[[{“value”:”Fenway Park on the week of workers’ strike authorization. (Working Mass)

By: Andrew S

FENWAY PARK, MA – Concessions workers at the world’s oldest baseball stadium have decided resoundingly to strike for the first time in their 113-year history. On Sunday, June 15, 2025, Fenway Park concessions workers and MGM Music Hall workers across the street officially voted to authorize a strike against their employer, Aramark. The membership of UNITE HERE Local 26 passed authorized the strike with an overwhelming majority of over 95% workers in favor. In their press conference, Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo declared that management “has been nothing but disrespectful” and the “union could go on strike as early as this afternoon.”

On May 15, 2025, UNITE HERE Local 26 officially decided to hold a strike authorization vote a month later if the bargaining committee and Aramark were not able to come to any agreement on wages or technology. They didn’t, forcing workers to strike as a result.

Aramayo cited low wages as one primary reason for authorizing a strike: “The wage structure here is embarrassingly low, not just compared to other jobs in the region but also in comparison to other stadiums in the United States.” Organizers passed around flyers showing that cashiers at the Miami Marlins stadium made $21.25 an hour while beers there only cost $5.19. In contrast, beers at Fenway are sold for $10.79 a pop while workers are only paid $18.51 an hour. Aramark charges fans at Fenway more than any other ballpark in the country, and their workers still make less despite higher costs of living. 

The Red Sox are worth $4.8 billion and Fenway was the most expensive stadium to attend a ballgame in 2024. So, you’ve got to wonder – why are workers paid peanuts?

Automating Fenway

Part of it is a broader anti-worker strategy also involving automation. Workers have also noted that a source of tension with Aramark has been with technological changes forced on the workplace at the expense of workers. Aramayo claimed that Aramark had replaced some of Fenway’s highest paying jobs with automatic computer-based systems that recorded sales. 

That had two consequences. The first was that a significant amount of opportunities for promotion were eliminated or nullified, which directly impacted workers’ ability to survive rising rent and cost of living. That affected not only their ability to stay on the job, but also embedded in their communities around Boston. 

There is another consequence, though – poorer service. During the June 15 press conference, Local 26 member Natalie Green described the labor done by the thousand-strong workforce. On a daily basis, workers perform a variety of tasks that automated technology cannot:  

A computer cannot check if you are over-served or underage drinking. The reason why we stay here is that we are good at our jobs and we want to protect the community. 

Fenway Park: A Community-Rooted Workforce

Protecting the community is one dimension of Fenway work that comes alive in the hands of the workers. Many workers’ own ties to the park and to each other run deep. Fenway Park concessions workers share a remarkable legacy of working for many years at the park, season after season, bonds that have made labor organizing more effective. 

Laura Crystal and Richard Moffat are a couple who work concessions at Fenway, mentioning to Working Mass that both have been working at Fenway since they were in high school. Crystal’s and Moffat’s lives have revolved around the park. They emphasized that this is normal for Fenway workers: 

We got married here, we got engaged on the field, and we’re pregnant…this place becomes a part of your DNA. How do we not love this place? It’s so fundamental to us on top of being a job.

Fenway Park on the week of workers’ strike authorization. (Working Mass)

Mass Bargaining and Solidaristic Bonds

Fenway Park employees have used close familial networks as leverage for labor organizing in spite of Aramark’s disdain. President Aramayo noted that there were 75-80 people on the negotiating and organizing committee that spearheaded the campaign amongst workers in Fenway. In other words, a little less than 10% of the entire workforce was represented on the bargaining committee – ensuring that bargaining committee members and workplace leaders could convey and mobilize their networks directly.

Beer-seller Richard Moffat noted that, as a collective with UNITE HERE, Fenway Park workers used their close relationships to bring people on board for the strike vote and stand up to management. “Everyone has a larger network of friends here, and they try to use that to connect us as a large group,” Moffat said.  “We all help each other to vote, do actions. We have huddles during check-in to show that we can do this in front of management, and that you’re going to be okay. You’re not going to get into trouble, or sent home, or fired. It’s all about gaining momentum.” 

Crystal also chimed in to describe how Fenway’s high-pressure work created ideal conditions to build friendship and, thus, solidarity: “Everyone knows that you don’t know somebody better than when they’re your coworker on their worst day at the job. In there, it’s a hundred degrees, you’re behind a steamer making hot dogs, or running around with drunk fans. It’s a high-pressure situation, and we have strong friendships because of that. Local 26 used those strong friendships to push the message out and hold each other accountable.” 

The strong network built among coworkers at Fenway emboldened one another to organize on the shop floor, because workers knew they had each other’s backs – both as individuals and as a union.

Nonetheless, Aramark tipping workers to a boiling point with low wages and automation still leaves a bad taste in his mouth – just like many of his coworkers who have been fixtures of the park for decades. “A lot of us have had to sacrifice a lot to keep up with the high demands and to maintain seniority…it means a lot to us.” Moffat sighed.

We feel like [Aramark is] destroying the sanctity of America’s most beloved ballpark.

Andrew S is a member of Boston DSA and a contributing writer to Working Mass.

Fenway Park on the week of workers’ strike authorization. (Working Mass)

The post 1000 Fenway Park Concessions Workers To Strike For First Time in 113 Years appeared first on Working Mass.

