by BOOM TOWN PRESS

The following is a snippet of an article that originally appeared in Boom Town Press on January 31, 2024. Check out the rest of the article here.

On January 31st, 2024, the Monroe County Democratic Committee (MCDC) held its Candidate Designation Meeting for the 17th, 21st, 23rd, and 24th Legislative Districts at James Monroe High School in the Pearl-Meigs-Monroe neighborhood. Joe Morelle – the sole Congressional candidate on the ticket – intended to attend this event.

Plans changed at the last minute. The Candidate Designation Meeting was originally open to registered Democrats, whether party functionaries or ordinary individuals who had ticked a particular voter registration box. Once the higher-ups got word of a planned protest, however, this supposedly democratic event was revealed to be the gathering of party insiders it always has been. Invited guests and lay-Democrats alike were turned away at the door due to “security” concerns.

The concerns? Several dozen protesters who planned to gather, enter the meeting, and demand answers of Joe Morelle. …

To read the rest of the article, head over to Boom Town Press.

The post Joe Morelle Supports Genocide in Palestine, but Won’t Own Up to It first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

by Organizing Committee PAB Workers United

The following essay was originally published in New Worker on January 27, 2024.

In the past few years, the push for civilian oversight of law enforcement has expanded nationwide. Body cam technology and police reform are increasingly being written into law, and social movements like Black Lives Matter have generated incredible energy. Along with it, however, new ways of obstructing the work of holding law enforcement agencies accountable have and continue to emerge.

Rochester is no stranger to police brutality and corruption. The Police Accountability Board was formed in 2019 by referendum after decades of failed attempts and a multi-year organizing campaign. It was intended to have some of the strongest legal powers of any agency of its kind in the country in regards to data access and ability to discipline officers.

We were all hired to various roles in Spring of 2022. The energy at the time was amazing, we thought we were going to change the world. We were all inspired and ready to work hard and hit the ground running. Immediately we started to notice strange goings-on.

Work was being stalled by various players, both internally and from other City government entities. Our Executive Director, who had designed much of our structure, staffing positions, and secured our historic $5m annual budget, was placed on indefinite leave for reasons outside of our knowledge at the time, and we were told by our bosses that we were not allowed to speak with him.

In June of 2022, a group of non-management staff wrote an anonymous letter requesting more clarity and transparency, and expressed concerns about the deteriorating workplace culture compared to where it had started at, and the implications this could have on the agency’s ability to function in general. This was the first act of collective organizing by PAB staff, yet talk of unionization was still months away.

Shortly after the letter went out, a meeting was called to address the concerns we brought up in the letter — or so we thought. Instead, the meeting was used to berate staff for violating confidentiality by sending a letter from a non-city owned email address. A member of staff addressed the supposed confidentiality concerns by downloading the letter and forwarding it to everyone on the call from his email address, and requested the concerns be addressed. Days later, he was fired. We were told it had nothing to do with the meeting, but we were not given the actual reason.

In the months that followed, more changes took place: staff were written up for policies that had not been discussed upon their hire, schedules were arbitrarily changed with little notice, staff were told to avoid “gossip” when meeting together, vacation time requests were denied, supervisors were switched between departments without notifying staff… the list goes on.

Staff were targeted for asking for explanations of general HR policies, questions around pay, and working conditions. When four more staff were fired with no justification given and another was constructively discharged citing an intolerable relationship with their supervisor getting in the way of their ability to do their work, a group of us began holding meetings to discuss what it would take to unionize our workplace with the ultimate goal of protecting those of us who were most motivated to contribute to the work of the agency, and, by extension, the legitimacy of the agency as a whole.

In the following weeks, seven of us spent considerable time and effort mapping out potential levels of support for unionization among our fellow staff members and found it to be high. We began reaching out to various unions, including some that traditionally represented civil service workers and other public sector employees in the City of Rochester and Monroe County. While we often were met with well wishes and statements of support, we were not accepted by any of the unions we reached out to, citing our small unit size, the controversial nature of our work, solidarity with police unions, and the public perception of the agency as being volatile and unstable.

