In Pittsburgh, work could be owned differently
In the U.S., we're taught the only ways things get done are through private business or the government. For many, these options are deeply disappointing. But there is an underexamined alternative: worker-owned and community-owned cooperatives. When I ask fellow Pittsburghers what they know about co-ops, most think of the consumer grocery model, which had a resurgence in the 1960s and 70s, like the East End Food Co-op. But the cooperative movement, particularly here in Pittsburgh, has a far longer and more diverse history than most of us were taught.
Some of the earliest U.S. cooperatives date to the 1700s. The Underground Railroad is considered to be an early example, as it was governed by the member-conductors who ferried people, many through Pittsburgh, to freedom.
In 1819, workers formed a producer cooperative, the Pittsburgh Manufacturing Association, collectively buying and running a warehouse where artisan and cottage industry workers could produce and consign their products for sale or barter. Goods produced and sold by cooperative members included farm produce, butter, cheese, wool, whiskey, soap, cloth, nails, plows, furniture, and roughly 60 other items.
In 1847, the first mass-production worker-cooperative factory in Pittsburgh was opened by a group of iron molders. In the following years, their success led to cooperatives of glassblowers, silver-platers, puddlers, and boilers. These workers even started a cooperative newspaper called The Pittsburgh Unionist.
Union and cooperative development accelerates in waves tied to economic, social, and political upheavals such as during the Civil War era into the Gilded Age. In 1867, the International Molders Union organized a chain of more than 14 cooperative foundries in major cities, including Pittsburgh. These workers hoped cooperatives would replace the need for strikes, which was how workers won union recognition and bargaining prior to 1935. Workers hoped this was a permanent solution to fighting private employers over low wages and bad working conditions.
The International Molders model went under due to economic and other challenges of the Gilded Age. But in 1877, a general strike of workers took charge of Pittsburgh and organized their own survival programs for five days until the federal government sent troops in to regain control. The Pittsburgh Commune, as it was called, occurred four years after the historically more well-known Paris Commune of 1871, giving new meaning to the phrase "Pittsburgh, the Paris of Appalachia."
This grew into the efforts of the Knights of Labor (KOL), who organized at least sixteen worker cooperatives in the Pittsburgh region, part of a larger network of roughly 200 worker-owned cooperatives KOL organized by 1886. Unfortunately, the KOL and its cooperatives fell victim to a nationwide red scare after a bomb went off at a union rally in Chicago, commonly known as the Haymarket Affair.
Another significant era of cooperative growth in the U.S. was the Great Depression. When privately owned electric companies refused to run power lines to rural areas because it wasn't profitable, people organized to build cooperatives to share costs and increase access. Electric co-ops still cover roughly 56–75% of the total U.S. landmass today, primarily in rural and suburban areas.
Researchers and practitioners like Jessica Gordon Nembhard, whose book Collective Courage is essential reading, believe we’re entering a fourth wave of cooperative development, particularly since the pandemic. The number of people seeking to form worker cooperatives has risen significantly, alongside a surge in union activity. The cost of living is climbing. Political and environmental instability is accelerating. Neither government nor private enterprise are equipped for these crises. Bringing true democratic principles into decision-making and economic distribution, cooperatives can empower people to solve their own problems and build their future collectively.
Consolidation of ownership into ever fewer private hands is making life worse for the rest of us. Notable examples include media mergers, such as Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery, which now control nearly half of the top 50 most-subscribed-to paid-TV channels. This consolidation means fewer, worse choices in media, reflecting narrower interests, lower wages, and job loss for workers, while companies continue to inflate prices.
We aren't taught the ways that work and control of resources could be done differently. This omission is not accidental; it reflects the owning class whose interests our economic education has served. But the cooperative tradition is long, global, and very much alive.
Cooperatives are on every continent, in over 100 countries. Nearly 3 billion people are made economically secure by cooperatives, with more than 12% of humanity participating in the 3 million cooperatives operating worldwide. Like unions, cooperatives are people-centered enterprises which emerge in response to economic discrimination and market failure. Cooperatives are collectively owned by the people who use them, not by whoever buys the most shares. Research consistently demonstrates worker cooperatives deliver economic and social advantages: enhanced workplace stability, increased productivity, greater resilience during downturns, higher wages, profit-sharing, and better benefits than comparable private businesses. Crucially, cooperatives extend their impact beyond membership to broader community development, providing essential services while anchoring jobs locally.
