A Farewell from the National Director
I am speaking outside my typical monthly communication to members to tell you that I have tendered my resignation to the National Political Committee. I will spend the next month ensuring there is an orderly transition into their hands or their chosen next National Director. I’d like to take this opportunity to explain why I am leaving, reflect on my time as national director, and list the main opportunities and challenges I see DSA facing in the coming period.
It has been an absolute honor to serve the tens of thousands of members who together constitute the power of DSA. Outside of unions, there are too few places where working class people can decide together the direction of our lives and fight for it rather than sit at home alone while the world burns and the authoritarians rise.
Why I’m Leaving and Why Now
I made my decision this fall and intended to announce my departure two months ago but chose not to do so at a time when my decision had the capacity to disrupt our critical Palestine solidarity work. To date, DSA has organized almost 400,000 calls to Congress and organized numerous local actions despite early attacks from centrist Democrats and the Right. History has already vindicated us and in that moment I refused to risk my decision to leave being mischaracterized to further attack DSA.
That said, there will never be a perfect time to go. DSA is undeniably rowdy, as is any democratic organization, but also incredibly important, and meeting challenges is how we collectively learn and build power. I have no doubt that we will weather the months ahead.
My DSA life started on campus, at the University of Chicago Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter in 2001. Within years I was elected YDSA national co-chair, and later to the NPC. I have a lifelong commitment to democratic socialism, but when I first started as National Director, I had hoped to stay for five years. It has now been twelve.
Being a DSA staff member is a demanding job, with many stakeholders to answer to and relentless pressures. We have limited time in the day and we deal with the complicated legal and operational questions of a national multi-million dollar budgeted organization, particularly since we face constant external political/media/regulatory threats. I have overseen massive, transformative growth since 2011. When I started, our budget was only $350,000. It’s now over five million. Our staff started at three and it is now over 30, supporting hundreds of chapters, dozens of national committees and campaigns, and tens of thousands of members.
With fewer responsibilities, I hope to spend more time with my partner, my parents, and our families, including my step-grandson who is already three years old. I have realized that time waits for no one.
I also greatly miss organizing. Running a rapidly growing and increasingly complex national organization has forced me to focus on administrative matters. In an average week, I spend most of my time coordinating across staff directors and departments, moving projects forward smoothly and identifying and solving problems, developing and strengthening systems and structures to manage the work, and ensuring fiscal and legal compliance across the board. I also provide the NPC context necessary for decision-making and make sure staff have clear guidance on priorities and direction, including pushing for clarification as needed from the NPC as a politically diverse body. I have learned a lot of important lessons about running an organization of DSA’s scale but spent less and less time with chapters and mentoring rising leaders, my original love. I will take some time to rest and recharge, but it’s building power with people that I will always come back to for the rest of my life.
Transition and Next Steps
I notified senior staff last fall, before I had to postpone my announcement, and we have been transition planning. We have submitted a recommendation to the NPC on how to ensure critical work continues and institutional memory is not lost in the interim while the NPC decides on longer-term next steps. But for those of you reading this from outside DSA, understand that this transition is not like a typical non-profit executive director departure. Staff anchor the organization nationally with essential organizing, compliance, administrative, communications, fundraising, financial, tech, and governance infrastructure, but our power also comes from our membership rooted all over the country, and they elect our political leaders. Unlike a dynamic where the executive director brings in and then leaves with big funders, at DSA, our NPC answers to our membership, and 86% of our income comes from membership dues.
I expect that this moment will be a challenge and even risky, but this membership base is the source of our vitality. We are continually learning new lessons and I trust the members to navigate this moment and make the right choices to strengthen DSA.
Looking Back
I remember when the 2009-2011 NPC hired me as National Director. DSA had about 5,000 members, less than a dozen elected officials and 25 chapters. It was in the midst of the Arab Spring uprisings, the same year as Occupy Wall Street, and just days before the Christian nationalist massacre of 69 people at a left-wing youth summer camp in Norway. The authoritarian opposition has grown stronger since then. But so too have we, with more than ten times as many members today.
I mentioned before that I originally intended to stay five years. When I started in 2011, DSA was small and marginal like all left groups at the time, and I focused on stabilizing our membership fundraising, getting Democratic Left on a regular publication schedule, developing organizing trainings for chapters, organizing national projects that could help cohere chapters such as Abortion Bowl-a-thons, and hosting intergenerational gatherings. Then DSA endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in his first presidential run and we began to grow. With millions of people supporting him, our We Need Bernie campaign was an obvious strategic decision. It allowed us to organize working-class people and contribute to Bernie’s bringing socialism back into widespread political debate in the U.S.