“}]] 

By: Andrew S

FENWAY PARK – Concessions workers at the world’s oldest baseball stadium have decided resoundingly to strike for the first time in their 113-year history. On Sunday, June 15, 2025, Fenway Park concessions workers and MGM Music Hall workers across the street officially voted to authorize a strike against their employer, Aramark. The membership of UNITE HERE Local 26 authorized the strike with an overwhelming majority of over 95% of workers in favor. In their press conference, Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo declared that management “has been nothing but disrespectful” and the “union could go on strike as early as this afternoon.”

On May 10, 2025, UNITE HERE Local 26 officially decided to hold a strike authorization vote a month later if the bargaining committee and Aramark were not able to come to any agreement on wages or technology. They didn’t, forcing workers to authorize a strike as a result.

Aramayo cited low wages as one primary reason for authorizing a strike: “The wage structure here is embarrassingly low, not just compared to other jobs in the region but also in comparison to other stadiums in the United States.” Organizers passed around flyers showing that cashiers at the Miami Marlins stadium made $21.25 an hour while beers there only cost $5.19. In contrast, beers at Fenway are sold for $10.79 a pop while workers are only paid $18.51 an hour. Aramark charges fans at Fenway more than any other ballpark in the country, and their workers still make less despite higher costs of living. 

The Red Sox are worth $4.8 billion, and Fenway was the most expensive stadium to attend a ballgame in 2024. So, you’ve got to wonder – why are workers paid peanuts?

Automating Fenway

Part of it is a broader anti-worker strategy also involving automation. Workers have also noted that a source of tension with Aramark has been with technological changes forced on the workplace at the expense of workers. Aramayo claimed that Aramark had replaced some of Fenway’s highest paying jobs with automatic computer-based systems that recorded sales. 

That had two consequences. The first was that a significant number of opportunities for promotion were eliminated or nullified, which directly impacted workers’ ability to survive rising rent and the cost of living. This affected not only their ability to stay on the job but also their embeddedness in their communities around Boston. 

There is another consequence, though – poorer service. During the June 15 press conference, Local 26 member Natalie Greening described the labor done by the thousand-strong workforce. On a daily basis, workers perform a variety of tasks that automated technology cannot:  

A computer cannot check if you are over-served or underage drinking. The reason why we stay here is that we are good at our jobs and we want to protect the community. 

Fenway Park: A Community-Rooted Workforce

Protecting the community is one dimension of Fenway work that comes alive in the hands of the workers. Many workers’ own ties to the park and to each other run deep. Fenway Park concessions workers share a remarkable legacy of working for many years at the park, season after season, bonds that have made labor organizing more effective. 

Laura Crystal and Richard Moffatt are a couple who work concessions at Fenway, mentioning to Working Mass that both have been working at Fenway since they were in high school. Crystal’s and Moffatt’s lives have revolved around the park. They emphasized that this is normal for Fenway workers: 

We got married here, we got engaged on the field, and we’re pregnant…this place becomes a part of your DNA. How do we not love this place? It’s so fundamental to us on top of being a job.

Mass Bargaining and Solidaristic Bonds

Fenway Park employees have used close familial networks as leverage for labor organizing in spite of Aramark’s disdain. President Aramayo noted that 75-80 people were on the negotiating and organizing committee that spearheaded the campaign amongst workers in Fenway. In other words, a little less than 10% of the entire workforce was represented on the bargaining committee, ensuring that bargaining committee members and workplace leaders could convey and mobilize their networks directly.

Beer-seller Richard Moffatt noted that, as a collective with UNITE HERE, Fenway Park workers used their close relationships to bring people on board for the strike vote and stand up to management. “Everyone has a larger network of friends here, and they try to use that to connect us as a large group,” Moffatt said.  “We all help each other to vote, do actions. We have huddles during check-in to show that we can do this in front of management, and that you’re going to be okay. You’re not going to get into trouble, or sent home, or fired. It’s all about gaining momentum.” 

Crystal also chimed in to describe how Fenway’s high-pressure work created ideal conditions to build friendship and, thus, solidarity: “Everyone knows that you don’t know somebody better than when they’re your coworker on their worst day at the job. In there, it’s a hundred degrees, you’re behind a steamer making hot dogs, or running around with drunk fans. It’s a high-pressure situation, and we have strong friendships because of that. Local 26 used those strong friendships to push the message out and hold each other accountable.” 

The strong network built among coworkers at Fenway emboldened one another to organize on the shop floor, because workers knew they had each other’s backs – both as individuals and as a union.

Nonetheless, Aramark tipping workers to a boiling point with low wages and automation still leaves a bad taste in his mouth – just like many of his coworkers who have been fixtures of the park for decades. “A lot of us have had to sacrifice a lot to keep up with the high demands and to maintain seniority…it means a lot to us.” Moffatt sighed.

We feel like [Aramark is] destroying the sanctity of America’s most beloved ballpark.

Andrew S is a member of Boston DSA and a contributing writer to Working Mass.

The post 1,000 Fenway Park Concessions Workers May Strike For First Time in 113 Years appeared first on Working Mass.

[[{“value”:”

By Chris B.

BEACON HILL, MA – In 2024, as Israel escalated its genocide in Gaza and the political establishment ran cover, State Senator John Velis (D – Westfield) led Massachusetts legislators to authorize a state-level Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism. The Commission was charged with holding public hearings, reporting its findings, and recommending how to combat antisemitism to the Legislature by the end of November 2025. 

