five years, it has been awe-inspiring to watch New York City DSA’s electoral project over that same period. Though Zohran Mamdani’s ascendance is often described as meteoric, DSA members know it was the result of almost a decade of tireless work and focus.

Early in 2025, I decided to celebrate my birthday in late October by taking a trip with my partner to New York City. It felt miraculous that our trip would be just two weeks before one of the most important elections of my lifetime.

Hello, New York

On our third night in Williamsburg, three floors above the audible din of honking and chatter, I sat on the bed in our tiny hotel room, with its two coat hooks for a closet and showerhead that hung almost directly above the toilet, and opened Mamdani’s campaign site. The plan was to canvass the next day in North Brooklyn with my friend, Álvaro López, an NYC-DSA member and coordinator of their electoral committee. 

Shortly after selecting a preferred time, date, and region for a canvass, I received an automated notice that I’d be assigned a precise kickoff location and two canvassing leads. The promised confirmation came just a few minutes later.

The training

The subway station near our hotel had ambient music playing throughout the platform, with accompanying vocals that sounded like Shakira falling over and over into a manhole. The sound aptly mirrored my nervous energy waiting to board the L train toward my shift the next morning.

Once a group of about 15 people gathered at our designated kickoff location, two field leads began to hand out file folders with a script and literature to each volunteer. With literature in hand, one of the leads asked our group to share why we were out canvassing that day. A woman spoke of how she’d just met Zohran the previous week, and their conversation was so inspiring that she immediately signed up for a shift. I also raised my hand to share my story.

I was canvassing that day, as an Angeleno, because the race for New York’s mayor was bigger than one city. People around the country were waiting in anticipation for proof that organized people can beat organized money, and I was there because Zohran, with his incredible team and army of volunteers, had reminded us that we can do more than hope for a better future. Not since Bernie Sanders’s Nevada primary victory in 2020 had I felt such optimism. 

The training was very similar to the canvasses we hold in DSA-LA, which start by modelling a typical conversation with voters. Each interaction should start by asking the voter about their needs, connecting those needs to Mamdani’s platform, and asking whether they would be voting for him. In closing, we work together with each person to craft a plan to vote on or before election day. Once being assigned turf, you are also added to a WhatsApp Community thread for your neighborhood. The Bushwick thread alone had almost 1,000 members. WhatsApp Communities are useful because they allow organizers to create unique group chats for each locale, and quickly call on volunteers to show up for a canvass.

The doors

I’ve canvassed in California, Nevada, Arizona, and now New York. In each of these places, it’s hard to overlook how much working class people are suffering. My conversations in Bushwick, with the exception of a few charming New York accents, were almost identical to those in other states. I wish there wasn’t a familiarity in each cracked wall, stained carpet, and dank hallway. Working people all over this country are crushed under the weight of their expenses, neglect of their landlords, and exploitation from their bosses, and they know they deserve better. Each person emitted an almost visible electricity when they learned I was canvassing for Mamdani, and were anxious to vote for someone who promised them more than the status quo.

Each time a volunteer records an interaction, or lack thereof, they paint a clearer and clearer picture on the canvas that makes up the campaign. I was humbled to be a small stroke in what we now know was a masterpiece.

An end, a beginning

As we wrapped up our shift and made our way to a local restaurant for lunch, we passed another canvass that was just getting started a few blocks away. It’s hard to describe the scale of the operation there without seeing it for yourself. 

On our walk, Álvaro would point to different street vendors and describe their daily routines. He noted how a repaved triangle now attracted local elders, and as a family packed into a van on the curb, he thoughtfully identified the origins of the patterns that made up their traditional dress. In that short walk I learned about a myriad of communities that had immigrated to this part of Brooklyn, and how those people keep New York alive. Despite media narratives about democratic socialists, our movement is made up of people who know so much and care so deeply about the communities around them. With purpose and conviction, and without compensation, they spend much of their time anonymously fighting to make their neighbors’ lives better.

On election night back home, I joined DSA-LA members packed into bars and venues across the city to share a potentially historic night together. Polls closed in New York and cheers erupted as people hugged, screamed, and jumped in excitement at the declared victory of a democratic socialist 3,000 miles away. Not long after, our own voters delivered an absolute blowout with the passage of Prop 50 in California. In a year marked by devastating fires, military occupation, and unrelenting ICE raids, it felt so damn good to celebrate something.

What’s next for the Left of the West?

New York is a dense place, with transit access to huge swaths of the city. Los Angeles, by contrast, is not only larger in area, but hosts everything from dense urbanity to shallow, suburban sprawl, and a connective tissue mostly woven with expansive highways. Our local chapter’s bounds encompass nearly all of LA County and its 88 different cities.