I've been a labor and community organizer for 14 years and seen workers fight for and win remarkable victories by building collective power in their workplaces and communities, particularly here in Pittsburgh. For example, Pitt Faculty Union workers, through organizing, won big raises, particularly for the lowest-paid faculty. Many salaries nearly doubled when the salary floor was raised to $60,000 in their first contract, not to mention the job security measures that were secured. This contract win is inspiring, but the current labor paradigm of contract bargaining back and forth isn't currently enough to provide for the majority of people or the planet.
Pittsburgh is already part of the resurgent worker cooperative movement. Third Space Bakery in Bloomfield, Greenhouse Co-op in Greenfield, and Pin-Up Posters Courier Collective are worker-owned enterprises taking root here. Keystone Development Center helps develop new cooperatives in Pittsburgh and the Mid-Atlantic region. The Pittsburgh Chamber of Cooperatives provides resources for worker-owned and member-owned businesses in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh Alliance for People-Empowered Reporting (PAPER), a group of Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh journalists and supporters, gathered after the Post-Gazette announced its May 3 closure, which was later avoided by a sale to a new owner, the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism. PAPER, in light of massive layoffs under the Gazette’s new ownership, is continuing to host a series of town halls to find community support for a worker-community-run newspaper model. I’m planning to support them and encourage others in the community to join in exploring these models.
FOR MANUEL
A lifetime ago, in early 21st-century Seattle, my then partner and I began working at our favorite restaurant.
We were beloved by the family that owned it and well-liked by the Sikh cooks. It was far from the worst job I ever had. We waited tables there, enjoying a delicious free Indian meal with every shift. The kitchen’s ventilation system worked terribly, so eye-burning smoke from the tandoor oven often filled not only the restaurant, but much of the kitschy Wallingford mini-mall in which the restaurant resided.
My partner and I were particularly close to the middle-aged Salvadoran dishwasher Manuel. Both Manuel and the cooks worked from before opening till close.
Manuel tried to teach me Spanish, but I was a poor student. My partner translated what I couldn't understand, and between that and body language, he and I understood each other fairly well.
One day, Manuel walked up to me and gestured to my hands. He then raised his own hands. They were horrendously misshapen, swollen, and rough beyond words; transfigured from decades of hard labor. The knuckles were like large lugnuts, the fingers stretched too far inwardly, and his nails looked like they were drawn on by smeared marker. They barely looked human. I felt guilty for not having noticed before.
Several months later, Manuel asked the owner and chef if he could get one day off a week. It made sense, even the three cooks got one day off a week, reducing their hours by 10 or 11 hours weekly.
Manuel was quickly fired after that request. I guess the owner felt he had no use for a dishwasher who didn't work 7 days a week. He was quickly replaced by a young Latino man. Manuel came back the next week with a translator to ask for his job back, but the owner refused to talk to him.
When I think about why I'm passionate about socialism, it's for Manuel, and how our predatory civilization completely failed him.
It's for the planet.
It's for all of us.
Manuel, I hope you're doing ok, buddy.
Chapter Notes: June 2026
Hey hey, comrade! It’s another edition of the Pinellas DSA Chapter Notes!
We scored some very exciting victories this month (more on those in a minute). And, the socialist movement in Florida continues to grow at a rapid pace. But, as Antonio Gramsci said writing from a jail cell in 1930s Europe, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
The fascists sitting in Washington — and in Tallahassee — are feeling their grip on power slip. They’re desperate to hold on, and they’re more than willing to do what liberals, until very recently, assumed simply couldn’t happen here. The only way we can beat them and build a world in which all of humanity can thrive together is with mass, working class organization!
Every move we make is made with the aim of getting us closer to that goal, so read on and see what we’ve accomplished so far…and what comes next!
May Highlights
We started the month by joining in with other local progressive groups and labor unions to rally in downtown St. Pete in recognition of International Workers’ Day on May 1st.
We also hosted a fundraiser for Oliver Larkin, a member of Broward DSA who is running to represent Florida’s 25th Congressional District in Washington. Oliver’s opponent is a devoted zionist and self-described “DeSantis Democrat,” so we were happy to lend Oliver our support and endorse his campaign!