We were then put in contact with Jaz Brisack, an organizer with Workers United Upstate New York who was deeply involved in the Starbucks campaign, through an organizer who had trained our organizing committee but was unable to convince his union’s leadership to agree to represent us. Jaz asked about our job descriptions, our day-to-day tasks, and the working conditions we experienced. They then spoke to Gary Bonadonna, president of the Rochester Regional Joint Board, and we were enthusiastically accepted almost immediately. As a generally young staff with an activist and justice oriented mindset, we were all very excited upon learning about the Starbucks campaign in nearby Buffalo and the values that Workers United represents.

On October 6th, 2022, we announced our intention to form a union with a press conference outside of our office and sent union cards to City Hall. We made Twitter and Facebook pages, and gave media interviews. All of us signed a card except for one union eligible member of staff, who later did sign a card after experiencing retaliation.

Shortly after our announcement, we were told by the Mayor’s office that it was not clear who was responsible to recognize our union. It would come down to either city council or the Mayor. Because we are public sector employees, we operate under the Public Employees Relations Board, or PERB, and the Taylor Law, and instead of winning a vote to become unionized, our employer must recognize our union after a majority of staff signs cards.

A process that we thought would unfold relatively quickly thus began to take several weeks. After the leader of our union campaign was fired and told by management that she had resigned, we decided to take a new approach.

Because the Mayor said he thought it was City Council who needed to recognize us, and the City Council President said he thought it was the Mayor, we decided to publicly ask them both to jointly recognize our union. Keep in mind, at this point there was no legal ambiguity about whether or not we would get a union — every stakeholder admitted that we were basically there, we just needed the recognition piece. We held a press conference and wrote another letter shedding light on what had happened so far, and called on both the Mayor and City Council to recognize our union.

At this point we still believed our superiors were acting in good faith, though of course we had our suspicions. In response to our letter, Mayor Evans requested City Council write legislation allocating $50k to hire a law firm under the pretense that it would examine and resolve the question about who would eventually recognize our union with Workers United.

Almost immediately, our hopes of good faith dealings were dashed. Hancock Estabrook, the law firm that the city hired, took the position that because Workers United currently only represented private sector workers, it was not a legitimate employee organization for us to join. We later found out on their website that Hancock Estabrook specializes in “Union Avoidance.”

We knew the argument that Workers United could not represent city employees was nonsense as there were other examples locally of public/private hybrid unions, but we needed to cover our bases. Graciously, Workers United voted to amend their constitution to accommodate the fewer than twenty of us who would form this union.

Because of the way that NYS PERB works, we also recognized that it was in our best interest to withdraw our petition and refile it under the new Workers United Constitution — PERB would only recognize the conditions of the petition at the time it was filed. This delayed the process by a few months, and allowed the City and its law firm to develop more strategies and muddy the public narrative against us.

At this point, seven more employees were constructively discharged, amounting to over 30% of our potential union. Our allegations of retaliation and hostility were spun into narratives about dysfunction and infighting, and our agency seemed to become the subject of jokes among City Council, the Mayor’s Office, and the Police Department. City Council and the Mayor’s office then began holding public input sessions and conducting non-scientific surveys about the effectiveness of the PAB, and started to throw terms around like “reimagine” or “replace” what we have with “something better”.

Efforts by staff members and community support were thankfully able to counter these tactics quite well, but nonetheless, when the city’s budget came out in June of 2023, our allocation was cut by one third, down from $5m to $3.4m. Surprisingly, this budget change was requested by management of the PAB despite strong opposition from staff and the community.

To account for the changes in the new budget, our organizational structure was shuffled significantly. Staffing was reduced and cuts disproportionately affected union-eligible non management positions, and the ratio of staff to managers decreased. Both our union and the agency suffered from this: for example, all six non-management attorney positions were deleted from our organizational chart.

