by Whitney D

The problem for workers in any public service job is that it’s all too common that managers and employers are one of more of the following flavors of failing leadership:

• careerists who will do anything to avoid rocking the boat- including failing their workers and the community – as long as they can stay in good favor with the political and economic power they align themselves with
• idealogues who think the “mission” of an organization is somehow separate from and superior to making sure they take care of their staff
• greedy CEOs who have figured out how to get rich under the pretense of helping others and could care less if they succeed as long as the check clears
• those who lack vision and hope because they are so beaten down by a system that protects and elevates everyone listed above

The people actually DOING the work- whether that’s being front lines in the community or supporting behind the scenes- are people who are there because they are driven by a higher sense of responsibility to the community. We are the ones seeing how the impressive plans that voters and donors and community members hear about come to fruition- or don’t.

And we should be screaming this from the mountaintops every chance we get.

When we are saying that the metaphorical house is on fire, it’s not just because we deserve better compensation and better working conditions (even though we absolutely do)- it’s because we recognize that burnout and compassion fatigue are real; that when bad policies prompt our coworkers to quit in droves and take their institutional knowledge with them, the community suffers; that chronic and intentional understaffing hurts those who we claim to serve; that we can’t properly advocate for the right resources and policies when disproportionate mental energy goes to wondering if we can pay our bills; that fear of retaliation for telling a boss their plan is harmful results in everyone suffering; that terrible working conditions for front line workers reflect terrible caretaking conditions of our most vulnerable; that our mental health suffers when we watch corruption and ineptitude permeate the choices of our bosses.

Two unions that have recently taken hold of this framing and run with it successfully are National Nurses United (NNU) and Austin Pets Alive Workers (APAW). NNU consistently includes addressing staffing shortages and the subsequent risks to patients in every demand and press hit. APAW has successfully framed their need for a union as “our working conditions are their [the animals’] living conditions.” They have taken hold of the narrative to build community support for their demands that extend beyond workers’ rights advocates so that members of the community connect to their cause. If, in these cases, nurses are saying they can’t take care of their patients and animal caregivers are saying animals in their care can’t be humanely cared for, their organizing and mobilizing and demanding now creates an open invitation to support from everyone else who identifies with their cause.

But why do this workplace by workplace when we all know we are stronger united? Austin needs a worker led public servant watchdog coalition. City of Austin and Travis County workers through AFSCME 1624, United Workers of Integral Care, National Nurses United, Texas State Employees Union, Education Austin, Austin EMS Association, Austin Pets Alive Workers, Austin Newsguild, and all other workers in public service and community oriented fields- we need to join together and make it known how our ability to serve the community is a direct result of how we are either empowered and respected or dismissed and degraded as workers. Until we band together and build a coalition of community members who stand by us, we will continue to shortchange our power as workers.

So how do we do this? Good community watchdog coalitions are intersectional, intergenerational, and multicultural. They are built on empowering workers and communities based on mutual interests and don’t make assumptions based on people’s political leanings. A strong coalition is open to people and not just organizations- they post information in public places and invite unorganized workers and nonworking community members to plug in. They stick to their value of community and host town halls where they listen as much as they talk; they conduct surveys to identify the social service gaps that the community has identified; they are constantly messaging their theory of change and using that to cross-pollinate with other groups. Good coalitions stay strong in their messaging that our organizing is just as much for the common good as it is for us as workers. And then they stick to that promise with the demands and campaigns they pursue.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I feel comfortable saying that most of us got into the labor movement to advance the common good and got into public service work to do the same. Let’s spell it out for everyone how the fates of both are inextricably tied and invite them to demand better of our bosses alongside us.

Whitney D has spent 20 years in public service of various kinds: teacher, school support staff, animal welfare non-profits, Austin Public Health and now Travis Country Health and Human Services. Like most public service workers, she (wisely) hasn’t done this with visions of wealth but because she wants to be able to make a respectable living while making a meaningful and positive impact in her community.

The post Public Service Unions Should Build Community Watchdog Coalitions first appeared on Red Fault.

Here’s your June NPC Newsletter! This month includes Summer Organizing Workshops, updates from the DSA International Committee, early bird registration for Socialism Conference, and more. Read on to get involved. 

And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more. 