We rallied in front of the Florida Second District Court of Appeal building in downtown St. Pete in response to DeSantis’ illegal attempt to gerrymander the state and further suppress the voices of working Floridians. Members of our International Solidarity Working Group hosted a screening of The Voice of Hind Rajab, a powerful new film centered on the murder of five-year old Hind Rajab, as well as her family and the medics that attempted to rescue her, at the hands of the IDF in 2024. And, our Ecosocialist Working Group hosted a community town hall as part of our chapter’s ongoing Dump Duke campaign.
Anything we’re missing? Oh right…can’t forget the biggest news of the month! Pinellas DSA member Richie Floyd has been re-elected to St. Pete City Council! Months of knocking doors and collecting petition signatures by our campaign cadre paid off, ensuring that the socialist movement will continue to have a voice in local government for the next four years.
CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Re-Elect Richie Floyd
The campaign to re-elect PDSA comrade Richie Floyd to the District 8 seat of St. Pete City Council is complete!
As we did for Richie’s first election back in 2021, Pinellas DSA members pounded the pavement, collecting the 500 signed petitions needed for Richie to qualify for a place on the ballot. Noon on May 29th marked the deadline to register as a candidate for the August election, and with Richie as the only registered candidate, he is now officially running unopposed!
Everyone who was with us on election night in 2021 will remember what a nailbiter that evening was. But, this is the power of sustained grassroots organizing in action. When the capitalist class knows that the working class is engaged, activated, and ready to go to bat for the politicians that represent their interests…the capitalist class doesn’t even bother to show up.
HUGE congrats to Richie, the campaign team, and everyone in our chapter who knocked doors, sent texts, and raised funds to help make our victory happen!
CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Dump Duke
Our Dump Duke campaign is continuing to gain traction. In May, we hosted a town hall with St. Pete City Councilmember Richie Floyd titled Electric Bills 101. The aim of this presentation was to help St. Pete residents get informed, understand their bill, and learn how local decisions could impact costs in the future.
We also achieved a major milestone: getting St. Pete City Council to set a date and time for a vote on whether to commission a feasibility study for a public power utility. This study would be the first major step toward our ultimate goal of dumping Duke Energy and returning St. Pete’s power grid back to the democratic control of the people!
UPDATE: WE WON!!
We called for “all hands on deck” at City Hall on Thursday, June 4, and the people answered! Thanks to overwhelming pressure from the public, who took time out of their day to show up to tell their councilmember: Commission the study! Give us the facts on public power! the city council voted to commission the study, bringing us one step closers to our goal of Dumping Duke Energy!
To see what’s next for the campaign, go to dumpdukefl.com.
Upcoming Events
We have more than a dozen political events, working group meetings, and social outings scheduled in May. You can always view our full calendar of upcoming events, along with the most up-to-date times and locations, on our website: https://www.pinellasdsa.org/home.
Queer Movie Night with Queer Expression
Saturday, June 6 from 1:00–3:30pm at The Nest (544 1st Ave N. in St. Pete.). The Pinellas DSA Health Justice Working Group and Queer Expression are hosting Queer Movie Night where we will be screening Patient No More (2019). Pizza and refreshments will be provided!
“War on Cuba” Screening & Fundraiser
Sunday, June 7 from 6:00–8:30pm at Bar Chica (1180 Central Ave in St. Pete). $10 suggested donation to help buy medical supplies for the Cuban people.
Ecosocialist Working Group Meeting
Monday, June 8 from 6:30–8:00pm. Zoom only.
City Council Mobilization: Make The Morgan City-Owned Public Housing
Tuesday, June 9 from 5:00–6:00pm at St. Pete City Hall (175 5th St N. in St. Pete). Speak at St. Pete City Council during Open Forum to urge the city to buy The Morgan Apartments and make it into a model for city-owned public housing.
Portland Canvass
Tuesday, June 9 from 6:00–7:00pm at The Portland Apartments (300 8th St N. in St. Pete). Canvass to inform and encourage tenants to attend a tenants meeting, where they can tackle the issues facing their property together!
International Solidarity Working Group Meeting
Wednesday, June 10 from 6:30–7:30pm. Zoom only meeting; link will be available in Discord.
People’s Pride Coalition Teach-In
Thursday, June 11 from 7:00–8:30pm at The Nest (544 1st Ave N. in St. Pete.).