The amendment passed in a political environment where hate crimes and violence against minority groups, including antisemitism, are rising. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), often seen as an authority on antisemitism, claims 2024 as a high-water mark for antisemitic incidents recorded in a year. But that statistic is misleading. The ADL, a pro-Israel organization so explicitly Zionist and outwardly political that Wikipedia no longer considers it a reliable source for citations, equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. But while antisemitism is form of white supremacist hatred against Jews historically tied with the political Right (e.g., Hitler’s Third Reich or auto tycoon Henry Ford), critics of Zionism look to a settler colonial history in the government in Israel, which violently enforces what it sees as a divine right to a religiously segregated ethnostate, wherein the indigenous (Palestinian) people are annihilated.

The Massachusetts Teachers Union (MTA), Massachusetts’ largest union by membership, is no stranger to ire from the ruling elite, Republican and Democrat. Back-to-back victorious state ballot campaigns spearheaded by the MTA – the Fair Share Amendment in 2022, and removing the MCAS graduation requirement in 2024 – have cemented public educators as a powerful force for the Commonwealth’s working class. When the Globe routinely cites Boston-based “free market” think tank Pioneer Institute against teachers’ unions and public education, and Democratic Governor Maura Healey union busts striking local educators desperate for student resources, the ideological overlap of the settler-colonial (“Pioneer”) project and the anti-union project, both of the bipartisan ruling class, reveals itself.

Special Commission on a Zionist Mission

From its very inception, it was clear that the Special Commission was, in reality, a Zionist political project cloaked in virtuous language. Activists were quick to criticize the Special Commission for being a Trojan horse for anti-Palestinian repression during its founding. Sixty-four organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Boston Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), UAW Local 2322, and 1,100 individuals, signed onto a June 2024 letter to the legislature requesting that the budget amendment authorizing the Special Commission not pass.

Written signatories also cited a lack of public input, the Special Commission failing to incorporate antisemitism into a generally anti-racist framework, and its adoption of the controversial, ADL-aligned International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition, which considers some criticisms of the state of Israel as a form of anti-Jewish hate, has far-reaching implications on education policy, civil rights protections, and the expansion of Massachusetts’ hate crimes statute.

Concerns about Israel’s influence over the Special Commission are well-founded. A June 2024 webinar on antisemitism in Mass. public schools, hosted by the Israeli-American Civil Action Network (ICAN) where Sen. Velis was a panelist, was sponsored by extreme Zionist groups such as StandWithUs, the Consulate General of Israel to New England, CAMERA Education Institute, and Christians and Jews United for Israel.

The webinar was exclusively focused on the alleged antisemitism of the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association (MTA). The presentation came from a group of Zionist rank-and-file MTA members calling themselves Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism (MEAA) who have worked to stomp out advocacy for Palestinians in Massachusetts and their union.

Sen. Velis has been on no fewer than three trips to Israel paid for by Israel-affiliated organizations. He emphasizes that these trips do not influence his credibility as Commission co-chair, since he claims to have also spoken to Palestinians on these trips. Still, in an October 2024 panel hosted by ICAN, Velis expressed doubt about well-documented Israeli apartheid and human rights violations. He then waxed about his experience on a tour of an Israeli air missile battery during his latest trip, commenting on the attractiveness of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers: “I’m thinking it’s gonna be a bunch of U.S. service members coming out, in my mind what U.S. service members look like…and please don’t take this the wrong way…but five of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life walk out…and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about the Iron Dome, because you know.” 

Working Mass applauds Senator Velis for his even-keeled assessment of the situation in Palestine.

Special Commission vs. The MTA

Sen. Velis’s amendment, passed last spring, also instructs the Mass. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to create antisemitism educational curricula for Massachusetts public schools. Under this pretense, the Commission summoned MTA President Max Page and Lexington High teacher Jessica Antoline to testify on February 10th, 2025. 

It quickly became clear that the hearing was a setup. Almost immediately, the testimony became an interrogation. What was advertised to MTA leadership as a good-faith dialogue regarding the resource page turned into a McCarthyist inquisition of the MTA, aiming to corner Page and Antoline into “gotcha” soundbites over any good-faith discussion. 

The Special Commission’s interrogation focused on the MTA’s internal list of resources for educators to use to teach a balanced approach to Israel/Palestine with respect to Palestinians’ self-determination. A democratic and popular MTA resolution led to the creation of the list. Sources in MTA tell Working Mass that over 1000 rank-and-file members and the MTA’s Board of Directors supported the resolution. Retired librarian and MTA member Sue Doherty said that since “most teachers are terrified to teach about this topic,” the resource list was broadly welcomed.

The Special Commission’s co-chair presented a list of images retrieved from secondary links embedded within the resource list and repeatedly demanded that President Page denounce them as antisemitic. He repeatedly ignored Ms. Antoline’s request to present her testimony, pushing it after the one-hour mark. Images selected included an image of Joe Biden with “serial killer” superimposed over him and another image saying “Zionists Fuck Off.” These images were not explicitly provided to teachers or students, but were found uploaded to some of the websites on the resource list. The individual images were presented to demonstrate an “anti-Israel” bias within the MTA, and to create an impression that the MTA is encouraging Massachusetts teachers to indoctrinate their students with antisemitic beliefs. 

A graphic published by the pro-Palestine rank-and-file caucus of MTA members demonstrates the Commission’s cherry picking. Image source: MTA Rank & File for Palestine

The Special Commission’s hearing was not expected, but not surprising, as rank-and-file MTA members have self-organized a powerful pro-Palestine caucus within the union, culminating in a successful resolution to divest their pension fund from military contractors. A simple Google search of ‘MTA antisemitism’ reveals countless articles demonstrating a concerted effort by Zionist organizations to punish the MTA for its pro-Palestine advocacy. The Free Press, an outfit of the Israel hawk Bari Weiss, summed it up in an article titled “Hamassachusetts”.