There was sharp debate in DSA on whether and how to engage in the presidential election outside of for Bernie. Then Trump became president. Within minutes of Trump’s victory speech that night, literally, our member join page was on fire. People were furious with the neoliberal Democrats and terrified of Trump. Thousands of new members flooded in day after day and we struggled to manage the firehose. Those of us who were politically active at that time, whether in DSA or elsewhere, recall the panic in the air, and it was a moment that transformed DSA.
I was nearing the five-year mark as the National Director, my self-imposed deadline to leave, but chose to stay to help DSA navigate the skyrocketing growth. We hired more staff and built infrastructure and processes for new chapters, fielded a large contingent at the Washington, D.C. Women’s March against Trump, developed mass campaigns like Medicare for All, and organized hundreds of members to attend the national People’s Summit conferences organized by National Nurses United. We also organized the first predecessor of our current Regional Organizing Retreats, a training for southern members paired with a contingent at the Canton, Mississippi UAW organizing rally with Bernie Sanders in 2017.
We kept growing, and then AOC won her upset primary in 2018. It was our largest new member month in history.
By answering Trumpism with democratic socialism, AOC and her fellow Squad and DSA members in Congress and beyond electrified the country and laid the groundwork for Bernie’s second presidential campaign and DSA’s steadily increasing number of local and state electoral victories running democratic socialists to the chagrin of Democratic Party power brokers. We also made major organizing investments, including 14 regional organizing trainings for chapter leaders to build a shared organizing vocabulary and model, and in 2019 I asked Jane McAlevey to do a three part national online training series for members. We also launched our campaign for Bernie’s second presidential run.
I’ll always remember DSA for Bernie. Chapters learned to run field operations to knock on neighbors’ doors rather than preach to the choir. Tens of thousands of Bernie supporters found us, and DSA was invited to the People Power for Bernie coalition with base-building national organizations. We continued to grow as people flocked to us for our commitment to organizing not just towards elections but between them, and in not just the electoral arena but also in workplaces and communities. It’s hard to predict what might have happened had COVID not ground the country to a halt in 2020.
But it did. DSA chapters went fully remote and caused a break in the leadership development (and relationship building) cycle that comes with in-person meetings, cross-chapter gatherings and in-person staff Field Organizer visits. Chapter mutual aid, labor, and tenant committees went into overdrive to provide support and solidarity as working class people lost their jobs, were forced into unsafe working conditions, or faced eviction. Black Lives Matter protests swept the country including the epicenter Minneapolis and our chapters across the country mobilized.
Despite the pandemic, we found ways to run national campaigns. DSA’s Green New Deal strategy summit planned a December 2020 day of action and 85 May Day 2021 actions to launch the Protecting the Right to Organize campaign. DSA members and new volunteers made over a million phone calls to voters in key states, while chapters organized on the ground pressure. We flipped two Senators and were a founding member of the PRO Act focused Worker Power Coalition.
Today, DSA’s membership numbers are down from our high point of over 90,000, but we are organized. Last summer and fall, for example, close to 200 endorsed elected officials at all levels of government, and over 100 chapters with Strike Ready solidarity captains lent support to the Teamsters and United Auto Workers, while chapters all over organized dynamic strike solidarity for other unions locally. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, our chapters in Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio fought and won abortion ballot measure campaigns, with Florida and other states coming up this year. And most recently, we have organized relentlessly against the U.S. government’s support of genocide in Palestine. As I write we have an energized base and retain a large majority of the members who joined in the “Trump bump” period.
Claims of DSA’s demise are premature, but we have work to do.
There are trends to make me cautiously optimistic. Most importantly, beyond the impressive campaigns I mentioned above, we have signed up 1700 members to pay Solidarity Income-Based Dues of 1% or at least higher monthly membership rates. Staff Field Organizers are rolling out a toolkit on mass recruitment for chapters, and national committees are integrating recruitment into their work. With the continued rise of authoritarian forces and disgust with Wall Street Democrats, DSA is a way for working-class people to take action in collective self-defense.
That said, we like all social movements go through a cycle and are not in a major upswing. Hundreds of members join each month, but more members leave or let their dues lapse. In the wake of the pandemic and the election of Joe Biden, there was a worldwide slowdown in donation income and volunteer engagement at nonprofits and other civic organizations, and even public sector unionization rates went down. Many community organizers are confronting a retention crisis in base building organizations. While DSA has retained members and engagement at a far higher rate than most civic organizations, we’re still in a period of membership shrinkage and increasing financial stress.
One duty I have always held sacred is the responsibility to share hard truths, not just what people want to hear. It has not always endeared me to everyone, but in this moment, I must remind you yet again that there are serious challenges not just on the horizon but here now.
DSA convention delegates this past summer could not fully realize the realities of the budget or debate the real tradeoffs inherent in the resolutions considered. The organization structurally approaches these questions with a group diplomacy based process. Without a holistic, materialist assessment of our accomplishments, strengths, weaknesses, and especially resources, many individual resolutions were passed but not considered in relation to each other with an eye to explicit prioritization or effectiveness.