Morgan Canvass
Saturday, June 13 from 1:00–2:30pm. Meet at Family Pak and Ship (2822 54th Ave S. in St. Pete) to canvass The Morgan Apartments to encourage tenants to collectively withhold rent until slum-like conditions improve!
General Meeting & Socialist Social Hour
Sunday, June 14 from 2:00–4:00pm at Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete).
Steering Committee Meeting
Sunday, June 14 from 7:00–8:30pm. Zoom link.
Electoral Committee Meeting
Monday, June 15 from 6:30–7:30pm at Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete). Meeting in the Hybrid Room.
Housing Working Group Meeting
Thursday, June 18 from 7:00–8:30pm at Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete). Meeting of the Pinellas DSA Housing Working Group and St. Pete Tenants Union to decide action on tackling the exploitative capitalist housing system.
International Solidarity Working Group Meeting
Monday, June 22 from 6:30–7:30pm. Zoom only meeting; link will be available in Discord.
Educational-Social Working Group Meeting
Tuesday, June 23 from 6:30–7:30pm at Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete). Meeting in the Hybrid Room.
Socialist in Office Working Group Meeting
Wednesday, June 24 from 6:30–8:00pm. Zoom only meeting; link will be available in Discord.
Labor Committee Meeting
Thursday, June 25 from 6:30–7:30pm at Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete). Meeting in the Wesley Room.
Peoples Pride Coalition
Friday, June 26 from 5:00–11:00pm at Allendale United Methodist Church (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete).
Pride Tabling
Sunday, June 28 from 7:30am — 5:00pm. We’ll be tabling on Central — check the Discord to get the cross streets!
Steering Committee Meeting
Sunday, June 28 from 7:00–8:30pm. Zoom link.
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NOTE: All dates and times are subject to change, so check the website regularly for updates!
My Beef with RFK Jr.: The Problem with the New USDA Dietary Guidelines and Who Really Benefits
by Anna V.
Meat is expensive. It always has been. Prices are higher, sure, but it’s never really been cheap. Many people don’t think of it as the most expensive item but ounce for ounce it is. It’s why when you go to a hotel breakfast buffet the meat will generally be placed at the very end so you fill your plate with the less expensive fruit and bagels and can’t get as much of the pricier sausage and bacon.
The reason meat costs so much is due to the amount of resources needed to produce it. Before you can slaughter a cow you need to give it feed made from corn and soybeans for one to two years. Grass fed beef is even more expensive as it takes longer to get a cow up to slaughter weight on grass alone. This is why multiple studies have found that vegetarian diets can be less expensive, because instead of feeding soy beans to a cow for a year or more you can just make them into tofu.
That’s why it is concerning that the new USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans increase the protein recommendations and are emphasizing eating beef – as well as the similarly expensive dairy – to meet those new recommendations.
It would be one thing if these changes were backed by science, but most nutrition experts heavily disagree with these guidelines. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics released a statement expressing concerns over the new recommendations (source). Furthermore, the guidelines actually contradict themselves. For example, they keep the recommendation from the previous guidelines to keep saturated fats consumption under 10% of total calorie consumption. However, in the list of recommended cooking fats are “beef tallow, butter, and olive oil,” two of which are saturated fats. Not only would canola and soybean oil be healthier, but they are less expensive, so it seems the new guidelines are going out of their way to make Americans spend more money on worse health.
Now it would be easy to write this off and say, “Well, everyone knows RFK Jr is crazy, no one is going to listen to him.” However these guidelines aren’t just suggestions for the average American. They instruct how federal food programs like WIC and School Lunches are set up. So if the guidelines aren’t making Americans healthier and aren’t reducing costs, who do they benefit? Well luckily they tell us on page 2: “We are realigning our food system to support American farmers, ranchers, and companies who grow and produce real food . . .”
A lot of people think of farmers as working class but don’t let the big trucks and boots fool you. A lot of farms are owned by large companies or families with generational wealth who make their profit exploiting the low paid farm workers who are the ones actually getting their hands dirty. These profits translate into power via groups like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Global Dairy Platform who go on to influence politics.
