All across the US, students at colleges and universities have spent over a year organizing to protest the ongoing ethnic cleansing Israel is currently committing in Gaza. The killing and maiming of over 100,000 men, women, and children. The forced relocation of hundreds of thousands. The targeted attacks on schools and hospitals. The blockade of food, water, and medicine to civilians. To billions around the world, if it walks like a genocide, and talks like a genocide, then chances are, well, you get it. In light of this, students across the country have organized sit-ins, encampments, pressure campaigns, and more to try and get their respective institutions to stop any sort of direct or indirect support of the Israeli war machine.

In response to these student efforts, institutions such as Columbia, Harvard, Swarthmore, and Michigan have cracked down hard against anti-genocide protests. They’ve taken drastic measures like creating new rules to tighten students’ right to protest, banning students from libraries, suspending or expelling students, firing faculty, and calling in cops to make arrests. 

Here in Maine, we feel like we’re kept safely away from much of what happens nationally, but that is a myth we feed ourselves. At Bowdoin College in Brunswick, there has been a lively organizing effort to get the school to divest from arms companies and denounce the scholasticide taking place in Gaza. In May 2024, with a supermajority, students passed a referendum demanding the school take action. The administration refused to act. In February 2025, students organized an encampment on campus to pressure the administration to take the referendum results seriously. After five days, the encampment came to an end, with 40 students put on probation, 8 temporarily suspended, and the college’s SJP chapter banned.

All of this happened under the new Trump 2.0 administration, which has ramped up pressure on colleges and universities to crack down even harder on anti-genocide protestors. The administration has investigated and threatened to withhold funding from a number of schools deemed to be too soft on student organizers. And, in a move that has sent shockwaves across the civic and legal world, has sent in ICE to detain and attempt to deport a number of students here on Visas who have allegedly attended pro-Palestinian actions on campuses. 

On March 27, those efforts hit Maine when a congressional committee sent Bowdoin a letter announcing that they were looking into whether the college had adequately addressed “antisemitisim” on its campus, specifically referencing the recent encampment that called for an end to scholasticide in Gaza. They demanded to know what disciplinary actions had been taken against students who partook. That committee considers “antisemitism” not only as actions that target Jews and Judaism, but also absurdly extends it to anything that targets the nation-state of Israel and “Zionism”.

Although Bowdoin unjustly punished anti-genocide activists, and refuses to take any concrete measures to stop a genocide in which they admit they are financially invested, they have also not followed other institutions that have happily acquiesced to outside demands to viciously repress the college community. Moreover, Bowdoin’s president, Safa Zaki, signed onto a letter from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) on April 22 openly challenging the Trump administration’s attempts to stifle academic freedom. 

And on May 2, the Bowdoin chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a letter, signed by over 180 current and former Bowdoin faculty and staff, encouraging the college to continue standing up to threats to the community. Among other things, they pledged support to all efforts to challenge threats to higher education, refuse to comply with demands for names, affirm fundamental civil rights, and “reject cynical invocations of antisemitism that undermine democratic norms, stifle critical dialogue, and strip individuals of their rights.”

What comes next, no one is sure. We know that the Trump administration is not as strong as it seems, and that it is vulnerable to resistance. But we also know that it will not give up without a fight. The government is still committed to destroying higher education, and there’s always the risk that college leaders might succumb to the onslaught and throw their community under the bus – especially now that summer is coming and students and staff won’t be as present to hold the administration accountable.

Which is why Mainers and Bowdoin alumni need to keep making their voices heard. People can contact the Office of the President at Bowdoin to show support for her decision to sign onto the AAC&U’s letter. This is a time of great pressure on schools, and it’s important that we encourage administrators and presidents who have shown courage and pushed back against Trump’s efforts to silence educational institutions. We must call on them to continue the fight and keep our students and teachers safe and free from unjust and potentially illegal interference.

The post Bowdoin, Trump, and the Battle for Academic Freedom appeared first on Pine & Roses.

Savannah DSA opposes the Urban Camping Ordinance Amendment, which empowers police to displace unhoused residents instead of offering real solutions. We call on the county to implement Housing First policies that provide unconditional, permanent housing and uphold the human right to shelter.

R.K. Upadhya

Over the past two decades, the housing market has emerged as a powerful means by which capitalism can exploit the working class. At our workplaces, capitalists profit from their ability to control our labor; and then we go home, where we are exploited by the landlords who profit from their control over housing. And if the answer to our oppression in the workplace is labor unions, the answer to our oppression in our homes is tenant unions.  

From early 2022 to early 2024, I was involved with a tenant union campaign at a large apartment complex in north-west San Antonio, via the now-dormant Tenant Union San Antonio (TUSA). While the campaign failed in its overall goal – to organize the tenants of the complex into a self-sustaining, democratic, and militant union – the efforts nonetheless secured some improvements for tenants, and provided organizers with an important and fulfilling learning experience. 

The apartment complex in question was Vista Del Rey Apartments (VDR), a massive 453-unit complex in Leon Valley, located near the intersection of 410 and TX-16/Bandera. The property was first built in 1979, and by testament of some long-time tenants, was a beautiful and well-run property. But in recent years, as the housing market heated up and real estate capital grew increasingly predatory, things started falling apart. Ownership was repeatedly swapped between increasingly greedy firms looking for fresh ways to cut costs and extract more rent. In April 2021, VDR was bought by Shippy Properties, a firm run by an Austin tech executive turned real estate speculator, which quickly turned out to be the worst landlord yet for VDR tenants..