The national budget is our clearest example. On our present course, we will be unable to pay all our bills in a few months without a change in direction. Funding all 2023 convention decisions would add more than $2 million to the budget which we simply don’t have. As a nonprofit organization, we cannot print money like the government or take loans like a large corporation. Nor can we make unrealistic predictions about stronger fundraising or recruitment and then spend money we merely hope to raise. We are making strides in Solidarity Income-Based Dues and integrating member recruitment in everything we do at all levels, but a fundraising shortfall could create pressure to accept grants or outsized donations from single individuals, diluting a key source of our independence and power. And given our process, there will often be pressure to displace foundational functions to focus on new projects put forth by various groups. It is the donut hole problem we often discuss in our trainings with chapters – if all your time or resources go to work just outside the core, the core falls apart. With this in mind it is important to find the right balance between experimentation and stability, creativity and basic fundamentals, silos and integration.
Right now, the NPC is working on finalizing the 2024 budget. It will require very hard choices, and longer term, a reckoning with our structure and our definition of democracy. I’ve said before that DSA is both an army and a town hall. We must act together but also question each other. We can never resolve this fundamental structural contradiction, and it is why my main advice to DSA members is to face this truth. Accept that mass work means competing ideas, so seek ways to compromise with each other. Act responsibly and expect the same of your leaders. Most importantly, learn to act holistically and based on a hard analysis of real conditions. This becomes increasingly important as we head into an election year with stakes higher than ever.
We have everything to lose, but also everything to win. Let’s take ourselves as seriously as the moment requires.
Maria Svart
@MariaOrganizes
The post A Farewell from the National Director appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Weekly Roundup: January 16, 2024
Upcoming Events
Wednesday, 1/17 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): 
What is DSA? (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Thursday, 1/18 (6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.): Labor Movie Night: Matewan (1987) (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Friday, 1/19 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Friday, 1/19 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): March Election Research Party (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Saturday, 1/20 (11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Retrospective (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Monday, 1/22 (6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.): SHOP Training with the Tenant Organizing WG (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Wednesday, 1/24 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): HWG Reading Group: Mean Streets (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Saturday, 1/27 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): HWG Sock Distro (Meet in person at 1916 McAllister)
Sunday, 1/28 (11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.): January Office Cleaning/Organizing (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Check out https://dsasf.org/events/ for more events.
Events & Actions
Labor Movie Night: Matewan
Come join us for a Labor movie night at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister on January 18th from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. We will be watching Matewan (1987), a film dramatizes the events of the Battle of Matewan, a coal miners’ strike in 1920 in Matewan, a small town in the hills of West Virginia. Made in 1987, this film is arguably an even more relevant, cautionary tale today than ever before.
There will be food and drinks provided!
This event will be mask optional but highly recommended.
Join the Tenant Organizing Working Group for SHOP Training!
Come join the DSA Tenant Organizing Working Group for the final two parts of a three-part training to develop successful socialist tenant organizers.
The Socialist Housing Organizing Program (SHOP) started yesterday with a study group to discuss how housing developed as a commodity under capitalism, and why the market will never solve the housing crisis. Part 2 is a training on tenants’ rights in San Francisco. Part 3 covers the basics of an organizing conversation to recruit your neighbors to the tenant union.
You can attend upcoming trainings are at the following times:
- Monday, January 22nd at 6:30 p.m.
- Tuesday, February 6th at 6:30 p.m.
All trainings to take place at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister. Zoom is available upon request. Register today!
Mutual Aid Priority WG Has a New Meeting Schedule!
The Mutual Aid Priority Working Group has an updated schedule! The working group will be meeting every other Tuesday at 7:00 p.m.
If you are interested in diving into DSA SF mutual aid projects this year, our first meeting of 2024 will be tonight, January 16th, starting at 7:00 p.m. Currently, our working group is building out capacity for several existing projects, including smolidarity/childwatch for chapter meetings, healing circles in the Tenderloin, a How to Do Mutual Aid course, and more. Check out the #priority-mutual-aid channel on Slack to help us strategize, develop new mutual aid projects, and help our fellow San Franciscans through the power of organizing!
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.
“Inbuilt”: Zionism, Gaza, and Genocide
But transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism – because it sought
Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 60
to transform a land which was ‘Arab’ into a ‘Jewish’ state and a Jewish
state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population; and because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which, in turn, persuaded the Yishuv’s leaders that a hostile Arab majority or large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure.
On a frigid night, December 5, 2023, Joe Biden visited Boston to raise money for his re-election campaign. The president was received by a large group of citizens who protested in unconditional support for Israel and, by extension, its genocidal actions against the Palestinians.