This problem isn’t even unique to the current administration. Probably for as long as you can remember you’ve seen the recommendation that adults need three servings of dairy a day. This has been heavily contested over the years. It’s not that you can’t have a balanced diet with that much dairy in a day, it’s just that it isn’t always necessary. Many people, especially those of non-European backgrounds, get all their nutrients in with little to no dairy. However, it’s in the guidelines and therefore has an effect on government programs. I once spoke to someone who had been on WIC and complained that they gave her way more milk and cheese than she knew what to do with.
So it seems these new Dietary Guidelines are continuing the theme of taking existing problems in our government and cranking them up to 11. The exact effects on programs like WIC haven’t been seen yet but they’re not likely to help struggling families. However, these guidelines aren’t meant to help them. They are meant to help the wealthy cattle ranchers who will destroy our environment, government, and health if it means increasing their own wealth.
The post My Beef with RFK Jr.: The Problem with the New USDA Dietary Guidelines and Who Really Benefits appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.
Thistle
Mother Jones
Troubling Economic Development Deal in the Works at City Council
by Rich H
The City is moving rapidly towards finalizing an economic development deal that raises financial and political warning signs—it potentially gives away millions of our tax dollars to an Abbott and Cruz crony, who is also a major Texas donor to AIPAC and one of the authors of the scurrilous Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission’s 2024 Study on Antisemitism in Texas, which perpetuates Abbott’s lies about the Anti-Gaza-War protests at UT.
The Deal
The deal (described in Item 6 on the April 23 Council agenda) is with RIDA Development, a Houston-based company that builds resort-style hotels, mainly in Florida. The proposed tourist-oriented project here in Austin is for a mid-sized convention center and hotel adjacent to the COTA facility that will be a “self-contained” “destination hotel and conference resort” (see news stories here and here for more details). The agreement with the City of Austin will rebate millions of dollars in Hotel Occupancy Taxes (HOT) back to RIDA for 30 years, in exchange for certain public benefits, the most significant of which is that the developer claims the project will result in 900 permanent hospitality jobs, at an average annual wage of $61,000. However, details about the specific performance benchmarks RIDA needs to hit to receive the tax rebate are sketchy.
The deal also includes public parkland, $1.5 million into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and a labor peace deal with Unite Here Local 23. The City also touts projected property tax revenue from the project as a benefit.
The deal, which was unanimously advanced by the City Council at its April 23rd meeting, has been celebrated by several city council members especially because of the labor agreement. This aspect is obviously great for the labor movement, but there are other serious concerns that may outweigh it.
In general, economic development deals do not benefit the public in ways politicians claim; instead, they tend to have negative impacts on local communities, especially for the working class. Research on economic development deals that use tax breaks allegedly to attract businesses and investment to cities has shown two important points: First, in the vast majority of cases, companies make decisions about where to locate operations independently of tax breaks—in other words, these tax breaks are just corporate tribute and make no difference to whether a project happens or not. Second, cities usually do not benefit financially from these kinds of deals—these deals end up costing the public more than they bring in.
An example of this research is the book, Incentives to Pander, co-authored by UT-Austin Government Professor Nathan Jensen, summarized as follows on the publisher’s website (see also this excellent two-minute video summary):
“Politicians … use these policies to claim credit for attracting investment… This book … shows how such pandering appears to be associated with growing economic inequality. As national and subnational governments surrender valuable tax revenue to attract businesses in the vain hope of long-term economic growth, they are left with fiscal shortfalls that have been filled through regressive sales taxes, police fines and penalties, and cuts to public education.”
Beyond these general problems with economic development deals, this particular one is especially suspect because of who the developer is and because of the financial implications of the deal.
Issues with RIDA’s Ira Mitzner
RIDA was founded by David Mitzner, the father of current CEO Ira Mitzner. It is a privately owned and family-run multibillion dollar company based in Houston. Billionaire Ira Mitzner is a big-money donor to Republicans in Texas and Florida, including to DeSantis’ super PAC and to Ted Cruz. He was the chair of the committee that brought the 2024 RNC to Houston, which resulted in Trump’s second term. Mitzner is also an important pro-Zionist voice in Texas, a big donor to AIPAC, and 2019 AIPAC Gala Chair.
Additionally, he was appointed to the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission (THGAAC) by Abbott. The THGAAC’s 2024 Study on Antisemitism in Texas was partly responsible for the atrocious (and likely unconstitutional) slew of bills passed last year by the Texas Legislature that enshrined in Texas law and education code the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism (see page 9 of the report). (Incidentally, those bills passed with the support of most Democrats in the Legislature, including locals Hinajosa, Talarico, Cole, Flores, and Bucy.) Another recommendation of the THGAAC is an anti-masking law.