In the wake of the Special Commission’s interrogation, reactionary forces have capitalized on the MTA’s public flogging to attack public-sector unions writ large. These anti-labor efforts align with Trump’s attacks on federal workers, as well as long-standing warfare against teachers through efforts to privatize public education and kneecap the strongest union in the Commonwealth. The Special Commission is providing them with ammunition to make their case. 

Organized Educators Push Back

The attack was, of course, trumped up. Left out of the inquisition were critical facts, like how most of the resources presented were never actually shared with students in the classroom. The resource page includes a plethora of optional – not mandated – resources to utilize to help instructors learn and teach about Palestine. One of these resources was the organization Artists Against Apartheid, without any specific images attached, only a link to the website. The Commission combed through this website and others from the list, found the images it defined as the most antisemitic, and cited them as holistically indicative of the type of resources the MTA provided to its membership. 

The Commission cited an infographic about Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer with offices in MA, to attack the MTA.  However, the infographic was never included in the MTA’s list of resources, nor could it be directly navigated to from the list. This did not prevent the Special Commission’s co-chair, Rep. Simon Cataldo (D – Concord), from attempting to conflate criticism of an Israeli corporation with antisemitism. 

As members of MTA Rank and File for Palestine documented in an exhaustive report they submitted to the Special Commission in response to the February 10th hearing, the co-chairs’ cherry-picked “exhibits” may have criticized Israel and/or Zionism, but they were not antisemitic. The report also analyzes how the line of questioning and many of the images shown promoted anti-Palestinian racism. Merrie Najimy, former MTA president and organizer with MTA Rank and File for Palestine, also testified:

As an Arab-American educator, I bring to my teaching my own experience with racism, that very racism that I just experienced here. My watch went off, telling me my heart rate was elevated to 122.

Deep connections between Jewish labor and the MTA challenge the Special Commission’s incredulous charge of antisemitism to attack the union. Page himself is the child of two Massachusetts public educators, one of which was a Jewish refugee from WW2-era Nazi terror. And three different MTA locals were recently honored at the New England Jewish Labor Committee’s 2025 Labor Seder.

Image source: Union of Gloucester Educators Instagram

These facts complicate the Special Commission’s politically motivated smear campaign and highlight the absurdity of lecturing the child of Jewish refugees about antisemitism. As President Page continuously reiterated, teachers have the critical thinking skills to understand that a poster saying ‘Zionists Fuck Off’ is not relevant to the classroom. The labor leader argued:

Our highly educated teachers and other education professionals – creative individuals who have dedicated their lives to building a culture of learning for young people – are not robots who would somehow be brainwashed by a single set of resources.

Leaders of Jewish communities have also stepped up against the politically weaponized overreach of the Special Commission. On March 31st, 90 local rabbis and Jewish community leaders wrote arguing that the Special Commission’s activity was contributing to President Trump’s free speech crackdown under the pretense of combating antisemitism.

Elsa Auerbach, a professor emeritus at UMass Boston, MTA member, Boston Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) member, and one of the signatories of the letter, added that the trajectory of the Commission seems like a giant missed opportunity:

I will not project the intent of the Commission. But, Massachusetts has the opportunity to be the model to fight antisemitism in the current historical moment …  clearly framed as a Commission which stands against white supremacy… After the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia, I read that some rabbis were saying the suffering of Jews was being co-opted for an antisemitic agenda. That is the framing I’d like to see the commission looking at.

In Defense of Union Democracy and Public Education

Educators are fighting not only to keep the democratic will of their union’s membership respected in the face of the Special Commission’s attack, but also to teach facts. The death count in Gaza is estimated to be over 200,000, more than one in every two buildings is destroyed, and its entire living population is currently on a trajectory to starve to death. Constantly, Palestinians are told to put their lived experience as secondary to narratives mandated by polite society, when the reality is depravity that can never be truly articulated or taught. During a genocide facilitated by our United States government, and with our taxpayer money, it’s no surprise that organized educators are determined to teach the truth. Doherty summed it up:

Silencing the truth about the history of Israel and Palestine and marginalizing the experiences of Palestinian students and their families doesn’t do a thing to help fight antisemitism or make Jewish students safe.

Chris B is a DSA member, public sector union member and contributor to Working Mass.

The post How A Mass. Special Commission Became a Trojan Horse to Crush A Powerful Statewide Educators Union  appeared first on Working Mass.

“}]] 

By Chris B.

BEACON HILL, MA – In 2024, as Israel escalated its genocide in Gaza and the political establishment ran cover, State Senator John Velis (D – Westfield) and Rep. Simon Cataldo (D – Concord) led Massachusetts legislators to authorize a state-level Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism. The Commission was charged with holding public hearings, reporting its findings, and recommending how to combat antisemitism to the Legislature by the end of November 2025. But in its most publicized hearing, the Commission called to the stand representatives of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), the statewide educators’ union, to scrutinize an internally shared list of resources for member education on Israel/Palestine.