In Washington, on the same day as Biden’s visit, the House of Representatives passed a resolution explicitly equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and defining many common pro-Palestinian slogans like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as anti-Semitic.
This is a blatant attack on freedom of speech, and signifies a dangerous step toward the criminalization of legitimate political dissent.
As a Boston local living near many universities, I have been disappointed to see local student leaders threatened with strong disciplinary sanctions, just as students were threatened during the Vietnam anti-war protests.
_._
“I know firsthand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels with my beloved South Africa are truly painful,” (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 2014).
Indeed, the current situation in Palestine is reminiscent of South African apartheid, though in many ways, incomparably worse. Nevertheless, despite their differences, the Zionist movement bears an important resemblance to the Afrikaner movement: it is a social system rooted in colonial, racist, and totalitarian practice.
In the West Bank, while broad democratic freedoms are extended to Israeli Jews, Arabs Israelis face, on one level, overwhelming political, legal, and economic discrimination in apartheid-like form and, on another, the daily humiliation and incursions of a brutal and prolonged military occupation. In Gaza, the situation has reached the level of genocidal proportions. As of writing, South Africa is before the International Court of Justice, engaged in a legal proceeding against Israel accusing it of “subject[ing] the Palestinians in Gaza to genocidal acts.”
This is the true face of Zionism: repopulating stolen land, expelling its indigenous inhabitants through humiliation, indiscriminate force, and destroying all access to the basic necessities of life. As much was suggested by the UN Secretary General , who stated that this ‘wave of violence,’ as it is cynically referred to in the press, “does not come out of nowhere,” but “is born of a long-standing conflict, with 56 years of occupation and no political end in sight.”
In Gaza, according to latest UN data, there are at least 22,835 fatalities, with approximately two-thirds of those being women and children. Additionally, there are thousands of Palestinian political prisoners being held without due process, only a handful of hospitals partially functioning, and the threat of famine looming large as the result of draconian Israeli restrictions.
These crimes are well-documented by leading figures and institutions in international law and human rights:
Human Rights Watch: “Since 1948, Israel has established a regime of racial domination and oppression over the Palestinian people primarily in the domains of nationality and land. In the immediate aftermath of the Nakba, Israel adopted a series of laws, policies, and practices, which sealed the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian people, systematically denying the return of Palestinian refugees and other Palestinians who were abroad at the time of the war. At the same time, Israel imposed a system of institutionalized racial discrimination over Palestinians who remained on the land, many of whom had been internally displaced. Such Israeli laws have constituted the legal architecture of Israeli apartheid that continues to be imposed on the Palestinian people today.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), described the IDF’s relentless bombardments of the Gaza Strip as “shocking” and the unfolding human tragedy as “unbearable.” Lazzarini highlighted the dire situation in Gaza, where approximately one million people were displaced from north to south over three weeks, in stating that “no place is safe in Gaza.”
Such conditions have prompted rights-groups, like Amnesty International, to call for “End[ing] all U.S. support for the Israeli government’s rights violations and crimes against humanity against Palestinians, particularly the illegal campaign of forced displacement through home demolitions, evictions and settlement expansion in occupied East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.
In Boston, we received Biden in the manner he deserved: with powerful, spirited, and determined protest. Nor he, nor his administration, promote peace; instead, they relish war, squandering billions of dollars on instruments of death that could be used for humanitarian efforts and real democracy promotion.
Israel is engaging in wanton terrorism and racism: to state this is not to entertain anti-Semitism, nor is it to deny the Jewish faith, ethnicity, culture, or nation. Jews and Israelis are deserving of the same rights and dignity as everyone else. But Israel, as a State, does not represent all Jews, nor does it contain only Jews. Jews are not a problem, but the prevailing ideology of Zionism is; and it is Zionism that we see unfolding in Gaza today.
Just as we cannot overlook the crimes committed in other historical instances of apartheid and genocide, we cannot overlook the crimes committed in Gaza today. As members of Boston DSA, we have the political and moral obligation educate, organize, and mobilize against all forms of oppression: therefore, it is undeniable that such obligations apply to the case of genocide and Israel’s present assault on Gaza.
DSA Condemns U.S. and Israeli hostilities in Palestine and West Asia
The Democratic Socialists of America demand an immediate and permanent cessation of hostilities by the United States against Yemen and an end to diplomatic and military support of Israel. President Biden widened the existing regional war even further by ordering airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in Yemen in an effort to stop that country’s humanitarian blockade of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Since October 7th, Israel has continuously engaged in provocative military aggression, aimed at expanding its brutal war into Lebanon. Israeli spokespeople continue their propaganda efforts to tie Iran to the events of October 7th and have issued calls for retaliation. A cyberattack believed to be the work of Israeli military intelligence has struck Iranian civilian infrastructure and extrajudicial assassinations have targeted senior leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hamas in Syria and Lebanon. The U.S.’s attack on Yemen comes in the context of Yemeni forces having blocked container ships owned by Israelis or headed towards Israeli ports. U.S. airstrikes are taking place while South Africa presents its arguments to the International Court of Justice for provisional measures against Israel for the crime of genocide. The U.S. has clearly demonstrated that it would rather pursue a dangerous course of escalation that is alienating the entire global south than rein in its junior imperial partner in the region.