A few months later and with our union still not recognized, we learned that the local chapter of AFSCME, which had wished us luck a year earlier but expressly disavowed interest in representing us, suddenly wanted to accrete our unit. AFSCME covers other city employees in the city of Rochester, however the contract that we would be working under for the next few years would reduce our annual time off and result in us being paid less.

In the notice that we received from Hancock Estabrook explaining AFSCME’s petition to intervene in our campaign to join Workers United, we were also informed that the Mayor would immediately recognize our union if we agreed to join AFSCME. This signaled to us that he had the power to recognize all along and there was never legal ambiguity, but it was more likely that the administration was worried that the progressive politics of Workers United would infiltrate City government.

In response to this development, staff sent a unanimous letter to AFSCME requesting they withdraw their interest, and after members at Workers United and staff members had conversations with the local AFSCME president, we learned that the decision was made by someone above him and that they would not withdraw interest.

This suggested to us that AFSCME is truly a company union that takes barking orders from the boss, or in this case, most likely the Mayor. The fact that AFSCME would not acknowledge the will of the staff it was trying to represent raised concerns about whether they would protect us as their members if we were accreted into AFSCME.

Shortly afterwards, AFSCME held a meeting with PAB staff and Jaz. It felt like they were trying to gaslight us the entire time. The meeting was incredibly adversarial, and staff made it exceptionally clear to AFSCME leadership that they were going against the will of the workers. Nonetheless, there have been no changes.

This brings us to where we find ourselves today. While making the case to the PERB judge that AFSCME and the City engaged in improper practice by colluding to undermine the will of the unit in question, as well as cutting our budget to weaken the union, we are also working on spreading the narrative among the local labor community that AFSCME is violating the Taylor Law and undermining the will of the workers. Our aim is to be annoying enough so that it becomes more convenient for AFSCME to withdraw their petition to intervene in our process with Workers United.

In a city where AFSCME is a traditional union deeply entrenched in the labor movement, we are facing an uphill battle. We are also constantly engaged in off the clock advocacy for the continued existence of our agency and fighting against procedural and legal loopholes that are constantly being used to limit our jurisdiction and ability to investigate police misconduct. On top of all of this, we continue to show up to work and do our jobs, which can be just as emotionally taxing — speaking to traumatized individuals and their families and reviewing footage of people being injured or killed — as the fight against union busting.

A year and a half after signing union cards, we have continued to do what we can to finally get the recognition we are entitled to. Workers United has been unflinching in their support for us, inviting us to conferences like the Inside Organizer School and continuing to represent us in court. We also continue to agitate: most recently, two of us gathered signatures at a holiday party for city employees, asking AFSCME members to call on their union’s leadership to withdraw their petition. In a poetic coincidence, we talked to a man outside of City Hall before going into the party who was distraught as cops had just shot and killed his pet dog. We confronted the mayor about AFSCMEs involvement and our right to join the union of our choosing, who responded aggressively. When we were given a talking-to by our Executive Director the following week indicating that word had made it back to her and people were talking about us, we knew we were doing the right thing.

Recently, an article was written by Maggie Duffy, a journalist for the New York Focus. This article lays out our fight very well and has generated some chatter among stakeholders. It is probably the first time our union effort was covered in a positive (and accurate) light.

We have also organized a petition on Change.org, which we are pushing to get picked up by influential local politicians, activists, members of the labor movement, and anyone else who supports a worker’s right to representation.

As one of the most powerful civilian run oversight agencies in the country, our survival is critical and can serve as a roadmap for greater accountability of law enforcement across the country. As the first to attempt to form our own union, we are proving that widespread unionization can protect the work and success of oversight agencies across the country.

The post The Rochester Police Accountability Board’s Union Drive so Far: A Masterclass in Union Busting first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

From EWOC to UAW, workers are fighting back and winning. Check out this snapshot of recent worker wins and how you can win at work too.

The post Labor Stacks Up More Wins appeared first on EWOC.

The following is part of a press release from the Small Union, a newly announced union effort associated with the New England Joint Board of UNITE HERE.