The amendment passed in a political environment where hate crimes and violence against minority groups, including Jewish people, are rising. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), often seen as an authority on antisemitism, claims 2024 as a high-water mark for antisemitic incidents recorded in a year. But that statistic is misleading. The ADL, a pro-Israel organization so explicitly Zionist and outwardly political that Wikipedia no longer considers it a reliable source for citations, equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. But while antisemitism is a form of white supremacist hatred against Jews historically tied with the political right (e.g., Hitler’s Third Reich or auto tycoon Henry Ford), critics of Zionism take a historical materialist analysis of the settler colonial ideology behind the modern Israeli statehood project. As the United Nations recognized the state of Israel in 1948 as a post-World War II settlement in the wake of the Holocaust, they also granted official superpower backing to the Zionist political movement for a Jewish ethnostate, which took for granted the annihilation, expulsion, and subjugation of the native Palestinian population. The U.S. and its allies have continued to support Israel primarily for their own colonial interests, since it serves as a friendly military outpost in the Middle East, a key shipping route and oil-rich region, even as blatant land grabs, civilian slaughter, and other abuses occur daily.

The MTA is no stranger to fury from the ruling class, Republican or Democratic. Democrat Governor Maura Healey, leading a consensus of state legislators, intervened to crush local MTA unions on strike in 2022, 2023, and 2024. The union’s victories in popular, back-to-back ballot campaigns it supported in 2022 and 2024, also opposed by Healey and state Democratic leadership – the Fair Share Amendment removing the MCAS graduation requirement – cemented organized public educators as a powerful, politically independent force for the Commonwealth’s working class. When the Globe routinely cites Boston-based “free market” think tank Pioneer Institute against teachers’ unions and public education, and a Democratic governor union busts striking local educators desperate for student resources, the political overlap of the settler-colonial (“Pioneer”) project and the anti-union project, both of the bipartisan ruling class, reveals itself. Still, the swift interrogation by the newly formed Special Commission on Antisemitism marked an escalation of manipulative tactics and state repression.

Special Commission on a Zionist Mission

From its inception, it was clear that the Special Commission was, in reality, a Zionist political project cloaked in virtuous language. Activists were quick to criticize the Special Commission for being a Trojan horse for anti-Palestinian repression during its founding. Sixty-four organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Boston Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), UAW Local 2322, and 1,100 individuals, signed onto a June 2024 letter to the legislature requesting that the budget amendment authorizing the Special Commission not pass.

Written signatories also cited a lack of public input, the Special Commission failing to incorporate antisemitism into a generally anti-racist framework, and its adoption of the controversial, ADL-aligned International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition, which labels some criticisms of the state of Israel as a form of anti-Jewish hate, if legitimized by the state, has far-reaching implications on education policy, civil rights protections, and what is considered hate crimes.

Concerns about Israel’s influence over the Special Commission are well-founded. A June 2024 webinar on antisemitism in Mass. public schools, hosted by the Israeli-American Civil Action Network (ICAN) where Sen. Velis was a panelist, was sponsored by extreme Zionist groups such as StandWithUs, the Consulate General of Israel to New England, CAMERA Education Institute, and Christians and Jews United for Israel.

That webinar included a presentation on the alleged antisemitism of the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association (MTA). A group of Zionist rank-and-file MTA members calling themselves Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism (MEAA), who have worked to stomp out advocacy for Palestinians in Massachusetts and their union, led the presentation.

Sen. Velis has been on no fewer than three trips to Israel paid for by Israel-affiliated organizations. He emphasizes that these trips do not influence his credibility as Commission co-chair, since he claims to have also spoken to Palestinians on these trips. Still, in an October 2024 panel hosted by ICAN, Velis expressed doubt about well-documented Israeli apartheid and human rights violations. He then waxed about his experience on a tour of an Israeli air missile battery during his latest trip, commenting on the attractiveness of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers:

“I’m thinking it’s gonna be a bunch of U.S. service members coming out, in my mind what U.S. service members look like…and please don’t take this the wrong way…but five of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life walk out…and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about the Iron Dome, because, you know.” 

Working Mass applauds Senator Velis for his even-keeled assessment of the situation in Palestine.

Special Commission vs. The MTA

Sen. Velis’s amendment, passed last spring, also instructs the Mass. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to create antisemitism educational curricula for Massachusetts public schools. Under this pretense, the Commission summoned MTA President Max Page and Lexington High teacher Jessica Antoline to testify on February 10th, 2025. 

It quickly became clear that the hearing was a setup. What was advertised to MTA leadership as a good-faith dialogue regarding the resource page promptly turned into a McCarthyist inquisition of the MTA, aiming to corner Page and Antoline into “gotcha” soundbites. 

The Special Commission’s interrogation focused on an MTA internal list of resources for educators to use to teach a balanced approach to Israel/Palestine with respect to Palestinians’ self-determination. A democratic and popular MTA resolution led to the creation of the list. Sources in MTA tell Working Mass that over 1000 rank-and-file members advanced the resolution democratically, and the MTA’s Board of Directors voted in favor. Retired librarian and MTA member Sue Doherty said that since “most teachers are terrified to teach about this topic,” the resource list was broadly welcomed.

Rep. Cataldo presented a list of images retrieved from secondary links embedded within the resource list and repeatedly demanded that President Page denounce them as antisemitic. He repeatedly ignored Ms. Antoline’s request to present her testimony, pushing it after his presentation. Images selected included an image of Joe Biden with “serial killer” superimposed over him and another image saying “Zionists Fuck Off.” These images were not directly provided to teachers or students, but were found on tangential pages on some of the websites on the resource list. Cataldo presented the images to demonstrate an “anti-Israel” bias within the MTA, pressing Page and Antoline to confirm what he described as the union’s “indoctrination” of students with antisemitic beliefs. 