• From Our Co-Chairs — Another Red Hot Summer Begins
• Summer Organizing Workshops
• RSVP for Sunday 6/30 Green New Deal call — Building for Power in Mass Transit
• Updates from the International Committee’s June General Body Meeting
• DSA at Socialism Conference 2024 — Early Bird Discount Until Friday 6/28
• Join DSA to Protest the DNC in Chicago!

From the National Political Committee — Another Red Hot Summer Begins

Happy Solstice! The longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere also marks the official beginning of another RED HOT SOCIALIST SUMMER, and things are definitely heating up. 

Here at the national level, we have National Political Committee members, national working group leaders, full-time staffers, and DSA members from all across the country getting ready to organize a strong DSA presence at some of the summer’s biggest events. 

In August, we’ll be on the ground protesting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to demand a better option than Joe Biden and the Democratic Party establishment aiding and abetting the ongoing genocide in Gaza. (Scroll down for a bit more information and to find out how you can sign up to participate!)

On Labor Day weekend, we’ll be back in town (at the same venue, even!) for Socialism Conference, an annual gathering hosted by Haymarket Publishers where socialist organizers and activists from around the USA and the world get together, talk strategy and theory, and address both short and long-term plans to build a better world. This year, DSA will be hosting a special day-long mini-conference on Friday, August 30th, where we’ll hear panelists and speakers from across our organization, dig into debriefs of some of our biggest campaigns, engage in trainings and meet-and-greets with fellow DSA members, and so much more, all before joining the full conference alongside socialists from many other organizations. Register before June 28th for an early bird price, and be sure to tick the “DSA Member” box in the registration form to receive invites to all DSA-specific events! 

Red Hot Summer is, once again, not just a figure of speech. Heat waves are taking their toll on vulnerable populations around the world, and conditions are ripe for widespread wildfires and ocean-borne disasters like hurricanes and typhoons. It is crucial that we remember that it does not have to be like this, and when we engage in collective action, we can and do change the entire course of history. Against the capitalists causing the climate crisis, we can organize to win Green New Deal demands from coast to coast, like public power, free transit, and green social housing — and beyond that, the socialist future we all need to survive and thrive. The future is a public good!

If you’re not organizing with your local DSA chapter, there’s no moment like the present to jump in with both feet, and if you are already organizing, make an ask of your friends, neighbors and coworkers to join you in DSA work. Whether you’re knocking doors for a socialist candidate, organizing with coworkers against your terrible boss, talking to fellow tenants about your shared slumlord, changing a brake light to help a neighbor avoid a dangerous interaction with the police, or taking to the streets with millions of people from around the world to demand a free Palestine, organizing is the antidote to despair; socialism is the antidote to barbarism. 

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

Summer Organizing Workshops

Summer is a great chance to get out into your community and enjoy the weather, so it’s also a great opportunity for your chapter to meet people & bring them into DSA. Take your chapter outreach, planning, & member development work to the next level this summer by working with our Field Organizers at the DSA Summer Organizing Workshops Series!

At these trainings and workshops, organizers will go through the fundamentals of organization and planning. You’ll also get a chance to discuss your perspectives and organizing challenges with fellow chapter members from around the country. Bring your whole chapter for fun in the (virtual) sun!

RSVP for Sunday 6/30 Green New Deal call — Building for Power in Mass Transit

DSA chapters around the country are organizing for a Green New Deal — campaigning for social housing, public power, and mass transit. Hear from Building for Power campaigns about organizing for mass public transit with labor and socialists in office! Panelists include Anne Marie Drolet (TWU 320 Los Angeles), Richard Marcantonio (People’s Transit Alliance campaign, East Bay DSA member), Samantha Evans (Fix The CTA Campaign, Chicago DSA member), and Lillian Brents (President of ATU Local 1447, Louisville).

Updates from the International Committee’s June General Body Meeting

More than a hundred DSA International Committee (IC) members gathered for a general body meeting on June 10 and heard reports from all subcommittees, with in-depth updates on Palestine solidarity organizing on campuses, delegation reports from a youth-led peace brigade in Colombia and a people’s tribunal on the Philippines held in Belgium, plus a meeting of socialists in France. 

The GBM also highlighted the upcoming No to NATO Summit and protest coming up in Washington DC July 6-7 that DSA is co-sponsoring. And we heard from members of the DSA delegation to observe the Mexican election. 

To learn more and get involved, join the IC and consider becoming a chapter liaison!