By pure coincidence, a core TUSA member had just moved into VDR in late 2021, and quickly realized it would be an excellent place to start a tenant union campaign. So a handful of us got to work, and over the next two years helped instigate class conflict between the tenants of VDR and their corporate slumlord. Our overall vision was informed by the strategies and tactics developed by socialist-aligned autonomous tenant unions like Tenants and Neighborhood Councils (TANC) in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU), Stomp Out Slumlords (SOS) in Washington D.C., and Houston Tenants Union (HTU).

A quick run-down of what the campaign looked like: we door-knocked across the complex, inquired about conditions and experiences, invited interested tenants to meetings, and saw the formation of the Vista Del Rey Tenants Union (VDR-TU). More canvassing was done; petitions were passed around and protests and rallies were held; a kind of spontaneous rent strike emerged, with many tenants across the complex refusing to pay rent. The city of Leon Valley got involved in a lawsuit against Shippy Properties, demanding that they fix the numerous code violations across the property. Key tenant leaders were targeted for eviction, but we successfully fought back against most of the initial eviction attempts. Shippy made various concessions, even as they caused more problems in the process and escalated repression. A tenant leader’s apartment burned down due to bad electrical wiring, along with the other eleven units in her building. More canvassing, more meetings; attendance and enthusiasm waxed and waned. Finally, after many cycles of ups and downs, by the end of 2023, people had burned out and key leaders had left VDR, and the campaign came to an end. VDR-TU was dead – but if nothing else, the mailboxes had been fixed, wider renovations had been implemented, two people got married, David Shippy’s name was mud, and dozens of people had experienced an interesting and unique attempt at building an autonomous and militant working-class organization.

A full accounting of the day-to-day and month-to-month of the campaign would make for a very lengthy report. But here are some major lessons and take-aways, to paint a picture of what it was like organizing at VDR, and how socialists should think about tenant organizing.  

Big corporate landlords are the scum of the earth – and people love chatting at the door about it

That landlords are parasites shouldn’t be a surprise to socialists – but there is a difference in understanding this in the abstract, versus coming face-to-face with the depths of criminal deprivation and immiseration that landlords subject people to. 

Conditions at Vista Del Rey were abysmal in almost every possible way. A non-exhaustive list of issues at VDR included:

• Constant and unannounced water shut-offs and major water main leaks – the bill for which was passed on to tenants
• Mailboxes that had been broken for over a year, forcing people to pick up mail at the post office (if the mail didn’t get lost)
• Air conditioners being broken for weeks, if not months, during the summer
• Broken and unusable laundry machines
• Endemic cockroaches and mold 
• Crumbling staircases and weak railings, which routinely broke 
• Covid-era rent relief checks getting stolen by management, who then demanded more rent money
• Widespread electrical wiring problems, which in one case resulted in an entire building of twelve apartments burning down
• Arbitrary fees and fines for whenever maintenance was performed (even if temporarily and poorly)

These problems weren’t just incidental. The profit-making strategy of Shippy Properties was overtly about cutting maintenance and services, while simultaneously raising fees and levying fines. As an article in San Antonio Report in January 2022 described: 

The stated strategy of David Shippy, the company’s founder and CEO who wrote a 2019 book detailing his wealth-building formula, involves buying up working-class apartment complexes, slashing maintenance costs and charging tenants new fees. “I like to think of each apartment complex as a cash machine,” wrote Shippy in his book Money Matters for Financial Freedom: The Fast Path to Abundance in Life and Business.

But there is a silver lining to the depravities of landlords, which is that tenants are generally more than happy to talk to a stranger at the door about their issues and experiences. Of course, there is always an initial suspicion (“ugh, what do these people want to sell me…”), but once they realize that you’re not a salesman or missionary, and mainly want to hear about their experiences, the barriers vanish. And a key aspect of this is to, in fact, not be trying to sell some grand organizational plan or political ideology (at least, initially), but to show up to have a genuine conversation with somebody. The 80:20 rule is key – a good initial conversation at the door should have the tenant talking for 80% of the time, and the canvasser mainly asking questions and learning. Ask people about how long they’ve been there, what their experiences have been like, if they know their neighbors, if they’ve tried to get management to address problems, what their thoughts are on why things aren’t being solved and how they feel about that. Ultimately, none of this should be that complicated; talk to people and take a genuine interest in who they are! 

Door-knocking, surveying about problems, and collecting contact information was probably the easiest aspect of organizing at VDR, and made for many memorable conversations. During one canvassing session, me and another DSA/TUSA member met a mother and her daughter who were in the process of moving in, and were already livid about management not having prepared the apartment at all for move-in. We then helped her move a dishwasher up the stairs. Then her neighbor, a pudgy older guy with no shirt came outside and told us that his own dishwasher had backed up a month ago and had never been fixed. Another time, a guy invited me into his apartment to see the massive hole in his living room ceiling, and the leak in the bathroom. His upstairs neighbor, meanwhile, was furious about the impact of persistent mold on his young son’s health. Not all of the people we talked to were immediately excited about getting involved in a tenant union campaign, or organizing in general; but at a minimum, they were happy to chat about how bad the complex was, and their desire to see things change.     