The Special Commission’s hearing was not expected, but not surprising, as rank-and-file MTA members self-organized a powerful pro-Palestine caucus within the union, culminating in a successful resolution to divest their pension fund from military contractors. A simple Google search of ‘MTA antisemitism’ reveals countless articles demonstrating a concerted effort by Zionist organizations to punish the MTA for its pro-Palestine advocacy. The Free Press, an outfit of the Israel hawk Bari Weiss, summed it up in an article titled “Hamassachusetts”.

In the wake of the Special Commission’s interrogation, reactionary forces have capitalized on the MTA’s public flogging to attack public-sector unions writ large. These anti-labor efforts align with Trump’s attacks on federal workers and long-standing warfare against public education through efforts to privatize schools and kneecap educators’ unions. The Special Commission sought to supply the offensive with additional ammo.

Organized Educators Push Back

The attack was, of course, trumped up. Critical facts were left out of the inquisition, like how most of the resources presented were never actually shared with students in the classroom. The resource page includes many optional – not mandated – resources to help instructors learn and teach about Palestine. One of these resources was the website for the organization Artists Against Apartheid, without any specific images attached. The Commission combed through this website and others from the list, found the images it defined as the most antisemitic, and cited them as holistically indicative of the type of resources the MTA provided to its membership. 

The Commission cited an infographic about Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer that had an office in Cambridge until recently, due to public outcry, to attack the MTA. However, the infographic was never included in the MTA’s list of resources, nor could it be directly navigated to from the list. This did not prevent Cataldo from attempting to conflate criticism of an Israeli corporation with antisemitism. 

At one point, Cataldo asked Page and Antoline to name individuals who had posted pro-Palestine sentiment on their personal social media accounts. An audience member rose and shouted, “Senator McCarthy, how is this any different than naming names of coworkers and associates during the 1950s Red Scare?” The crowd erupted in rapturous applause. Cataldo pounded his gavel to restore order and stated, “That was a nice remark from a former teacher of mine who taught Marxism class.”

As members of the MTA rank-and-file pro-Palestine caucus documented in an exhaustive report they submitted to the Special Commission in response to the February 10th hearing, the co-chairs’ cherry-picked “exhibits” may have criticized Israel and/or Zionism, but they were not antisemitic. The report also analyzes how the line of questioning and many of the images shown promoted anti-Palestinian racism. Merrie Najimy, former MTA president and organizer with MTA Rank and File for Palestine, later testified with a community group at the hearing:

As an Arab-American educator, I bring to my teaching my own experience with racism, that very racism that I just experienced here. My watch went off, telling me my heart rate was elevated to 122.

Deep connections between Jewish labor and the MTA challenge the Special Commission’s incredulous charge of antisemitism to attack the union. Page himself is the child of a Jewish refugee from WW2-era Nazi terror. And three different MTA locals were recently honored by the New England Jewish Labor Committee for their courage in going on strike, technically illegally as public sector workers and with the opposition of Gov. Healey, at the 2025 Labor Seder in Boston.

These facts complicate the Special Commission’s politically motivated smear campaign and highlight the absurdity of lecturing a first-generation descendant of Jewish refugees about antisemitism. As Page and Antoline continuously reiterated, teachers have the critical thinking skills to understand that a poster saying ‘Zionists Fuck Off’, on its own, with no context, is not relevant to the classroom. The labor leader argued:

Our highly educated teachers and other education professionals – creative individuals who have dedicated their lives to building a culture of learning for young people – are not robots who would somehow be brainwashed by a single set of resources.

Leaders of Jewish communities have also stepped up against the politically weaponized overreach of the Special Commission. On March 31st, 90 local rabbis and Jewish community leaders wrote arguing that the Special Commission’s activity was contributing to President Trump’s free speech crackdown under the pretense of combating antisemitism.

Elsa Auerbach, a professor emeritus at UMass Boston, MTA member, Boston Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) member, and one of the signatories of the letter, added that the trajectory of the Commission seems like a giant missed opportunity:

I will not project the intent of the Commission. But, Massachusetts has the opportunity to be the model to fight antisemitism in the current historical moment …  clearly framed as a Commission which stands against white supremacy… After the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia, I read that some rabbis were saying the suffering of Jews was being co-opted for an antisemitic agenda. That is the framing I’d like to see the commission looking at.

In Defense of Union Democracy and Public Education

Educators are fighting not only to keep the democratic will of their union’s membership respected in the face of the Special Commission’s attack, but also, as they are obligated to do by their profession, to teach facts. The death count in Gaza is estimated to be over 200,000, more than one in every two buildings is destroyed, and its entire living population is currently on a trajectory to starve to death. Constantly, Palestinians are told to put their lived experience as secondary to narratives mandated by polite society, when the reality is depravity that can never be truly articulated or taught. During a genocide facilitated by our United States government, and with our taxpayer money, it’s no surprise that organized educators are determined to uphold truth. Doherty summed it up:

Silencing the truth about the history of Israel and Palestine and marginalizing the experiences of Palestinian students and their families doesn’t do a thing to help fight antisemitism or make Jewish students safe.

Chris B is a DSA member, public sector union member and contributor to Working Mass.

The post How A Mass. Special Commission Became a Trojan Horse Against the Powerful Statewide Educators Union  appeared first on Working Mass.

Tech workers are still largely unorganized, but they can act together to stop the used of militarized weapons on people at home and abroad.

The post Tech Workers Must Fight the Anti-Immigrant Crackdown and Escalating Authoritarianism appeared first on EWOC.