DSA at Socialism Conference 2024 — Early Bird Discount Until Friday 6/28

Reminder to register for Socialism 2024 by Friday 6/28 to get the early bird discounted rate! DSA is a sponsor and will be hosting programming at the conference. Make sure to register today and click the DSA member button on the registration page so we can send you more info!

Join DSA to Protest the DNC in Chicago!

The National Political Committee (NPC) has voted to join the anti-war protests at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), which will be held in Chicago from August 19th-22nd. We must make clear that working-class people do not support the United States’s active complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. DSA will be organizing and mobilizing thousands of people in Chicago and across the country to make this message loud and clear. 

If you’re interested in attending the DNC protest in Chicago, want to help with the planning, or host a solidarity action in your local chapter, please fill out this form!

The post Another Red Hot Socialist Summer Begins — Your National Political Committee newsletter appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Although we had been working alongside the local pro-Palestine movement prior to March, our chapter membership’s approval of the Palestine Solidarity Priority Project Proposal has allowed us to further and more formally immerse ourselves in the local struggle for Palestinian liberation. Over these past three months we have had some major wins along with a few setbacks that triggered some moments of reflection, but first we will present a quick overview of the proposal defining our work and setting our goals.

Our proposal has two pillars of activities for our chapter to engage in; the first is escalating our participation in the Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community (hereafter referred to as CPAC) by mobilizing our members to events and taking part in meetings, the second is undergoing our own flyering/canvassing campaign in local neighborhoods where we think people would be receptive to a pro-Palestine message. Alongside these efforts we are to create a new set of Cleveland DSA shirts with a design reflective of this project’s focus on Palestine. To oversee this work the proposal sets up the following leadership roles; Communications Coordinator, Community Outreach Coordinator, Mobilization Lead and Project Administrator.

March

In March our chapter hit the ground running by mobilizing to CPAC events and meetings, the first of which was the car caravan on March 9^th. The caravan was made up of some hundred or so vehicles with all sorts of Palestinian paraphernalia ranging from Palestine flags to car accessories with keffiyeh designs. The caravan made its way along the local highway toward the Hopkins airport, disrupting traffic all along the way. Upon arriving at the airport entrance we were greeted with a police checkpoint that prevented entry into the airport itself so the protest pivoted to shutting down the airport entrance from the highway for the next several hours. We also joined CPAC on March 30^th for the rally and march through Cleveland for “Land Day”, a commemoration to the mass protests that broke out in 1976 in Palestine when the Israeli government expropriated thousands of dunams of Palestinian land.

Our work with CPAC was not limited to just protests, we also pursued a more targeted campaign at the Cleveland City Council, demanding that they pass a ceasefire resolution for Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Although our members had been attending these council meetings and giving public comments alongside CPAC members prior to the project’s start, its passage gave the newly appointed project leadership the ability to officially mobilize our members to join in the pressure campaign. After weeks of public comments from both our chapter’s members as well as CPAC members, on March 25 our efforts were rewarded when the council finally gave in to our demands and passed a ceasefire resolution! In parallel with CPAC’s Cleveland based pressure campaign our chapter had also been spearheading our own similar campaign for a ceasefire resolution in the Cleveland Heights City Council which followed suit with the passage of a resolution on April 1.

But perhaps the most intense moment in our chapter’s March solidarity work would have to have been the arrest and subsequent jailing of two of our members. These comrades had been “wheat pasting” some pro-Palestine posters up around the Case Western campus late one evening when they were spotted by the university police and detained. After some intense questioning the officers placed them in the County jail where they were held over the weekend under trumped up charges. But, after inundating their office with calls demanding for our comrades’ release, they were set free with the charges against them dropped!

April

In April at the general meeting our chapter voted in the formal leadership group as defined by the original proposal, who were then onboarded and took over the execution of project tasks. One of which was assisting in our chapter’s fundraising concert at Happy Dog on 4/19. In total the concert raised $2,128 which was then donated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is a UN body that was set up in 1949 to support the Palestinian refugee population. Our Palestine Project leadership team also produced an Anti-Zionist resolution to be reviewed and discussed by the rest of membership with the hopes of a successful vote by the general body in the coming months.