The Study on Antisemitism in Texas repeats false claims that the Anti-Gaza-War protests were anti-Semitic, and it justifies the police crackdown on protesters: “Tensions at UT Austin reached a crescendo at anti-Israel protests in April 2024 that required intervention by state troopers and campus police” (page 7, my emphasis). The report also calls out activists who went to city councils to demand a ceasefire resolution, falsely calling them anti-Semitic: “At public hearings in many cities, anti-Israel activists have regularly gone beyond their free speech rights to bully and intimidate elected officials and Jewish community members, using antisemitic language and sometimes being forcibly removed by police” (page 7). Additionally, the report praises Texas’s “lead” on anti-BDS legislation and Abbott’s pro-Israel statements and actions (pages 10-11). Mitzner is, in part, responsible for this report.
Do Austinites want our city to be entering into deals with people like Ira Mitzner, especially given the irregular, fast-track process the Council has used, and the unanswered financial questions about the deal that remain?
Irregular Process & Unanswered Financial Questions
In addition to the unsavory connections of Mitzner, this development deal also raises serious financial and process questions.
At the April 23rd meeting, Council passed an ordinance that “waives the staff presentation, public announcement and portal setup, and public hearing requirements” normally required for economic development deals. This prevents public scrutiny of the deal, which is especially problematic because “the structure of the agreement and its long-term cost to the city remain unclear, however, with key financial projections and final terms still under negotiation and not yet publicly released” (see this news article). We do not know what is actually in this deal, yet Council is fast-tracking it. Among the things that we do not know is the projected amount of the tax rebates—we don’t know how much this will cost us.
Typically, convention center and hotel development deals are sold to the public because they have “economic spillovers”: convention-goers typically spend money locally in restaurants and bars, retail stores, other local attractions, etc.—the argument goes—thus, supporting local businesses and jobs1. Some of that rhetoric is in the staff presentation, but this project is specifically described as a “self-contained” (page 3) “destination hotel and conference resort” (page 2), located far from other local businesses at the COTA facility. This means that attendees of future events at the RIDA development are unlikely to spend much money outside the “resort” itself or in local businesses, severely limiting any “economic spillover.” The City’s claims about the “economic impact” of this project are disingenuous.
The deal does include public parkland, $1.5 million into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, in addition to the peace agreement with Unite Here. These are all great benefits, but the city cannot tell us at what cost to the public. How much are we spending from HOT funds to get parkland and $1.5 million in the Trust Fund? We are not told.
However, we can make some calculations based on assumptions that we do know:
- The deal will rebate 8.5% of gross room revenue from the hotel for 30 years.
- The hotel is planned to have 1,000 rooms.
- Standard rooms at one of RIDA’s comparable developments, the Omni Orlando Resort, are around $250 per night.
- The average annual hotel occupancy rate in Austin is somewhere around 65%.
These are conservative numbers, so we can conservatively approximate the amount of HOT tax to be rebated to RIDA as:
8.5% x 1,000 rooms X 65% occupancy X $250/night X 365 nights X 30 years
=
~$150,000,000
That is $5 million per year for 30 years, with the main public benefit being 900 jobs. That’s about $5,500 of public money per job per year, which means that the public is effectively covering approximately 10% of RIDA’s payroll for 30 years, guaranteeing Ira Mitzner larger profits, subsidized by Austinites.
This is what economic development looks like in Austin.
The item should be coming back to the council in next few month, so keep your eyes out for it to appear on an upcoming agenda—and be ready to write, call, and testify against this bad deal.
1It’s important to remember that most jobs in hospitality and food service are low-paying jobs. For example, of the job categories that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics uses, in Austin food service pays the lowest, at $31,200 on average, which is under 60% of the median wage for our area. Tourism-related economic activity tends to rely on a low-paid workforce; economic development deals do nothing to improve pay or working conditions in “spillover” jobs, yet those jobs are counted as part of the “public benefits” that we are paying for.
The post Troubling Economic Development Deal in the Works at City Council first appeared on Red Fault.