This article is reprinted from the Socialist Forum, a publication of DSA. It was authored by Todd Chretien, who serves both on DSA’s Editorial Board as well as Pine & Roses’ Editorial Collective. It was originally published on May 30, 2025.

What happened? 

Hundreds of thousands of workers marched and rallied on May Day, making it the largest International Workers Day since 2006 when two million immigrant workers left work and marched to demand their rights. Protests were organized in 1300 locations, large and small; no doubt the first May Day protest in many places. Broadly speaking, there were three different levels of mobilization. First, as in 2006, Chicago stood out with some 30,000 marching, organized by a mass coalition of labor and immigrant rights organizations. Second, cities like Philly, New York, Baltimore, San Francisco, Oakland, Burlington, and Portland, Maine mobilized between two and fifteen thousand. Third, hundreds of cities and towns turned out crowds from a couple dozen to hundreds, including smaller cities like Davis, California. This ranking is not intended as a judgement on the organizers. In fact, some of the smaller rallies included higher percentages of the population than the largest. For instance, in the town of Wayne, Maine—population 1,000—seventy-five people turned out for both morning and evening rallies. 

It’s worth noting that the crowds were not as large as the April 5 day of protest initiated by Indivisible; however, participants were noticeably more multiracial, younger, and radical with widespread support for transgender rights and opposition to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Though an important step in the process of building working-class unity against the billionaires and capitalist class, these efforts have a long way to go. For instance, although multiracial, at the national level, the marches did not entirely reflect working-class diversity. And if immigrant rights organizations were critical in many cities, Trump’s reign of terror against immigrant workers suppressed turnout from this community in many places. 

Who organized it and how? 

Memory and sacrifice play a role in sustaining oppositional working-class culture. No Haymarket Martyrs, no May Day. More recently, the 2006 May Day protests provided a living link to the past as well as the importance of International Workers Day globally. UAW president Shawn Fain’s call for unions to align contracts and lead a 2028 general strike, have introduced May Day to a whole new generation of labor organizers.

 Recently, precursor actions in the wake of Trump’s election laid the basis for pulling together a mass, class-based response. As the saying goes, the best organizing tool is a bad boss and Trump is one of the worst bosses possible. Repression and widespread layoffs do not always provoke resistance, but this time targeted workers put up a critical mass of opposition that gummed up the works and provided the time to organize a strategic response. 

Thousands of teachers from across the country responded to a call by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers for walk-ins in March to protest Trump’s destruction of the Department of Education. Bay Area activists organized a “Day of Resistance” against ICE even before Trump was inaugurated. The Maine State Nurses Association led a rally to protest Medicaid cuts in March and organized a mass town hall to prevent the closure of the obstetrics department in the small town of Houlton. Kathryn Lybarger, president of AFSCME 3299 representing 22,000 workers at the University of California, summarizes her union’s approach, “My union went on its fourth strike in six months on May Day, and the energy felt great. For union members fighting a powerful employer for our families’ futures, it was amazing to be joined on the picket line by all kinds of community members who are fighting billionaires for their futures too. The day felt like an event and an important step in building the movement we need to stop Trump and win a better world.”   In the single biggest display of working-class power on May Day, 55,000 LA County employees in SEIU 721 walked off the job and marched through downtown LA. 

As federal workers reeled from Trump’s layoffs, the Federal Unionist Network was one of the most important elements blunting the blitzkrieg. FUN organizer Chris Dols explains, “Amidst all the necessary defense we’re playing against the billionaires’ offensive, May Day is the labor movement’s opportunity to articulate a positive vision for the world we deserve. Federal workers are uniquely positioned and proud to help advance such a vision because, above all else, we are public servants, and it is the entire public that is under assault. As is captured by the FUN’s ‘Save Our Services’ demand, our approach to May Day was to foreground the crucial services and protections federal workers provide in an effort to not only cohere fighting federal labor movement but also to develop and deepen alliances with all who stand to lose the most if Trump gets away with smashing up our agencies.”

Pair these factors with decades of bipartisan misery inflicted on the working class, and it’s not surprising workers are angry. Politicians have failed to deliver on demands like healthcare for all, affordable housing, and a stronger public education system. Add inflation, union-busting, white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia and homophobia, genocide in Gaza, and anti-immigrant bigotry, and the potential for uniting large parts of the working class across its many divisions comes into focus.

Chicago takes the lead

Yet objective conditions alone cannot make a plan. Organized forces with the credibility and capacity to think through a strategy and to put it into practice are needed. 

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

It’s not that the CTU and immigrant community organizers in Chicago were the only ones thinking about May Day, but their action drew together and amplified similar efforts across the country, nationalizing the protest by providing a framework and resources for labor and community organizers in hundreds of towns and cities. Chicago didn’t create May Day 2025—thousands of activists across the country had to take up the call—but it did open a door. 

Socialists and the united front

Assessing the impact of May Day for the working class as a whole should not be conflated with DSA’s role in the organizing. But as this is an article that will mostly reach DSA members, it’s worth reviewing what we contributed. First, thousands of DSA members across the country turned out for May Day. This fact alone shows our organization’s strength, and it points to opportunities and responsibilities. If all your chapter was able to do was to turn out members or help publicize the local protest among coworkers and the broader community, that’s an important contribution. Second, at the National Level, DSA’s National Political Committee and National Labor Commission joined May Day Strong and organized membership Zoom meetings to encourage branches to take action starting in March. Third, and this should come as no surprise, DSA played a bigger role in some places than others. I think it’s worth considering the impact of the strategic and tactical choices local chapters made on the influence they wielded and the organic ties they deepened. After speaking with comrades from across the country, I will offer a few positive examples. I hope comrades will add to this picture and offer alternative ideas or criticisms. 