On the CPAC front our recent success with the Cleveland City Council resolution had us shift our focus on a new target, Cuyahoga County Council, and with it a new, perhaps more substantive demand, divestment from Israeli bonds. These bonds are, in effect, a loan to the Israeli government and our county currently has around $16 million “invested” in these bonds. With the new target and goal also came a new tactic. Unlike Cleveland City Council’s 10 speaker maximum, County Council had no limit to speakers for public comment which meant if we were able to mobilize enough speakers we would be able to filibuster the meeting. So with this new tactical approach in mind we and CPAC intensified our mobilization efforts not just for attendance to the meetings but also to give public comments that would take up as much of the meeting time as possible.

Meanwhile on the local university campus of Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), the CWRU SJP chapter was facing suspension for posting pro-Palestine flyers around campus. We released a statement alongside other CPAC member groups denouncing the CWRU administration’s actions. However this suspension, rather than coercing the students into compliance, only served to further radicalize the rest of the student body. It was in this environment of strained tensions between the university administration and its students that on April 29th the students began the CWRU encampment.

May

May started off with the CWRU encampment already in full swing, with events like teach-ins, crafting and even a concert to occupy the students and community member participants. Although the initial set up of the encampment at the end of April saw some intense police aggression against the students and community members (a DSA comrade was arrested briefly before being released by officers due to “having nowhere to hold them”) the bulk of subsequent antagonism came from a tiny group of hostile counter protesters. Local rabid Zionists Alex Popovich and Lawrence, well known for their uncanny ability to reach new depths of depravity in their remarks and protest symbols, set up shop each day on the sidewalk just outside the KSL Oval where the encampment was set up. They would blast Zionist propaganda through speakers and yell insults and threats at the students and supportive community members. In this tense environment of combative counter protesters, prowling police from various local departments and looming reprisals from a hostile university administration the students managed to hold strong together in their tents for over a week even participating in the Rally for Rafah that CPAC organized at the Wade Lagoon. Finally on March 9^th, after also setting up a sit in at the administrative building overnight, the encampment disbanded. In the immediate aftermath the administration hit several of the students with “code of conduct violations” for their participation in the encampment and even went as far as denying them the ability to attend graduation and withholding their diplomas. Both Cleveland DSA and CPAC have been assisting these students fight the administration by offering legal aid and pressuring the administration with phone calls and emails with some successes in negotiations, but the situation is ongoing.

Meanwhile, back at the County Council, CPAC and DSA’s efforts at mobilizing were bearing fruit as the number of attendees as well as speakers for public comment continued to grow with each passing meeting. Our demands to the council members also became more defined with the following 3 demands; passing an ordinance that prohibits investment in any foreign government, providing a report that outlined the “due diligence process” that led to the investment and reinvestment into these Israeli bonds and finally the creation of an investment review board that is headed by community members to scrutinize and, if needed, reject investment decisions made by the county. We were also able to squeeze in a disruption of a mayor Bibb event going on at a local brewery after a council session, which ended with him sheepishly retreating from his event and CPAC commandeering the podium to bring awareness to the ongoing atrocities Israel was committing in Gaza.

In Cleveland DSA specific news we completed revising the aforementioned Anti-Zionist resolution to better reflect the chapter’s views and intentions with its current and future Palestine solidarity work, and ended up passing the resolution at the June general meeting. Given the significant changes that had occurred in the political landscape around Palestine solidarity work, the leadership team also put together a list of amendments to the original proposal which was also passed in the subsequent June general meeting. Finally we hosted a Protest 101 teach-in event to go over some best practices when organizing and participating in protests for our members and CPAC members on 5/18.

As we hit the halfway point for our 6 month project the leadership team has been reflecting on these events as well as the unfinished work that is outlined in the proposal to chart out the course for the remaining 3 months. Although the full liberation of Palestine and its people, both within its borders and exiled across the world, is still far off in the distance, it is our chapter’s hope that our ongoing local work as well as the work being undertaken by our fellow chapters across the country and the broader left movement will drive our world closer to a just conclusion to this century long struggle for liberation.

Free Palestine!

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Note: A previous version of this article stated that Cleveland DSA had officially joined the Palestine coalition with the passage of our priority proposal in March 2024. A prior resolution passed in January 2024 had already “affirmed our participation in” the coalition, itself following two months of chapter participation in Palestine rallies. The March priority proposal called on Cleveland DSA to “escalate and centralize our contribution to the Cleveland Palestine coalition”.

The post Palestine Solidarity Priority Project: Half point retrospective appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.