Socialist internationalism obligates us to act in solidarity with the Palestinian and Yemeni people who have bravely resisted imperial aggression by the US and its partners for decades, with hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dying in the U.S.-backed Saudi and UAE war and blockade on Yemen. Reaffirming the principles outlined in UN General Assembly Resolution 45/130, which acknowledges the legitimacy of peoples’ struggle for independence, territorial integrity, and liberation from foreign occupation, DSA firmly supports the rights of those who resist occupation and war. We reiterate our demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and renew our commitment to the cessation of all hostilities against the Yemeni people. We echo DSA congressional representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush’s condemnations of the Biden administration’s illegal attack on Yemen and we call on our members and all other supporters of peace across the country to join us, along with our comrades in Progressive International and the global anti-war movement in elevating these demands.
Take Action Now:
- Join NYC-DSA for an Emergency Ceasefire Phonebank: Hands Off Yemen!
- Join DSA for a No Money For Massacres Solidarity Phonebank
- Become a DSA Member – A Better World is Possible!
The post DSA Condemns U.S. and Israeli hostilities in Palestine and West Asia appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Unionized workers in Detroit to get $54,500 bonus
by Joanne Coutts
The Detroit Lions’ win over the Minnesota Vikings on December 24th clinched the division title for the first time in 30 years. For this feat each player will receive a $54,500 bonus with the potential for additional payouts depending how they fare in the playoffs. This money comes from a playoff pool created by the NFL’s revenue-sharing program. Does this sound a little bit like socialism?
The NFL suffers from many identity crises. It promotes nationalism while yearning for the global appeal of soccer. It cloaks itself in militarism and extracted $5.4 million from the Department of Defense in exchange for patriotism spectacles. It aids billionaire team owners in appropriating taxpayer money to build giant stadiums ($110 million in the case of Ford Field) while positioning itself as the sport of the “blue collar worker.”
However, the NFL identity crisis on which sports writers have spilled the most ink is the tension between the league’s deeply capitalistic goals and its need to embrace at least parts of socialism to achieve them.
If you type “NFL socialism” into an internet search engine, many articles will pop up, arguing that various aspects of the NFL are or are not socialist. These generally focus on the draft, which gives the teams with the worst win/loss records in the previous season first choice of the best players moving from college to the NFL each year, thereby giving the teams that need it most first access to new resources.
They also discuss revenue sharing, which distributes television revenue equally among all teams regardless of how many people watch their games on any given Sunday, to spread the wealth and allow teams in smaller cities like Green Bay to remain competitive with larger ones like New York. And they argue that the salary cap, which prevents teams from accumulating all the best players by paying them more, means that wealthy team owners cannot gobble up and hoard all the “best resources” for themselves.
These measures have the goal of ensuring parity across the league, and have resulted in 12 different Super Bowl winners in the past 15 years. In contrast, the English Premier League, where none of these socialist wealth-distribution mechanisms exist and unfettered capitalism reigns supreme, has seen only 5 different clubs win the league during the same period.
Credit the union (or blame the union)
One central tenet of socialism, worker’s unions, is mostly overlooked in these articles. The strength of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) has been a key factor in the success of the league, and over the years the NFLPA has gotten its members everything from clean jock straps to a $1 million per year minimum wage.
At the NFLPA’s first meeting, in 1956, players from 11 of the 12 teams signed on to be represented by the new union. Their demands included a minimum $5,000 salary whether playing or injured, clean uniforms, and equipment paid for by their teams. In 2014, the latest year for which information is available from the Department of Labor, 1,959 or 91% of the NFL’s approximately 2,144 active and practice squad players were voting members of their union. An additional 3,130 former players were also NFLPA members. Union membership remains strong because of the NFLPA’s success in raising player’s salaries and improving working conditions and benefits, and its relatively modest dues, $31,000 per year, which for context represents 4.1% of the league’s 2023 minimum salary ($750,000 per year).