Portland, Maine — On Tuesday, January 30th, the workers of Smalls (a cafe on Portland’s West End) presented a letter to owner Samantha Knopf, informing her of their intent to form a union. The workers called on Knopf and her business partners to voluntarily recognize their union and begin fair negotiations for a contract as soon as possible. 

“Our demands are simple: fair compensation and good treatment for the hard work we do every day,” said Smalls cook Jamie C, 22, “with such overwhelming support from the staff and community, we expect our employer will recognize our efforts and begin bargaining with us in good faith.” 

Smalls has been a popular West End spot since its opening in 2022. Open all day, community members enjoy the environment as a social, leisure, and work space; a genuine third space. It has a history of supporting efforts to better our community, recently launching a raffle to benefit Palestine, all proceeds going to the PCRF (there’s still time to enter if you’re reading this day of), supporting protestors at the Harborview Encampment through supplying protestors and unhoused neighbors with free food during the eviction process, and helping to deliver free meals during the holidays. 

Creating a safe space for the queer community has also been a highlight to workers, owners, and patrons of Smalls, with all workers being queer or vehement allies of the community. Knopf herself is queer and has done the very important work of making sure Smalls is a space where the people can gather and find community with events like queer speed dating.

However, workers at Smalls are genuinely suffering. They are unable to afford the rising costs of housing, healthcare, and basic necessities (utilities, car payments, etc) as the cost of living in Portland rises, and pay stays the same. This begs the question, how queer-friendly is a business if its queer staff can’t afford to live? The workers rightly point out this gap in their employer’s mission statement. Service industry workers, queer and straight alike, deserve to have the financial ability to access healthcare, rest, and recreation.

“We know that Portland’s economy is built on our hard work and the work of thousands of others like us. We’ve built this city, we should be paid enough to afford to live where we work,” said Robyn E, 28, “I love my job, bartending brings me so much joy, but I need to be paid and treated in such a way that makes it sustainable for me and my community.” 

Inspired by the success of local restaurant workers who organized unions at CÔNG TỬ BỘT, Coffee By Design, and the former Starbucks Workers United on Congress Street, the workers at Smalls chose to form a union instead of attempting to address all of their needs individually. 

“I have always loved working in the service industry, but I have never been able to do what I love and afford a quality standard of living”, said Smalls cook Peach C, 26, “Given the massive economic impact that service workers have in Portland, it only makes sense that workers should be able to live in the town where they work and not struggle every day with finances.”

In light of the workers organizing, Katie Schools, a Maine Restaurant Workers organizer said, “Food service has one of the lowest unionization rates in the country, at only 1.4% in 2023. Because of this, things like low pay and unsafe working conditions are the norm in the industry. Portland’s famous food scene is built on the hard work of workers, and their love for their community and customers. These workers deserve a voice in their workplace and a say over their working conditions. Unionizing is a step towards making the food service industry sustainable for everybody, not just businesses.” 

The workers are joining the New England Joint Board UNITE HERE! The worker’s effort is supported by the Maine AFL-CIO’s Southern Maine Labor Council, Restaurant Workers Coalition, and Maine Democratic Socialists of America.

One Small Union NEJB has invited all supporters, friends, comrades, community members, and the press to attend a “Sip-In” event in support of their effort from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm on Thursday, February 1st, at Smalls, 28 Brackett St, Portland. 

We are made up of 8 Baristas, Bartenders, and Cooks. We all have established careers in the service industry and hope to be able to afford a living doing what we love. 

The New England Joint Board UNITE HERE represents workers in the textile, garment, manufacturing, warehousing, laundry, human service, and hospitality industries in New England and New York, including workers at CÔNG TỬ BỘT, Portland’s first independent unionized restaurant. 

Sip-In Event

After delivering a letter asking for voluntary recognition of their unanimously-supported union, the workers at Smalls are inviting all to join them in a sip-in to show support for their union recognition campaign. Inspired by similar events organized by Starbucks Workers United to demonstrate community support for the workers, all are invited to come by the cafe, order some food or drink, and offer words of support and encouragement! Attendees are asked to wear their own union attire, if applicable, and bring small signs or cards showing their support. 