Disorganization is the default mode of existence for working-class people

One thing you realize very quickly when canvassing across apartment complexes is that people are highly atomized – a reflection of the wider problem of “proletarian disorganization” and the fact that whatever working-class institutions and networks that once existed in this country have withered away under neoliberalism. People don’t really talk with their neighbors, beyond waving at them (if that). Tenant unionism thus must overcome an obstacle that labor unionism doesn’t have to deal with: that people tend to lack basic knowledge about one another and their shared problems. Despite the serious and widespread issues at VDR, many people didn’t realize that they had the same problems as their neighbors, which pushed them toward individual solutions (calling management themselves, trying to find a lawyer, or deciding to move out) or just a sense of apathy (“what can I do, I just gotta get used to it”). One tenant who became an early member of the VDR organizing committee told me that when we first knocked on his door, he was happy to chat about his problems, but he was also a bit suspicious about what we wanted and why we were even interested. But once he realized just how many other tenants had the same exact problems as him, it finally clicked that he didn’t have to fight these issues alone.  

Another consequence of social disorganization is that people may tend to identify other tenants as the main source of problems, rather than landlords. The issue of crime, in particular, can be a difficult question for socialists to grapple with. One on hand, we have our standard abolitionist principles that rejects the police as a viable solution to social problems; on the other hand, it can be difficult to articulate – let alone implement – abolitionist solutions to immediate issues around crime. At VDR, there were undeniable problems with anti-social behavior, theft and robberies, and even murders; and for many tenants, the obvious solution for this was more police presence. It’s important for tenant organizers to be prepared to discuss these issues and propose solutions that don’t rely on police; meet people where they’re at, but don’t stay where they are at. TUSA and VDR-TU were somewhat successful in this, insofar as whenever complaints about other tenants came up, these were sidelined in favor of focusing on problems caused by the landlord, which most people agreed were more egregious and easier to directly address.  

In addition, atomization overlaps with and exacerbates racism and xenophobia. This did not become a particularly large obstacle at VDR, but the complex had a number of cultural and linguistic divisions that created challenges to get people together. Unsurprisingly for San Antonio, the majority of the complex was Latino, with smaller numbers of Black and white people. There were also several immigrant groups, specifically Afghans and Indians, typical for apartments in the Medical Center area. This meant there were small populations of monolingual Pashto, Dari, and Hindi speakers, in addition to the typical group of Spanish speakers. And perhaps most unusually, there was a sizable Romani community – an Eastern European ethnic group with a traditionally nomadic culture, descended from South Asia – many of whom were allegedly squatting in one of the buildings. It was this Roma group, as well as other South/South-West Asian families, who attracted the most animosity from certain tenants, who were suspicious of “refugees” who couldn’t speak English, and who blamed them for vandalism and petty crime.  

All of this comes back to the point that one of the most important aspects of tenant organizing is  simply to get people to know each other, to break down the default atomization of neoliberal existence. Prejudice in working-class neighborhoods like this can sometimes be very superficial; simply attending a meeting or social with a person you were suspicious of, could be enough to cure you of any wrong-headed ideas. And simply building a sense of community can be enough to provide a greater sense of security, with the knowledge that you know your neighbors, and you have each other’s back. 

Despite atomization and exploitation, resistance is widespread

One of the best things about tenant unionism is the consistency with which you’ll come across sudden and unexpected sources of radicalism. Acts of resistance – ranging from individual and spontaneous, to broader and more organized – are already happening, all over the place, in all kinds of ways, and militancy can accelerate faster than an activist is prepared for. People are constantly pushing back individually against their landlord; VDR tenants constantly called in or barged into the office, demanding appliance repairs or an explanation for the latest water leak. During canvassing, a constant theme was tenants wanting to connect with legal resources and sue Shippy Properties. But it is in group discussions with other tenants, that people’s natural instincts about collective action and power can emerge. At the first general event we held at VDR in May 2022, a Know Your Rights training, one older lady almost immediately brought up the idea of a rent strike, talking about the need to hit the landlord in the pocketbooks. The dozen or so other tenants largely agreed that this would be morally justified and strategically sound. 

Another memorable moment, fusing individual and collective resistance, happened during a protest VDR-TU held later that summer. As “luck” would have it, during the protest rally held outside the management office, the water was abruptly shut off yet again. A man then came around the corner, still damp from his interrupted shower, and made a beeline to the office and started banging on the door and yelling about the water shut-off. If he wasn’t planning on attending the protest before, his ruined shower made his mind up for him. And this wasn’t the end of the story; his spontaneous passion impressed one of the main tenant leaders of VDR-TU, and they got to talking afterward – and two years later, they got married!  

But the most stunning example of spontaneous resistance was something we learned shortly after the protest – that upwards of half the complex was already on a de-facto rent strike. Ironically, we learned this when management sent out an e-mail asserting this mass non-payment of rent, and that this was the reason why they couldn’t do necessary repairs. As it turned out, many people were willing to act on the basic notion that if they weren’t being given habitable apartments, then they shouldn’t have to pay rent – a righteous position, albeit illegal. But the illegality of individual rent strikes were of little concern to many – as they told us themselves, who cared about getting evicted or taking a hit to their credit score, when they already had multiple evictions on their record and no credit score to speak of? At a complex like VDR, filled with the most oppressed layers of the working class, taking risky actions can be an easy choice – there is little left to lose anyway.   

Tenant unionism requires high levels of commitment and consistency

Despite the atrocious conditions at VDR and the relatively combative spirit of VDR tenants, the tenant union campaign ultimately fizzled out after about two years. There are a number of reasons for this, some outside of our control; but if I had to pick the biggest shortcoming, it was that those of us in TUSA weren’t able to give the campaign the necessary amount of consistent effort. 