In the summer of 1968, the NFLPA, led by Detroit Lions offensive guard John Gordy, held its first strike and soon after ratified its first collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The CBA included an increase in minimum salaries, exhibition game pay, and a $1.5 million contribution by NFL owners to a pension fund. The most recent CBA, ratified in 2020, makes these gains look paltry by comparison. Some of the highlights which we might all drool over include:
Revenue sharing — The CBA requires that players receive 48% of gross football-related revenues generated by the league. This means that 48% of TV broadcast deals, ticket sales, league-wide and local sponsorships, gambling, and even soda and hot dog sales must be spent on player wages and benefits. Retail store workers receive around 17% of revenue in wages, for restaurant workers it’s 25 to 30%, and in some manufacturing plants worker’s share of revenue can drop as low as 10%.
Minimum wage — In 2023 minimum-salary players on a team’s active roster received a 6.4% increase from $705,000 to $750,000 per year. Under the current CBA, minimum-salary players will see a 33% increase from their current salaries, hitting the $1 million mark by 2030. The recent UAW deal comes close to this, raising base wages by 25% by 2028. For the rest of us, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that we will see average wage growth of 3% per year, for a total 18% increase by 2030.
Health and Pension Benefits — NFL players and their dependents receive a variety of health benefits which continue for five years after they leave the league, after which they can opt to continue in the health plan at their own expense. Specific health conditions related to playing football, such as joint damage or neurological care, are covered for life. They also get a league pension, averaging $43,000 per year, starting at age 55 and can join the league’s 401K, Annuity and Second Career savings programs. While many U.S. workers participate in 401K or Retirement Savings Plans, only 11% of private sector workers have access to a pension plan.
The NFLPA has been aided in achieving all this by advantages most unions can only dream of. Its coffers are filled with revenue from marketing and endorsement deals in addition to player dues. Its members hold almost all the “means of production” of their product, making scabbing all but impossible; all attempts during the various player strikes and owner lockouts to replace the product on TV and in stadiums have been a dismal failure.
The union’s leadership is predominantly made up of rank-and-file players. Hands up: who has heard of NFLPA President JC Tretter and of Jalen Reeves-Mabin, who currently represents the Lions as a vice-president of the union? Perhaps because of this rank-and-file leadership, many of these gains benefit rank-and-file over “star” players. For example, increases in minimum salaries and benefits for all, combined with the salary cap, limit the money available to pay “big name” players.
We should all be so lucky as to be represented by such an active, well funded, and powerful union. With that power comes responsibility to stand in solidarity with workers around the world. As our Detroit Lions head to the playoffs let’s push the NFLPA to use its power to support workers across the country, as they did for Amazon workers in Alabama in 2021, and across the globe. Tell the NFLPA to demand a #CeasefireNow!
Send a message https://nflpa.com/contact. Tweet @NFLPA @JCTretter
Go Lions!!!
Notes and Links
Inflation 2023:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/12/heres-the-inflation-breakdown-for-november-2023-in-one-chart.html
Jalen Reeves Mabin is Detroit Lion on NFLPA Executive Committee:
Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_Players_Association
NFLPA Revenue spending:
NFLPA:
https://nflpa.com/ and https://www.influencewatch.org/labor-union/nfl-players-association/
Paid militarization of the NFL:
https://fee.org/articles/its-time-to-end-the-paid-militarization-of-the-nfl/
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/nfl-dod-national-anthem-6f682cebc7cd/
2020 CBA highlights:
https://operations.nfl.com/inside-football-ops/players-legends/2020-nfl-nflpa-cba-need-to-know/
NFL post season pay:
Detroit Lions Player Report Card:
https://nflpa.com/detroit-lions-report-card#treatment-of-families
NFL and Socialism:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-the-nfl-owners-are-exclusive-socialists-102946280.html
https://fee.org/articles/is-the-nfl-draft-socialism/
https://www.sj-r.com/story/news/columns/2014/10/24/the-nfl-is-socialistic-enterprise/36089303007/
Capitalism in UK football:
https://jacobin.com/2020/08/english-football-capitalism-manchester-premier-league-fc
Detroit Lions history:
Detroit Lions | Detroit Historical Society
The Detroit Socialist is produced and run by members of Detroit DSA’s Newspaper Collective. Interested in becoming a member of Detroit DSA? Go to metrodetroitdsa.com/join to become a member. Send a copy of the dues receipt to: membership@metrodetroitdsa.com in order to get plugged in to our activities!
Unionized workers in Detroit to get $54,500 bonus was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
RSS: A Better Way to Collect News Content
by Sara G.
It’s time for an RSS revival and socialists should be taking the lead. RSS–Really Simple Syndication–is a tool that aggregates content from multiple sources like news sites and tweets into one single feed. Popular in the early 2000s, it has since been overshadowed by social media as writers and artists moved from blogs to Twitter and Instagram. Corporations abandoned it because, as an open protocol, it isn’t easily monetized. When reading an article on an RSS feed, the reader only sees the content, not the multitude of ads embedded on the original site. The reader chooses what to view, so algorithms can’t push more financially beneficial articles in front of their eyes. This decreases the captive audience for corporate content.