What:​ One Small Union Sip-in

When:​ Thursday, February 1st
Where:​ Smalls, 28 Brackett St, Portland, ME‬

The post Smalls Workers Stand Up! Workers at West End cafe announce unanimously supported campaign for union recognition appeared first on Pine & Roses.

2023 was our busiest year yet with some truly extraordinary organizing wins.

The post Our Organizing Wins in 2023 appeared first on EWOC.

Events

Thursday, 2/1 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Ecosocialist Monthly Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, 2/2 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 2/3 (2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Trans Rights & Bodily Autonomy Kickoff (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, 2/5 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Mexican Solidarity Project Speaking Tour feat. José Luis Ceja (Acción Latina, 2958 24th Street)

Tuesday, 2/6 (6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.): SHOP Training with the Tenant Organizing Working Group (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, 2/7 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Extreme Dean Turnout Wednesday (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, 2/7 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): HWG Reading Group: Mean Streets (In person at 1916 McAllister; Zoom)

Saturday, 2/10 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group (HWG) Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 2/10 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): HWG Sock Distro (Meet in person at 1916 McAllister)

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

Events & Actions

Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Kickoff Call

Next Saturday, February 3rd from 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister, Alyssa A will be hosting a watch party for the DSA Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy kickoff call to celebrate the launch of a nationwide DSA push to fight for trans rights and bodily autonomy across the country.

This a joint event with East Bay DSA so come out, meet, and organize with comrades from all over the Bay! As a leader in the campaign, Alyssa will be available to answer your questions!

Mexico Solidarity Project Speaking Tour with José Luis Ceja

Next Monday, February 5th, from  6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., DSA SF is hosting the San Francisco stop of a nationwide speaking tour for journalist José Luis Ceja. The event will take place in the Mission at Accíon Latina’s office at 2958 24th Street. The event will be in English with Spanish language translation available for attendees who prefer Spanish.

José Luis is a journalist and expert on immigration, the border, trade, labor, and national sovereignty. The event will be part talk, part Q&A with the audience. Andy M (former DSA SF ISC co-chair and now EBDSA member) will be emceeing the event!

This speaking tour is part of a nationwide tour hosted by the Mexico Solidarity Project & DSA International Committee.

We expect a full house, so please register below!

Join the Tenant Organizing Working Group for SHOP Training!

Come join the DSA Tenant Organizing Working Group for the final session of a three-part training to develop successful socialist tenant organizers.

Part 3 of the Socialist Housing Organizing Program (SHOP) covers the basics  of an organizing conversation to recruit your neighbors to the tenant union.

You can attend upcoming training on Tuesday, February 6th at 6:30 p.m. at 1916 McAllister.

This training will take place at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister. Zoom is available upon request. Register today!

Nominate Co-Chairs for the Palestine Solidarity Working Group

The Palestine Solidarity Working Group will be holding elections for the working group’s co-chairs at the February 14th chapter meeting! The new co-chairs’ term will last from February through June. Members can nominate themselves or a comrade by emailing steering@dsasf.org with their nominations before the February chapter meeting.

Show Your Smolidarity at the February Chapter Meeting

The Priority Mutual Aid Working Group will be providing childwatch at the chapter meeting next month on February 14th!

Parents and caregivers can fill out this form before the meeting to help ensure we have enough volunteers and supplies on hand. Volunteers interested in providing childcare can let us know on the #priority-mutual-aid Slack channel or via the form. We hope to see you and your kiddos there!

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.

Questions? Feedback? Something to add?

We welcome your feedback. If you have comments or suggestions, send a message to the #newsletter channel on Slack.

For information on how to add content, check out the Newsletter Q&A thread on the forum.