A tenant union campaign should have a solid overall plan, and a rapid cadence; if you knock on somebody’s door, you should have an upcoming meeting or action you can invite them to, or at least a 1:1 follow-up if they seem like a potential leader. And more broadly, tenant union campaigns are about relationship-building; quality is better than quantity, especially at the beginning of the campaign. It’s crucial to spend time doing 1:1s with tenants you’re trying to bring into an organizing committee as potential leaders, to get on the same page about the project and the political and social principles of tenant unionism, and to understand their own background, experiences, and ideas. Talking to somebody once at the door and then dropping them into a group chat or Facebook group is not going to get them involved or lead to a functional organizing committee.

Unfortunately with the VDR campaign, most of us didn’t really understand this at the time. After door-knocking sessions, we would try to create big group chats with all the contacts, which would fizzle out over and over again, other than a couple of busybodies who would spam the chat and annoy everybody else. We did few 1:1s, even with people who were enthusiastic about organizing. There were often long gaps of time between talking to somebody and getting their contact info, and actually reaching back out to them. In retrospect, it’s a bit surprising that an actual organizing committee of about a dozen VDR tenants emerged at all, but that may be a testament to just how many people we talked to. But less surprising is that outside of this core group of people who spontaneously and by their own will began organizing, there was little success in building out a wider layer of “cadre” at VDR; the energy required for genuine relationship-building and rigorous onboarding just wasn’t there.

Our inconsistency wasn’t just a result of our relative inexperience, either – a general problem, especially toward the latter phases of the campaign, was the split attention of core TUSA organizers, who were trying to keep the campaign at VDR going while also being in leadership roles in other spaces like San Antonio DSA, Black Rose Anarchist Federation, and labor union campaigns. In retrospect, it was impossible to give the campaign the necessary attention while also being a key member of other campaigns and organizations. A tenant union campaign needs at least a couple of people who are completely focused on finding and developing tenant leaders into an organizing committee, and connecting these leaders with resources, training, and support.  

Tenant unionism is worth it, even in failure

Despite the eventual failure of the Vista Del Rey Tenant Union to develop into a mass, militant working-class institution, I would still consider my involvement in the campaign to be the most interesting, educational, and fulfilling project I was ever involved in during my five years living in San Antonio. I met and organized with people who were far outside the typical left-wing activist and organizing spaces – but who nonetheless had deeply radical instincts and ideas. And despite the long-term failure, there were still short-term victories; the mailboxes, broken for years, were fixed after our campaign started. Many organizers had long-standing maintenance issues resolved by management, who hoped this would pacify them. The campaign pushed the city of Leon Valley to engage in their own lawsuit, which forced even more repairs. And one of the main tenant leaders found a husband through the campaign, and invited the core TUSA members to the wedding. Can’t be a total loss if a great party came out of it!

In conclusion, I would encourage all socialists and fellow radicals to engage in tenant organizing. Many of us already rent our homes in the first place; thus, tenant unionism isn’t something that has to make us go “somewhere else” to organize, but instead can be about us building institutions where we are already at, with our own neighbors. And just like with workplace organizing, oftentimes the best way to engage in socialist politics and organizing is to “organize where we are at”, and to radicalize the networks and communities we are already embedded in.  

If you’re in Austin, join other Austin DSA members in Greater Austin Tenant Organizing (GATO) to help spread autonomous tenant unionism. Follow and support other local tenant organizing groups, like BASTA. And sign up for the DSA Housing Justice Commission’s upcoming four-part training series on tenant union organizing, scheduled for June! 

The post Lessons from a Tenant Union Campaign in North-West San Antonio first appeared on Red Fault.

Since we launched our print edition just before the 2024 election, each edition has marked a deeper, darker descent into a made-in-America authoritarian hellscape.

Since our last issue, the whole world watched in horror as Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk was grabbed by unmarked police lurking outside of her home. It was immediately clear that Rümeysa, whose research focuses on child welfare, was targeted because she had co-authored an article in the Tufts student newspaper calling for the university to do more to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Trump’s attacks have escalated, and they will escalate more. We know that labor has the power to stop Trump. But where will labor fall?

In this issue we look back at labor’s fight against apartheid, largely kicked off in Massachusetts. And we also look at the development of labor reformers, including Boston local Sean O’Brien, who moves rapidly to the right, and the UAWD caucus, which has dissolved itself after long infighting.

Not all is bleak. We are also happy to reflect (deliciously) on the success of the Carnation Revolution on its 51st anniversary. You’ve heard of bread and roses… but what about cod and carnations?

If you’re not a subscriber – subscribe today or check out the free digital version below.

In solidarity,

Managing Editor

Henry De Groot

We, the Greater Grand Rapids Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, are disappointed the jury failed to convict former police officer, Christopher Schurr, and the case was declared a mistrial. We demand that a new trial be held as soon as possible. We also demand that County Prosecutor, Chris Becker, recuse himself and let someone who hasn’t received political donations from Schurr’s Police Union try the case.

The Lyoya family has been waiting three years for this trial to take place and are now being forced to wait longer while Christopher Schurr is still walking free. While this case has been about Justice for Patrick, this mistrial means the Lyoya’s civil case against Schurr and the City of Grand Rapids must also wait.

Christopher Schurr clearly showed intent to kill. Once he drew his weapon, he offered no warning, never said, “stop or I’ll shoot,” and shot Patrick in the back of the head. Schurr testified on the stand that he didn’t know what he was shooting at, he just fired at Patrick Lyoya. But the physical evidence showed the gun was pressed against the back of Patrick’s head when he fired.

We are disappointed that the GRPD Captains testified in defense of Schurr. There are still people on the police force who believe murdering civilians out of frustration is “reasonable” behavior. The GRPD remains a threat to our community.

We are thankful to the many community members who stood up to participate in marches, rallies, and other outcries for justice for Patrick. We are disappointed in the outcome of this trial and acknowledge that our efforts for police accountability are not over.