While social media networks are where the largest audiences are, they are hostile to leftist organizing. Content is moderated to suit corporate agendas. For instance, X bans users who tweet “from the river to the sea” while promoting right-wing hate speech. All user data and content is tracked and fed into AI to put workers out of jobs or create deepfakes, or to hand over to the police or surveillance organizations like Palantir. Sex workers are kicked off platforms, and minority posters are routinely dogpiled, stalked, and doxxed. User posts appear alongside anti-semitic ads, or are algorithmically served up to the people most likely to be enraged by them. Social media sites can be actively harmful to leftists who post on or read them.
We are trying to build a mass movement, so we should continue recruiting the working class on large sites like X even though they are owned by our ideological enemies. They are great for posting out wins and advertising upcoming events. For anything deeper or more internal, we need to have greater control over our messaging and how it is presented and moderated, so that we can discuss issues on our own terms. RSS allows leftist writers to host their own content wherever they’d like, without relying on a social media conglomerate like Meta and being subject to its limitations.
Most leftists with a blog or newsletter don’t need to do anything extra to post to RSS. Sites like Squarespace and WordPress automatically provide RSS feeds of their content. The DSA National Tech Committee has created a feed that aggregates publications from DSA chapters. Chapters who want to syndicate their publications can talk to NTC about how to get added.
Since RSS is an open protocol, readers are not tied to one app or company to access content. To read RSS feeds, you need to download an RSS reader. Popular readers include Newsblur, Feedbin, Feedly, Miniflux, and Readwise. Some are free, some have ads, some have extra features like web clipping or archiving, and some are more minimalist. Some accommodate tweets and email-based newsletters, and some don’t. There’s something for everyone, but the downside of not having one monopolistic company means users need to make their own decision about which app to use. After selecting an app, feeds can be added. Leftists might be interested in the DSA feed, Jacobin, In These Times, and Labor Notes. We have a lot of opportunities to build a leftist ecosystem online that allows robust discussion and encourages the development of class consciousness. Social media companies don’t need to be the only way in which we interact with one another online: seize the means of content production!
The post RSS: A Better Way to Collect News Content first appeared on Red Fault.
Continue the Class Struggle — Your January Dispatch
Happy New Year! Here’s your January Dispatch. This month, stand up for peace in Palestine, hear from union workers on our Green New Deal work, and more. Read on to get involved.
And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.
- From Maria — Let’s Continue the Class Struggle
- No More Money for Massacres! Sign Up for Ceasefire Phonebanks Thursdays in January
- Sunday 1/21 — Join Our Workers and the World Unite: Labor in a Green New Deal Call
- New Year, New You, New Dues — Switch to Solidarity Dues for 2024! Plus Chapter Trainings Sunday 1/21 and Tuesday 1/23
- ICYMI — Free Subscription to In These Times for DSA Members!
- Apply for the DSA Growth and Development Committee
From Maria — Let’s Continue the Class Struggle
Two weeks into 2024, it feels like we’re heading into a dark place again. When the COVID pandemic hit, our movement lacked the power to transform society to one based on solidarity and democracy. The ruling class accelerated their pillage of the working class and our planet. The far right is ascending across the globe, and our own government is funding mass bombing and starvation.
But I have hope. Our work — for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, for strong unions, for bridging and enhancing our power in arenas of struggle from politics to the streets — is what will save us. And we’re part of a much larger set of working class movements on the rise.
I refuse to give in to nihilism. We have the energy and the people. What we need now is a plan. How can we harness our collective power most strategically in 2024, an election year? Both leading candidates for President are unpopular. Many voters are disgusted with politics in general, yet millions still see it as their main way to engage.
How do we navigate the existing political system while also raising expectations for something better? What is the most effective way to move in our workplaces and communities? One hundred and twelve years after the famous “Bread and Roses” Lawrence Textile Strike, how do we leverage our power in the economy and win the power to govern too? Now is the time to decide, together, where we need to be in November and how to build towards that goal.
Socialists approach these questions not from an individual perspective or through tinkering at the top. We look at the structures of society and we know our power comes from the base. History is made by mass movements — so what is our role in this moment?
DSA has a unique democratic structure that, however messy, allows us to make these decisions and plans together. Let’s make a New Year’s resolution to analyze the moment with clear eyes and then get to work.
Maria Svart
DSA National Director
No More Money for Massacres! Sign Up for Ceasefire Phonebanks Thursdays in January
Stand with DSA members and U.S. Representatives Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib to demand a ceasefire now! DSA members across the country are calling for de-escalation, stopping additional US military aid to Israel, and the protection of millions of civilians. Join our No Money for Massacres phonebanks every Thursday this January. And check out our Palestine Solidarity National Toolkit to learn how you can stay informed, take action, and work for peace and liberation.