Since October, Turkey has ramped up its attacks on North-East Syria. Increasingly, they are targeting civilians and their infrastructure, especially with the striking of power plants, hospitals, grain silos and water stations. These attacks are blatant violations of the Geneva Conventions and signify a total disregard for human life. The damage has been so devastating that half of all civilian infrastructure there is now destroyed. 

Rojava is the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria (DAANES), a society which adheres to the libertarian socialist principles emphasized in Abdullah Öcalan’s ideology of democratic confederalism. They have enshrined women’s equality through active female participation in all scores of democratic and organizational life. Rojava is a movement fighting for self-determination, cooperative economy, social ecology and against the ultranationalist, far-right government of Turkey and Islamic State forces in the region. 

We demand that our DSA-member United States Representatives, especially Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib respect the will of the people of Rojava and vote to keep U.S. troops on the ground in North-East Syria, which are vital in maintaining suppression of IS forces and preventing further Turkish advancements. This is not a call for U.S. occupation of North-East Syria, or indefinite deployment of U.S. troops there; we desire that the U.S. retain existing support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) until Turkey and its militia affiliates withdraw from the Afrin region and commit to no further aggression to Rojava and its people. Moreover, we ask of our public officials that the U.S place Economic and Political Sanctions on the far-right leadership of Turkey, put an end to the sale and delivery of weapons to Turkey which is being used in a genocide against the Kurdish people and insist upon Rojava being given a seat at the Syrian peace negotiations.

Further, we demand the U.S. back out of the $20 billion F-16s deal with Turkey. We urgently call on DSA and YDSA chapters across the U.S. to combine their support for this petition and stand in solidarity with the revolution in Rojava. Solidarity forever!

#RiseUp4Rojava #WomenDefendRojava #SmashTurkishFascism 

Signed,

Young Democratic Socialists of America at Lawrence University

Young Democratic Socialists of America at UW-Madison

Young Democratic Socialists of America at Marquette University

Young Democratic Socialists of America at Princeton University

Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America

Young Democratic Socialists of America at UC-Merced

Democratic Socialists of America Metro Detroit

(this petition will be updated when more YDSA/DSA chapters sign on using this form)

by Sara G.

Our chapter is kicking off the year with new campaigns that will get us out on the streets in February, talking to our neighbors about how, together, we can change Austin. We’ll be canvassing for local political candidates, talking to workers in local businesses about how they can support Palestinian liberation, and escalating our labor support.

In the past month…

• Our chapter proudly endorsed District Attorney José Garza for his re-election campaign. José has shown a commitment to empowering sexual assault victims, holding police officers accountable, and creating community-driven solutions for public safety. We began going door-to-door to make sure that our neighbors get to the polls in March to vote for the candidate who is working to support the working class in Texas.

• On the 18th, we joined with others from the Austin for Palestine coalition for a rally in front of City Hall. Members have been calling city council, pleading with them to pass a ceasefire resolution, following in the footsteps of many other cities like San Francisco, Atlanta, and Detroit. Gumbo, a member of the chapter Leadership Committee, testified before the council, and our co-chair Garrigan published an op-ed in the Austin Chronicle. City council did not join their peers around the nation in passing a resolution.

• Our Membership Engagement Committee kicked off the chapter’s Rose Buddy Mentorship program. After attending orientation, new members will have the option to be paired with a more experienced member to help them understand all the ongoing campaigns and events while building deeper relationships within the chapter. 

• Also from Membership Engagement, Socialist Sprouts volunteers will provide child watching for parents attending our General Body Meetings.

• The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee has been helping workers at a Fedex Office here in Austin organize their workplace. The Fedex workers describe the unsafe conditions that led them to taking action.

• As part of our political education series, member Andrew Hairston spoke with the chapter about his trip to Cuba as part of DSA’s delegation in October. Our organizational commitment to international solidarity means learning from movements in other countries and showing support for comrades everywhere. Read more in this interview with Andrew.

• As part of our Schools for All campaign, we started talking to families in South Austin about the community school model, where public schools provide wraparound services based on the specific needs of their neighborhood, and invite community members to engage in shared decision-making.

The post

Austin DSA in Action