The post Statement on the Mistrial of Former GRPD Officer, Christopher Schurr appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

At the January 2025 general meeting, Cleveland DSA voted to begin a priority project in support of transgender liberation. 

In our chapter structure, the passage of a priority project indicates a commitment to putting the full weight of the chapter’s resources behind the initiative. Our bylaws impose a limit of 2 priority projects at any given time. As of this writing, the trans liberation project is Cleveland DSA’s only priority.

As socialists, we believe that every person should be able to express and develop themselves fully as human beings, including trans people. The struggle for trans liberation is connected to the broader struggle for the liberation of the working class. 

The mission of the Trans Liberation Project is to create an environment in Northeast Ohio where all transgender people feel supported and free to express themselves without fear of persecution or marginalization. The project aims to achieve this mission locally through a three-pronged approach:

1. Building Community 
2. Taking Local Legislative Action 
3. Providing Access to Affirming Services

Building Community: To provide a safe haven for trans people, we need to form a base in Northeast Ohio dedicated to fighting for trans liberation that can be mobilized for community defense and campaigns. DSA’s objective is to develop our capacity to turn out large numbers of people in a militant way. 

Taking Local Legislative Action: DSA aims to enact legislation that will make Cleveland a sanctuary city for trans people. Inspired by work of DSA chapters across the country, we will draft a trans sanctuary city policy and advocate for it to be passed by Lakewood city council.

Providing Access to Affirming Services: DSA will assist trans people in gaining access to gender-affirming services.

1. Name change clinic: DSA will host a name change clinic to make it easier for trans people to update their birth certificate with gender affirming details. 
2. Gender-affirming clothing: DSA will host clothing swap events to provide trans people free access to gender-affirming clothing.

This is not the first time our chapter has engaged in organizing around trans rights. In a 2024 non-priority activity, we organized a public pressure campaign against HB68 and Governor Mike DeWine’s administrative rules restricting gender-affirming care. We targeted state representatives and senators, the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, the Ohio Health Advisory Board, the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health with public comment, phone banking, emails, and a demonstration outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Health. After receiving thousands of public comments and testimony, the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review blocked the implementation of the administrative rule Reporting Gender-Related Condition Diagnoses and Gender Transition Care which would have required medical professionals to report diagnoses and treatment related to gender-affirming care to the Ohio Department of Health but allowed several other rules restricting care for minors to move forward. Lower courts in Ohio blocked the implementation of HB68. Interest in mass action over the restrictions quickly diminished.

Since January, the Trump administration has issued a series of anti-trans executive orders, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and a policy barring trans people from obtaining federal identity documents aligning with their gender identity. These policies are an escalation of the attacks on trans people by the right-wing in the United States over the last decade and further encourage discrimination, harassment, and violence. As the right-wing has scapegoated and attacked the transgender community, the Democratic party has failed to take meaningful action to protect us when it has had the power to do so.

Transphobia, like other forms of oppression, divides the working class and prevents us from building collective power by targeting the human rights of those who are particularly vulnerable. We can’t rely on the two capitalist parties to save us. Winning reproductive rights and trans liberation will require an organized, independent, working class movement with the ability to fight back.

Our chapter has experienced considerable growth in recent months, and we are excited to organize our membership into this priority project. Join Cleveland DSA today to organize for a better world!

You can sign up for a one-on-one meeting with an organizer from our chapter here and join the chapter here. 

The post Announcing Trans Rights as DSA Cleveland’s Priority appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Hundreds of thousands of workers marched and rallied on May Day—International Workers Day—making it the largest International Workers Day since 2006 when two million immigrant workers left work to demand their rights. Protests were organized in 1,300 locations, large and small; no doubt the first May Day protest in most of these sites. Maine stood out with more than 5,000 participating spread over 26 towns and cities, from Madawaska to Orono to Portland, where almost 2,000 marched and rallied. And in Wayne—population 1,000—seventy people turned out for both morning and evening rallies, one of the highest per capita demonstrations in the country. 

Memory and sacrifice play a role in sustaining working-class culture. No 1886. No Haymarket Martyrs. No May Day. More recently, the 2006 May Day protests provided a living link to the past. And UAW president Sean Fain’s call for unions to align contracts and lead a 2028 general strike has introduced May Day to a whole new generation of labor organizers.

As the saying goes, the best organizing tool is a bad boss and Trump is one of the worst bosses possible. Repression and mass layoffs do not always provoke resistance, but this time targeted workers put up a critical mass of opposition. For instance, thousands of teachers from across the country responded to a call by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers for walk-ins in March to protest Trump’s destruction of the Department of Education, including teachers at Deering High School and Rowe Elementary in Portland.

And many unions have been fighting the bosses all along, linking struggles in specific workplaces to the more general need to defend working-class rights today. The Maine State Nurses Association led a rally to protest Medicaid cuts in March, organized a mass town hall meeting to prevent the closure of the obstetrics department in the small town of Houlton, and saw some of its most active members take a leading role in May Day. 

Pair these factors with decades of bi-partisan misery in necessities such as housing, health care, education, inflation, and union busting alongside escalating racism, misogyny, transphobia and homophobia, nationalism, genocidal militarism in Gaza, and anti-immigrant bigotry and it’s not surprising young workers are angry. But objective conditions do not create action on their own. Organized forces with the credibility and capacity to think through a strategy and then put it into practice are required. Fortunately, Chicago’s working class has created this necessary element. 