Metro DC DSA Urges DC Council to Put Working People Before Autonomous Vehicle Companies
For immediate release
Metro DC DSA Urges DC Council to Put Working People Before Autonomous Vehicle Companies
Date: May 29, 2026
Media Contact: For all press inquiries, please contact media@mdcdsa.org.
Washington, DC: On May 4, the text for Councilmember Charles Allen’s Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026 was published. Allen’s bill begins round two of Waymo’s campaign to profit off of our city’s streets after their last industry-written bill, put forward by former Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, completely collapsed in July of last year.
In its current form, this bill risks paving the way to the future it says it wants to avoid. It threatens the livelihoods of thousands of DC workers, risks wasting the time of hundreds of thousands more in worsened traffic, explicitly permits yet another form of surveillance technology on our streets, and leaves any potential safety benefits in the hands of the people who own the software, not The People who own the streets.
Neither the auto industry—the driving force behind our country’s deadly, inaccessible, and inequitable transportation system—nor big tech—the nation’s prime innovator in exploiting workers—should be in the driver’s seat of DC’s transportation future. DC residents need better transit and paratransit, traffic calmed permanently with changes to pavement (not paint or software), and social policies that protect people from exploitation on the road and at their destinations.
Metro DC DSA is organizing with our labor and community partners to stop undemocratic tech giants like Waymo from suffocating our streets for profit. To that end, Metro DC DSA urges Councilmember Allen to lean on his record of championing public transit and safe streets to prioritize the working people of DC, not AV companies.
The post Metro DC DSA Urges DC Council to Put Working People Before Autonomous Vehicle Companies appeared first on Metro DC DSA.
I Love “I Love Boosters”
by Justin W
I Love Boosters is a story about a trio of “boosters,” women who steal from department stores and resell the items to the community, and their fight against a local billionaire. The billionaire’s name is Christie Smith, whom one of them admires so much she has her platitudes memorized, which makes for a complicated relationship that evolves as the movie goes along. The CEO is very clearly a genius, having graduated college at 17 and spent years working in physics departments, but her platitudes still sound just as vapid and amorphous as any other CEO or motivational speaker. During their heists the trio find a Chinese worker who steals the designer wear so quickly they legitimately believes she has a magic bag, and given that this is a Boots Riley film, you believe it too until it’s revealed to be a teleporter.
The Chinese factory worker, Jianhu, is stealing the clothes as a way to attack Christie Smith for the horrible conditions in the factory she and her family work in. This brings the trio and Jianhu together as they start stealing more from Christie Smith. As they’re in the process of stealing clothes a discovery is made: The teleporter does more than teleport, it deconstructs and accelerates the contradictions as well. It becomes clear this is a machine based on Dialectical Materialism as the machine brings two things together (teleports), it deconstructs (as shown when they deconstruct clothes into their base components AND when they aim it at a person and turn that person into their parents having sex), and it accelerates the contradictions of a given entity (a cop car is turned into a parody of overmilitarization and reconstructs a person from their parents from before).
This leads to the personal conflicts in the movie and what I believe to be the thesis. We have the main character Corvette and her best friend Sade, one who is trying to overcome the ills brought about by capitalism (Sade) and the other who is so lonely a loneliness demon tries to pick her up on multiple occasions (Corvette). Sade sees MLM marketing as the way through the ills of capitalism and Corvette sees vengeance as her way out of her loneliness. This is resolved when they link their struggle against Christie Smith to the workers both in China who are making the clothes as well as the workers building a union to stand up against the billionaire. The resolution is built through the combining of the efforts of all workers against Christie Smith and the fashion industry, starting in China and the United States but then the rest of the world, and the community organizing that needs to happen to build those strikes and protests.
We see this through Corvette rejecting the loneliness demon and her confronting the rolling ball of bills, tickets, and failures of Corvette’s past (seen the entire movie following her just out of sight of everyone else), which shrinks once she has a community to help her deal with those problems. The problems are still there, just reduced to a more manageable size.
Given this is a Boots Riley film, there are some incredible design and artistic choices that combine to create wonderful metaphors. The CEOs office is tilted, showing her skewed view of the world. The loneliness demon who has been around for millenia can only remember two years back when they were lost in a Target, or, one might say, lost in a capitalist hellscape (please listen to the song “Lost in the Supermarket” by The Clash). At one point some characters who have been seen interviewed on TV take off their skins, revealing that they play characters on TV (like workers arguing for less pay and benefits as well as Candace Owens, among others) or lead MLMs to generate in people the need for more brutal cop tactics, anti-worker propaganda, and false solutions (like MLMs) as part of a campaign created by the billionaire to reduce in workers the desire for real solutions like collective action.