Despite the differences, there are elements of NYC-DSA’s mayoral campaign strategy that can work here. The chapter’s trust in volunteers and development of canvassing leads all over the city should serve as a model for how we run and scale our electoral projects. The expressive, crafted, and concise visual and verbal communications of Mamdani’s campaign can inspire our efforts here. The discipline to embark on a single, focused campaign brought thousands of new members into NYC-DSA. The use of a WhatsApp community to contact volunteers quickly is a model that we have used with success in DSA-LA’s daily ICE patrols.

For myself, questions still remain. How do we engage in electoral work that builds more power and organization for working class people in LA County and involves all our members? Do we engage in ballot measure campaigns across the county and state? Can we focus our efforts on winning State Assembly seats whose districts span multiple cities and offices hold vast resources from the 4th largest economy in the world?

One thing is certain: NYC-DSA proved that working class people can be the crafters of a future built for us. At 6:34 PM on November 4th, it felt incredible to be a democratic socialist. That feeling can continue as long as we commit ourselves to our work and each other.

Who would you rather see showing up in your neighborhood—heavily armed, masked men, snatching random neighbors peacefully going about their daily business, shoving them into unmarked cars and taking them away to unknown destinations? Or people in puffy fanciful animal costumes, surrounded by a crowd singing and dancing, carrying colorful banners and chanting funny slogans?

People living in a very wealthy neighborhood in San Francisco got the better of the deal on Saturday, November 15 when the second type of group appeared on the streets they call home. But then the rich usually get the better of any deal. This event, however, hinted that the deal wasn’t entirely favorable to them.

Sharpening the message

Looking to sharpen the message of the growing resistance movement, a coalition of labor and community organizations, including East Bay DSA, opened up a San Francisco front for a worldwide day of action, People Over Billionaires, in swanky Pacific Heights last weekend. Although plans to stage parallel actions in Los Angeles and San Diego were washed away by a hard rainstorm and threat of floods, the northern California demo provided enough inspiration for people, and consternation among the rich residents in their fancy houses, to make up for it. (The southern California actions were rescheduled for December 6.)

Members of East Bay DSA, working in coalition with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), SEIU 1021, the San Francisco Labor Council, East Bay Indivisible, Tenants Together and the Oil and Gas Action Network (OGAN), among others, assembled in well-groomed Alta Plaza Park. In front of a boisterous crowd of three hundred, speakers called for taxing the rich, protecting immigrants, affordable housing, supporting federal workers under attack by the Trump administration, and saving the planet from climate destruction. 

Then they marched several blocks through Pacific Heights to the rhythms of the Brass Liberation Orchestra, pausing in front of the homes of Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO; David Sacks, Trump’s crypto and AI adviser; and Shaun Maguire, right wing venture capitalist and DOGE wrecker. The crowd shared chants, songs, and ideas about whether billionaires should exist or not at each home before moving on. Here are a few images and comments from East Bay DSA comrades about their rally and march through one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in California.

Participant comments

David D., a retired union activist said, “Several hundred of us marched around Pacific Heights with banners and costumes and a brass band. We stopped, got loud and line-danced in front of Larry Ellison’s house. Pacific Heights doesn’t get a lot of marches, so a lot of heads turned. Quite a few people cheered us. There were more people of color at this than any anti-Trump event I’ve been to, mostly coming with ACCE.” 

According to Aleigha L., a substitute teacher, “This was my first ever organized march and my first time volunteering! All the people who came seemed very warm, excited, and motivated to get started. Even as a newbie I felt like it was clear what our aims were: to let billionaires know that real people in their city were not okay with their priorities and that we see the very real fallout of their "profitable" decisions. Many people we encountered as part of safety crew [security detail—ed.] were interested in or supportive of what we were doing. Those that weren't were the uber-wealthy who weren't used to seeing their neighborhood reflect the dissatisfaction of the general population. I hope everyone who marched and everyone who witnessed it sees our dedication to improving life for all Americans, and pursuing more empathetic, supportive communities!”

Mo K., a climate activist, noted, “What was impressive was a diverse group of working people coming together on the grounds of the people who are exploiting all of our labor and resources. Taking it to the billionaires was an amazing thing, to be at their doors and say to them we have the power to tax you, we’re taking back the power that’s ours, and you’re not going to get away with living your life, having your dinner parties, pretending that everything is normal while you’re busy destroying our lives and the world around us. To do all of this while being dressed up as squids and orcas and frogs and chickens and in pink, playing wonderful live music, with people’s art surrounding us, it was just joyous.”

And musician Bonnie L. added, “It was great to hear passionate, articulate rank-file union members and actual grassroots organizers speaking the truth that builds working class organization and power. It was fun to march with the participatory culture of our own brass band, flash dancers and street theater. This is the left wing, the class-based wing of the mobilizations that give us energy and hope. But I'd wager lots of us went away from this gathering of a few hundred wondering, ‘how do we build these politics, this working class culture into the current mass mobilizations of tens of thousands—and in turn, into organized power for a socialist future rather than an illusory democracy under Democratic Party leadership’?”

According to its organizers, this will not be the last event of this sort.