[Read next: The future of housing is public]

According to Jesse Sharkey, past president of the Chicago Teachers Union and lead organizer with the newly-formed May Day Strong coalition, “Chicago became a center of May Day organizing this year for two reasons—first, there was a local coalition that got a lot of people involved. Activists from the immigrants rights community were extremely important in initiating it, and they held open meetings. They invited anyone who wanted to help organize. That drew in trade unionists, and many others. On a second front, Chicago was in the middle of initiating a national call for May Day protests… The call for that effort came from the Chicago Teachers Union and a handful of allied organizations such as Midwest Academy, Bargaining for the Common Good, and the Action Center on Race and the Economy. The NEA also played an extremely helpful role. In late March, we had about 220 people from over 100 organizations join us in Chicago to start planning for May 1 actions. The reason we were able to initiate such a widespread effort was because we have a past practice of closely linking trade union fights to wider working class demands. In places where local unions have worked with community and activist groups, we had networks of communication and trust. Then, once that effort had reached a certain critical mass, some of the big national networks like Indivisible and 50501 got on board and that really grew the reach of the day.”

It’s not that the CTU and immigrant community organizers in Chicago were the only ones thinking about May Day, but their action provided a framework to draw together and amplify similar efforts across the country and to nationalize the protest by providing a framework and resources for labor and community organizers in hundreds of towns and cities. Chicago didn’t create May Day 2025, but it did open a door. Here in Maine, a broad group of organizers came together to walk through that door. 

Maine DSA’s Labor Rising working group began discussing May Day plans late in 2024 and we eventually decided to help initiate an organizing meeting open to all community groups and unions. UAW graduate students participated in a preliminary meeting to brainstorm ideas and leaders from the Maine AFL-CIO convened statewide union conference calls. On April 12, more than 70 people attended a meeting in the South Portland Teamsters’ Hall where the group democratically planned Portland’s May Day and adopted the slogan Strength in Solidarity. Working groups took up all aspects of the action and all important decisions came back to the coalition for votes. By the latter part of April, the Maine Education Association and AFL-CIO leaders called for actions all across the state, amplifying the Chicago May Day Strong call and dramatically broadening what the Portland May Day committee could organize on its own. 

May Day in Portland began with a rally at the University of Southern Maine to back UAW graduate students’ demands for a first contract, which the administration has stalled for more than 500 days. UAW graduate worker Miranda led the crowd chanting “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” We marched to the Post Office to hear from postal workers, including APWU president Scott Adams. “When our postal service is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” Members of the Portland Education Association led the rally at Portland High School and teacher Bobby Shaddox taught everyone to sing an updated version of Billy Bragg’s There is Power in a Union. “The union forever, defending our rights, down with the tyrants, all workers unite!” Headlining the stop, The Pelikanne, a trans high school student poet, shared their own revolutionary vision with all those assembled. From there, we went up the block to Monument Square to hear Jay Gruber, a member of the librarian’s union, and others at a brief rally before taking Congress Street to march to the final rally at Congress Square Park. Highlights at the final rally included Alana Schaeffer, president of the Metal Trades Council, representing 4,000 workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, members of the Maine Coalition for Palestine, Osgood from Portland Outright, Anthony Abdullah from the Maine State Nurses Association, and others. Twenty-five other towns held actions, bringing the total number of Maine participants to over 5,000, the largest Maine May Day anyone can remember. All in all, it was a good day for Maine workers.

[Listen to Maine Mural, DSA’s podcast, latest episode featuring Presente! Maine immigrants rights organizers]

We face a long, complicated road where political pressures to return to passivity and demoralization will persist. Trump is happy and he is strong. There’s no point in underestimating the damage he is going to inflict on working class communities in the coming years. We are not yet powerful enough to stop him. But May Day 2025 constituted a small step towards healing deep wounds in the American working class and it points us in the right direction. 

What did May Day teach us? Fittingly, the last word goes to Kirsten Roberts, a rank-and-file Chicago teacher. “The most important element of May Day 2025 is the explicit entry of organized and unorganized labor into resistance to Trump. Trump’s attacks are aimed directly at dividing the working class and turning ordinary people against one another while the billionaires rob and plunder us all. An agenda for working class unity can be built when we stand up for those most victimized and vilified by the right wing bigots AND when we stand together to fight for the things that the billionaire class has denied us—the fight for healthcare, education, housing, and good paying jobs for starters. For decades we’ve been told by both parties that funding war, incarceration, and border militarization are their priorities. May Day showed that working people have another agenda. Now let’s organize to win it.”

*Parts of this article will appear in an extended form examining May Day 2025 beyond Maine in DSA’s journal Socialist Forum.

The post Maine unions and community unite for May Day appeared first on Pine & Roses.

This is an updated version of the article published on April 10.

By Henry De Groot

UAWD Votes 160 to 137 to Dissolve

Tensions within the Unite All Workers For Democracy (UAWD) reform caucus within the United Autoworkers Union have boiled over as the majority group on the caucus’s Steering Committee (henceforth, SC majority) pushed to dissolve the caucus.

In a national meeting of the caucus held online on April 27, members voted 52 percent to 46 percent to dissolve the reform caucus, although the vote was immediately challenged by some with allegations of members excluded from the vote and circumvention of the bylaws.

On May 6, the minority tendency on UAWD Steering Committee (SC minority) released a statement which rejected the outcome of the meeting and declared the UAWD had not been dissolved.

Dueling Visions

The initial statement from the SC majority proposing dissolution asserted that internal divisions within the caucus had hardened, blocking productive work from continuing. The SC majority statement also seemed to question the validity of a caucus which is largely composed of non-autoworkers within UAW Region 9A (covering the Northeast), in a union largely composed of midwestern blue-collar manufacturing workers.