The skin suits also demonstrate how those with anti-worker sentiments but still working class themselves literally sell their identities to be used and interchanged by anyone who needs them for whatever purpose. They give away their ability to identify themselves for the purpose of fulfilling the whims and desires of a billionaire. In true Boots Riley fashion, he tries to make the metaphors as overt as possible, with a little bit of surrealism thrown in the mix. The comedic elements of the movie shine through these metaphors and are so littered throughout I am very surprised the movie isn’t considered a comedy. Boots Riley’s love of storytelling and visual metaphor make him one of my favorite directors and this was terrific and just the right amount of silliness to push through the slightly radical position he’s leading towards through the film.
But this wouldn’t be a Marxist take on a very overtly Marxist movie (the main catalyst for the movie is a Dialectic Materialism machine) without some discussion on the theory presented. The Dialectical Materialism machine is initially seen only as a teleporter, but later in the movie a union organizer explains the full functionality, urging the trio to use it to help them accelerate people into the union they’re building. Initially, the Velvet Gang (the name of the boosters’ group) turns her down in favor of their plan to simply steal from the billionaire thinking that would be enough. As the movie progresses and we reach the climax of the film, the machine is used to link the struggles of the union in the United States to the factory workers in China, creating the solidarity needed to fight against their collective boss.
Through the explanation of the functions of the machine we get a decent description of dialectical materialism, in a way that is simple enough that we can progress with the movie, while still being faithful to the concept itself. I think Boots’ decision to purposefully inject actual theory into the movie gives a stepping stone for those who like the movie something to grasp onto when deciding to work on their own politics, but does mean the resolution of the movie cannot be as explicit in the direction I think we should go. The CEO is not removed nor a communist revolution waged by the end of this film, instead a worldwide strike against the fashion industry is started, and characters from the movie are seen leading the union in their fight for a better wage, though the main characters are not participants. The most recent film to have such overt Marxist themes, also made by a black director, is Sinners.
Sinners, for those who haven’t seen it (Why haven’t you? Go watch it!) has a black community fighting against a vampire who uses racism to escape from justice and controls the actions of those whom he has bitten. It is a story about a blood sucking parasite who had oppression forced on him years ago and wants to forcibly create the community he lost due to colonialism and imperialism by stealing the music and soul of a community that hasn’t yet lost themselves to that same oppressive force. The black community fights and kills the vampire, in a bloody struggle that lasts all night, ending with one character killing the racists who came to kill him. In interviews following the release of the film, director Ryan Coogler was asked multiple times about the Marxist implications of the movie and what was being said through the metaphors, every time keeping silent about what he wrote. He could not, at any point, be explicit in the aims and messaging of his movie, lest he lose what position he has to make films like Sinners again. He was able to show the action of the theory, but wasn’t allowed to be explicit in the ideology that created it.
I see Boots Riley’s choice to name the theory but not show the action as the flip side of the coin. Even on a good day Hollywood would not allow both sides of the coin to be shown on screen at the same time, as Capital knows what it can allow anti-capitalist art to show, as well as what it can’t. Were I Love Boosters to show the fall of capitalism and say the words “Dialectical Materialism,” a producer would have simply shut down the movie and not let it see the light of day. There must be a balance struck between what can be said and what can be shown while still being funded by those who would otherwise be the target of said action or the villain of theory. The theory of the film is presented in a relatively clear way, but the film needed to reel in the actions shown to compensate. When we say “The Revolution will not be televised” this is an example. You can see that revolutions happen or you can hear theory be spoken, but never the twain shall meet, at least not on the big screen. So we need to read between the lines, and see the direction Boots Riley or Ryan Coogler are pointing us in. (On a related note, come join us at Book Club sometime.)
Overall, this movie is terrific and I recommend everyone go see it. The bright colors, wonderful fashion, comedic style, and the only just so slightly over the top surrealism blend together into a wonderful movie that I would definitely watch again, and recommend others watch too. Combined with the theory hilariously intertwined into the movie, it is one of the best movies I have ever seen and I want to hear your thoughts on it too.
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