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.

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.

Welcome to our new column: Tender Comrades. This will be a semi-regular advice column from a leftist perspective. If you or a loved one have questions regarding any and all aspects of life, be it romance, etiquette, family, or work, don’t hesitate to contact Tender Comrades at asktendercomrade@gmail.com

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Dear Tender Comrades,

Since it’s gemini season, do you have any advice on how to attract a gemini? There’s this guy I’ve been into for a while, but I don’t know how to make a move. What are the intricate and mystical workings of the gemini brain?

Sincerely,

Gemini-less in greater Portland

Mx. Criticism: Huge news for you! Both myself and Dr. Self-Criticism are geminis, and therefore experts in this field. If I can be controversial for a minute, and show a little bit of my gemini nature off, I’m unsure if the astrology aspect is really the issue you’re writing about here! Astrology can have cultural significance, but it doesn’t have the ability to magically tell you how to navigate a new relationship. It seems to me that you might be looking for a cheat code to understanding someone’s mind, but those don’t really exist. 

Dr. Self-Criticism: Astrology DOES have cultural significance! If you think I learned about my sun, moon, and rising signs just to flirt with baristas and the people in theater school… you’d be right. But in all seriousness, astrology is as good a tool as any for understanding and critically evaluating our relationships with others AND it’s no joke that being astrologically literate can be key for queer flirtation. 

Mx. Criticism: Call me uncultured then, but my simple answer to your question is that you should continue getting to know this person and then tell them how you feel when the moment feels right. Starting a romantic relationship means taking on the risk that those feelings are not reciprocated. Plan a date, and invite the person on it. Try to make it clear you have romantic intentions, even if it’s scary, and they will either be interested in you or not. It’s okay to slowly build up by flirting or casually hanging out, but eventually you’ll have to make the ever-daunting first move. The best part of having a crush is learning things about them and weighing if the risk of failure is worth the reward of a brand spanking new relationship. Maybe you’ll even fall in love! Enter this new stage of flirtationship with an open mind, and try to pick up on the clues they give you. Do they swipe up on your instagram stories? Are they open to hanging out one-on-one? Does it seem like they are flirting back with you? Those are the cues to follow, not checking to see if you’re astrologically compatible. 

Dr. Self-Criticism: I agree, but I think it’s worth taking the gemini-ness into account. Geminis can be flaky, easy to agree to plans and overcommit, eager to please people in the moment at the risk of disappointing later. With this in mind, make it easy for your gemini—make the plan, invite them, and make sure to follow up. In this case, a double (or even triple) text is not out of pocket.

Dear Tender Comrades, 

I’m new to Portland and it’s hard out there meeting people either socially or to organize with. I’ve been a member of DSA for a while, mostly just paying dues,  but I want to get involved now that I live in a place that’s this small.  How do I build connections with other queer socialists for friendship? How do I decide what projects to commit myself to? 

In solidarity,

New in Town

Dr. Self-Criticism: Spring is the worst season to feel socially isolated, especially in a place that totally comes alive with the long days and warm weather. It can be very hard to find a social home, let alone a political one when our culture and communities are so intentionally fractured by the ruling class. So don’t feel alone or let your loneliness spiral: it’s hard for everyone and the bosses want it that way. The more separated we are, the more vulnerable we are to exploitation and violence in all forms. Case in point, even in a city as out and queer as Portland, we really only have three expressly queer bars and not a single good place to meet new friends or lovers during the daytime and without alcohol. 

So, where to make friends? Where to find comrades? I’ve noticed that I often meet the best friends and build the strongest relationships from mere exposure. They’re the people that I already spend the most time with: classmates and coworkers. Not everyone you study or work with will be your cup of tea, but find the one or two people you seem to connect with the best and move intentionally to build a relationship with them. Ask them to coffee, to art walk, to breakfast, or for a bike ride! In the best case, you’ve made a new pal, in the worst case, you can mark them down as a five on your spreadsheet and move on to the next potential natural leader for your organizing committee.

Mx. Criticism: Definitely agree with Dr. Self-Criticism here—I’m relatively new to the city, and have moved back and forth a couple times. Everytime I’m back I feel the yearn for a deeper and more intimate community. To be honest, I’ve met most of my friends and comrades, at work or through other mutual friends. I tend to be the first person at a new job to invite people over for dinner or out for drinks because so much important community building and organizing happens in the workplace. What’s so beneficial about organizing with your coworkers is the proximity you have to others face-to-face. You learn about people’s interests, struggles, and everything in between in one eight hour shift. This is especially true to my fellow service industry folks because who amongst us has not bonded over a shift beer or juicy customer gossip.  

But I will point out that an issue arises here if you work alone or work from home because those organic relationships can be harder to find. My suggestion is to start by finding the causes you care about, and you might find that a lot of people are already working on them. Reach out, show that you’re interested, and help us start building the world we want to see! Find alternative ways to meet people in person, even if that means hanging out at the community garden or going to queer led events. Once you make connections with a couple people, the rest tend to follow. Infiltrate those friendship groups! The gay bar scene may be rough, but there are so many community leaders hosting smaller and more thoughtful events than a viewing of RuPaul’s Drag Race. 

Dr. Self-Criticism: Yep. Some of the strongest connections I made upon moving back to Portland were through mutual aid volunteer work during the worst months of the COVID pandemic. But you don’t need an acute crisis to make friends: there’s always bike party, sunday DIY baseball, and having an extra smoke to share at the back of a demonstration.

Mx. Criticism: Grace Lee Boggs says “Movements are born of critical connections rather than critical mass”—so put yourself out there. We have a world to win! 

Love and solidarity, 

Tender Comrades 

The post Tender Comrades: On New Relationships appeared first on Pine & Roses.