We believe in the need for a reform caucus, but not in one that is constantly engaged in insular debate that distracts from the work of building the union.

Following the vote, the SC majority launched a new group, UAW Member Action.

The earlier SC majority statement announced the launch of the new network within the UAW as focused on “developing the future generation of shop-floor organizers and leaders in the UAW, helping members stand up to bosses and win strong contracts, and building stronger local unions, including by running for office.”

Prior to the vote, a counter-statement was released by the minority tendency on UAWD Steering Committee (SC minority) criticizing the effort to dissolve.

The SC minority statement, signed also by a number of rank-and-file members, explored how, from their perspective, the effort to dissolve the caucus was the result of a slow drift away from the original principles of the caucus, and the alleged opportunism of certain UAWD leaders elected to the union’s International Executive Board (IEB). In contrast to this alleged opportunism, the SC minority, instead, asserts a vision of what they call “class struggle.”

The statement from the SC minority also asserted that the effort by the SC majority to dissolve the caucus at the next meeting would violate the caucus’s by-laws and responds to the allegations of dysfunction that are raised in the majority group statement. 

The SC minority also punched back at the SC majority, questioning the relationship between the majority group and Teamsters For A Democratic Union and Labor Notes, including financial contributions from leading figures in those organizations which were made to UAWD.

An April 29, 2025 Labor Notes article covering the dispute, “UAW Reformers Close Caucus, Launch New Organization,” covered both perspectives to some extent, but quoted overwhelmingly from the pro-dissolution side.

An SC minority sympathizer told Working Mass that they declined to be interviewed by Labor Notes after the Labor Notes journalist stated they would not disclose their own financial ties to UAWD.

“I did not trust the legitimacy of the journalism, considering the political and financial ties of the authors in the situation,” the UAWD member told Working Mass. 

Dissolution Disputed

A May 6 communication from the SC minority reads that

Despite the declaration of the seven pro-dissolution SC members, we are writing to all UAWD members to let you know that UAWD has not been dissolved and will continue on as a democratic membership organization composed of rank-and-file UAW members

The statement calls out the need for class struggle unionism, independence from top leadership, and to speak openly against the genocide in Palestine. 

The communication then summarizes a longer list of alleged undemocratic tactics used by the SC majority to carry through the vote. Allegations by the SC minority include claims that members with voting rights were not allowed in the meeting or removed mid-meeting, that the vote itself violated the by-laws, that Robert’s Rules were unduly suspended during the meeting, that the chair “cherry picked” favorable motions and ignored opposing motions, that debate was improperly limited, and that 50 of the 356 participants did not vote in the poll, which – according to the SC minority – only lasted 90 seconds.

Additionally, the SC minority alleges that members of the SC majority incorporated UAWD (or, as they put it, a UAWD-like entity) in the state of Michigan on April 10 “in an illegitimate attempt to claim simple-majority threshold for dissolution according to Michigan law,” that is, incorporated the entity just to dissolve it less than three weeks later.  

Most concretely, the SC minority alleges that at least 25 voters can be proven to have been unduly denied a vote, greater than the margin of 23 votes.

Working Mass cannot independently verify any of these claims. 

Working Mass also viewed an April 24 cease and desist letter directed to the SC minority calling on them to stop the distribution of member contact information after the SC minority moved to make UAWD member information available to all UAWD members. 

Deeper Tensions

The dispute between the majority and minority groups largely replayed the campaigns for the internal leadership which was elected in the fall of 2024, between the UAWD Strong slate winning a majority with two thirds of the vote, and the UAWD Call To Action slate securing only a minority of seats. 

However, the close margins of the more recent vote may suggest that the majority group lost some support in the interim, or at least there was a base of UAWD members who were sympathetic to the majority but not willing to follow it in moving to dissolve the caucus.

The UAWD website UAWD.org now hosts a statement announcing the dissolution of the caucus, and relaying that “Our remaining funds will be donated across organizations proposed in the resolution to dissolve. These include other young reform caucuses (Federal Unionists Network, Essential Workers for Democracy, IATSE Caucus of Rank-and-file Entertainment Workers, IBEW Caucus of Rank-and-file Electrical Workers), immigrant legal aid, and the Mexican independent union movement.”

The website also includes a link to UAW Member Action.

The UAWD caucus took power in the country’s sixth-largest union, covering almost one million auto-workers, higher education workers, and other manufacturing and white-collar workers, following the successful UAWD election effort which saw UAWD member Shawn Fain take the union’s top job.

Fain also faced criticism, especially from the Palestinian movement, for his endorsement of Kamala Harris, and more recently for his apparent approval of Trump’s tariffs. 

The division also seems to have split members of the DSA active within the caucus, with members currently or previously active in the Boston DSA Labor Working Group (which founded Working Mass), Worcester DSA, Detroit DSA, and other DSA chapters represented in both camps. This echoes an earlier dispute in the University of California UAW local which saw DSA members on both sides of a contract vote.

Forum For DSA Members

Boston DSA and Working Mass are jointly hosting a forum, planned tentatively for the evening of Wednesday, May 21st, to provide a space for DSA members to discuss and debate the political significance of the UAWD dissolution and how DSA should understand and relate to the ongoing reform-caucus movement. You can RSVP here.