Sunday 1/21 — Join Our Workers and the World Unite: Labor in a Green New Deal Call
How would an ecosocialist Green New Deal change work and labor, and what is the role of unions, bargaining for the common good, and rank-and-file organizing in helping us win Green New Deal struggles in the near and long terms?
Join DSA’s GND Campaign Commission and National Labor Commission to hear from organizers about their work and how it fits into the theory and practice of a just transition and socialist horizon! The call will be held on Sunday 1/21 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT.
New Year, New You, New Dues — Switch to Solidarity Dues for 2024! Plus Chapter Trainings Sunday 1/21 and Tuesday 1/23
Kick off 2024 with a resolution to stand in solidarity with the working class by making the switch to Solidarity Dues. We can fight for more in 2024, but to build real power, we must fund our own work. Give your 1% for the 99% by committing to Solidarity Dues today!
Already made the switch and ready to ask your comrades to do the same? Sign up for a Solidarity Dues phonebank and bring your chapter to a Solidarity Dues training Sunday 1/21 or Tuesday 1/23.
ICYMI — Free Subscription to In These Times for DSA Members!
Did you resolve to do more reading this year? Support quality reporting on socialist organizing — In These Times is offering a free subscription to DSA members! Click here to sign up. And enjoy your reading!
Apply for the DSA Growth and Development Committee
We want to share important news regarding the national DSA Growth and Development Committee (GDC) leadership!
After more than a year and a half of dedicated service, Kristian Hernandez and Beth Huang are stepping down as DSA GDC Co-Chairs. We express our sincere gratitude for their contributions in fostering our organization’s growth.
We welcome Colleen Johnston (Denver) and Shane Katz (Baltimore) as the new Co-Chairs of the DSA GDC. Additionally, we are excited to introduce the new GDC Steering Committee of National Political Committee (NPC) members Alex Pellitteri (NYC), Frances Gill (Los Angeles), Sam Heft-Luthy (San Francisco), and Rashad X (Lakefront), as well as (non-NPC members) Michaela Brangan (River Valley), Sarah Callahan (Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky), Beth Huang (Ithaca), Justin Charles (NYC), Alex Finch (Chicago), Kara Hall Zuniga (Las Vegas), Kristian Hernandez (North Texas), and Josh Rusinov (Northern NJ). Together, this team of committed individuals is poised to drive our growth initiatives forward.
The GDC is the primary internal organizing committee for DSA. We develop and implement strategies and programs to grow and sustain DSA, including recruitment and retention drives, surveys, leadership training, chapter mentorship and grants, and more.
Interested in learning more about the GDC? Read our 2023 Convention Report here! Want to get involved? Apply to the GDC here!
The post Continue the Class Struggle — Your January Dispatch appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
The Struggle for Public Power: Lessons from Maine DSA
2023 was the hottest year on record and for many people across the country being able to afford their utility bills to cool or heat their homes during the more extreme temperatures caused by climate change is becoming a possibly deadly challenge. Last year, Maine DSA was part of a statewide coalition called Pine Tree Power that attempted to take over the two largest corporate utilities in the state through a ballot measure in November. They didn’t win. But here on Revolutions Per Minute we are just as interested in talking about losses as we are victories. Tonight, we’ll go to Maine and talk with Aarron and Dwight about the struggles of organizing in a rural state and the lessons they learned from their Public Power campaign.
We’ll also check in with Chen from the New York City EcoSocialist Working Group for an update on the state of renewable energy development in New York (spoiler alert: the private market is in shambles) and what comes next for implementing the Build Public Renewables Act.
Follow Maine DSA and our guests at @DSA_Maine, @bioleera, and @dwobbsy.
Follow New York City EcoSocialist Working Group at @NYCDSA_Ecosoc
San Francisco Demands a Ceasefire in Gaza
DSA SF is proud to stand behind our socialist-in-office D5 Supervisor Dean Preston, who led the way for San Francisco to become the largest city in the country to pass a ceasefire resolution.
We are honored to have worked with and followed the lead of tireless organizers from coalition partners including AROC, CAIR, JVP on this historic resolution.
This success was only made possible by all the calls, emails, public comment, and office visits from the people of San Francisco. Tens of thousands have mobilized in the streets and an unprecedented thousands more filled City Hall to voice their support.
We, the city of San Francisco, demand CEASEFIRE NOW.
While we celebrate the passage of this resolution in San Francisco, we cannot ignore the fight ahead of us. Millions of Palestinians are still in danger and the machinery of capitalism and colonialism grinds ceaselessly.
A ceasefire will only slow the decades-long genocide. We continue to fight to end the siege on Gaza, to free all Palestinian prisoners, to end US military aid to Israel, and an end to the occupation.
Get involved! Join DSA or any of the other organizations involved in the struggle.