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, May 6 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Reading Group for “The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth” (Zoom)

Wednesday, May 7 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour (In person at Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

Thursday, May 8  (5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, May 9  (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, May 10 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Outreach and Training (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, May 11  (9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.): Hygiene Kit Assembly with Labor Board and Homelessness Working Group (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, May 12  (5:50 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Socialist in Office + Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)

Monday, May 12  (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)

Monday, May 12  (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom and in person 1916 McAllister)

Monday, May 12 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Wednesday, May 14 (6:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): May General Meeting (Zoom and in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate and on Zoom)

Thursday, May 15  (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Sunday, May 18 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Capital Reading Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, May 19 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom)

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

Events & Actions

New Member Happy Hour

Join us for our New Member Happy Hour starting at 6:30PM at Zeitgeist (199 Valencia Street). Learn more about DSA SF’s upcoming projects, find out how to plug in, or just socialize with socialists! Also open to old members, regular folks and the socialism-curious. Members running for DSA National Convention delegate will also be there to answer questions about their questionnaires, so members should come through, too!

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Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing

The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is running a Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing course weekly in May (see below for schedule). We’re getting a group to take the course together and benefit from in-person discussions and activities,. If you’re interested, fill out the form here and join the #ewoc-fundamentals-2025 channel in Slack! The goal is to have more people learn organizing skills, both for your own projects and for organizing with EWOC.

Sessions run every week from 6:00-7:30 p.m. on:

• Wednesday, May 7
• Tuesday, May 13
• Wednesday, May 21
• Wednesday, May 28

The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is a project of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) to build a distributed, grassroots organizing program to support workers org

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No Appetite for Apartheid Canvass

We will be holding our next training and canvassing for No Appetite for Apartheid this Saturday, May 10! We’ll be meeting at 10:00 a.m. at 522 Valencia to do training. After the training, we will divide up into groups to visit stores in the Castro and Noe Valley (and maybe restaurants and cafes too!) and discuss de-shelving and boycotting Israeli products!

If you’ve already trained and you just want to canvass, feel free to show up at 11:30 a.m. at 522 Valencia to get a turf. If you are able to provide transportation for people from the training site to the canvassing location, please indicate that you RSVP here.

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Hygiene Kit Assembly

Keeping the May Day spirit alive, we have a Hygiene Kit Assembly planned on Sunday, May 11 in partnership with the Homelessness Working Group. We’ll assemble hygiene kits to distribute to our homeless neighbors and talk about ways to come together in community. People experiencing homelessness are systematically left out of political decisions that impact them, and we’ve invited members of local unions and community members to have conversations with us about this disparity at this event. All ages welcome – this event is kid friendly.

Sunday, May 11
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
1916 McAllister

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Office Hours

Co-work with your comrades! Come to the DSA SF office and get your DSA work or work-work done, or just hang out. We’ll  be at 1916 McAllister from 12:00 p.m to 5:00 p.m. on Fridays.

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May Day Reportback

This week the world celebrated International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day, to mark the anniversary of the 1886 United States general strike to demand an eight-hour workday. To celebrate this historic day, the Labor Board, in collaboration with other chapter bodies, mobilized chapter members to attend a slate of events focused on immigrant and workers’ rights.

Our events kicked off on Sunday, April 27th with a Know Your Rights canvass in partnership with the Immigrant Justice Working Group. DSA members handed out  multilingual red cards and asked local businesses to hang flyers in their windows. It was powerful to see so many neighbors and businesses standing in solidarity with the immigrant community.

In place of the Labor Board’s regular Monday meeting, we held an education event focused on the history of May Day. We screened “We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day,”  a documentary co-produced by members of East Bay DSA. The Education Board facilitated a discussion about the documentary and shared several political cartoons from the late 19th  and early 20th centuries.

On April 29th we turned out dozens of comrades to Maker Tuesday in preparation for the May Day rally. With everyone’s help, we made hundreds of  DSA buttons, flyers, and red cards, and assembled goodie bags to bring to the rally.

Though Thursday May 1st didn’t mark the end of our May Day events, it certainly was a high point in understanding how we can come together in solidarity for workers and immigrants alike. The San Francisco and East Bay chapters formed a large contingent at the rally where comrade Hazel W and socialist-elected District Supervisor Jackie Fielder gave empowering speeches about how every struggle is part of the connected fight for freedom, dignity, and justice. Thousands of workers, immigrants and people from all walks of life marched from San Francisco City Hall to the ICE building. We will fight back, and when we fight, WE WIN!

Interested in continuing the fight for workers’ and immigrants’ rights? Come to our next May Day events:

• Sunday, May 11 – Hygiene Kit Assembly from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. at 1916 McAllister. RSVP here.
• Tuesday, May 20 – Socialist Night School on Salting from 7:00 to 8:15 p.m. at 1916 McAllister. RSVP here.

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Socialist in Office Reportback

At the Socialist in Office meeting on April 28, the electoral board discussed several items

• Supporting legislation for a Tenant’s Right to Pay to prevent evictions due to nonpayment after delinquent payments are resolved
• Opposing the SFPD & Sheriff Overtime Budget
• Upcoming hearing on the Four Pillars model for overdose prevention on May 16 
• Supporting unhoused families facing evictions from shelters after 90 days
  • There will be a rally in support of the families with Faith in Action on May 12 at 4:00 p.m. at City Hall. Please come to support! 
• Potential attacks on housing-first policies for permanent supportive housing (PSH) by legislation requiring 25% to be sober housing

If you would like to be involved in these conversations, join the electoral board on Mondays at 6:00 p.m. via Zoom and find us on Slack at #electoral-discussion.

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.

An interview with the local group Presente! ME about their organization’s history and mission helping new Mainers, and current concerns regarding national attacks on immigrant communities.

The post Maine Mural: Presente! ME appeared first on Pine & Roses.