New York 

In October, the NYC-DSA chapter adopted a resolution to support the UAW’s call for a 2028 May Day strike. The chapter subsequently held an internal May Day 2028 strategy retreat and identified May Day 2025 as a key link in the chain of developing power and political momentum to fight against Trump and the broader machine. As one DSA organizer puts it, “It’s not enough to circle May Day 2028 on a calendar, we need to build a coalition to organize it and politicize it.” Rooted in this perspective, NYC-DSA turned out to support a mass post-election labor-left anti-Trump rally, the FUN day of action in February, the subsequent Stop the Cuts rally on March 15, and Hands Off on April 5. 

Olivia Gonzalez Killingsworth, co-chair of NYC-DSA Labor Working Group and National Labor Commission SC member (as well as a twenty-year member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA) picks up the story, reflecting, “After Stop the Cuts, I went to Chicago on March 19 and 20 as an NLC representative to join the May Day Strong meeting. Stacy Davis Gates, Jackson Potter, and Jesse Sharkey welcomed us all into the house that CTU built. Shawn Fain was there along with Randi Weingarten, who was enraged because Trump signed his executive order gutting the Department of Education that same day. We broke out into regions and were charged with going back home to build May Day as big as possible. In New York City, broadly speaking, there were three important currents: the core of the union movement represented by the Central Labor Council, the left-liberals like Tesla Takedown, and the labor/left, of which DSA is a part. Through a lot of coalition work, we made a circle out of this Venn diagram. Trump helped along the way. Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation really angered the Building Trades, further galvanizing them into participation. DSA played an important role in mobilizing: we had a huge contingent, and even more members marching with their unions. But more than that, we helped politicize May Day to point to the billionaires who are benefiting from the Trump administration’s attacks on us.” 

Part of this work included successfully advocating—alongside many others—for both AOC and Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyer to speak at the rally, which garnered significant national media attention, helping broadcast our message far beyond May Day participants. It’s important to point out that DSA did not initiate the coalition, but worked alongside long-time labor activists to support May Day, earning our stripes as a trusted and capable partner. 

On the day, NYC-DSA turned out some 500 members, many of whom marched with their unions. They did so while keeping up with other work—DSA member Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor—with NYC-DSA labor organizers having advanced a month-long Build to May Day campaign. Organizers called on committees and working groups across the chapter to make May Day a priority, turning out members and volunteer marshalls. The chapter is now in a stronger position to discuss next steps with the broader coalition and consolidate a layer of new members and allies. There’s more pain ahead, but May Day helped gather working-class forces together for action and to take the temperature of the most active and militant layer of trade unionists and community activists. As NYC-DSA Labor Working Group member David Duhalde suggests, “The New York City May Day rally and march from Foley Square to the iconic Wall Street Bull statue was a microcosm of the shift in energy in labor during Trump’s second term.” How far that shift goes can only be tested in practice.

Philadelphia

As in New York, Philadelphia DSA did not initiate the call for the May Day rallies. The AFL-CIO led the charge in alliance with immigrants rights organizations such as Milpa, New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, and Juntos, mobilizing some 5,000 workers. But Philadelphia DSA did add its organizing muscle, assigning Luke M to act as liaison. The chapter followed many of the same tactics as their New York comrades. When the AFL-CIO opened up the coalition, DSA members proved themselves energetic organizers; for instance, running the marshal training and providing a large portion of marshals. DSA members constituted a large part of the seventy-two people arrested at the end of the march in a civil disobedience action, including Rick Krajewski, a DSA member elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Seven union presidents joined in this calculated escalation of tactics, demonstrating a broad understanding that workers will have to take matters into their own hands to back down the billionaires and capitalist elites. 

And in a lesson passed down through generations, from the IWW to Sit-Down Strikes to the Civil Rights Movement to Occupy to Black Lives Matter to Gaza, no protest is finished until jail support is organized, a responsibility that was taken up by DSA members and coalition partners alike. That unity in action demonstrated the most important aspect of united front work, but the chapter also raised the socialist banner. Taking placards and membership interest card ideas from DSA members in California, Philadelphia DSA formed a visible presence on the march with some 200 members, and signed up sixty-two new recruits. It didn’t hurt that the unions invited Bernie to speak. After all the hard work, Luke praised his Philly comrades, “I have to say I’m genuinely proud of what we accomplished, and I’m looking forward to the debrief meeting to see what comes next.”

Portland, Maine

Maine DSA’s Labor Rising working group decided to focus on May Day in December, laying the basis to help initiate an organizing meeting open to all community groups and unions. Maine AFL-CIO leaders and UAW graduate students participated in a preliminary meeting to brainstorm ideas, and more than 70 people attended an April 12 meeting in the South Portland Teamsters’ Hall, where the group democratically planned Portland’s May Day. Working groups took up all aspects of the action, and we took all important decisions back to the coalition for votes. Running a long a related track, Maine Education Association and Maine AFL-CIO leaders called for actions across the state, amplifying the Chicago May Day Strong call and dramatically broadening what the Portland coalition could organize. 

Nearly 2,000 people turned out in Portland, starting with a rally at the University of Southern Maine to back UAW graduate students’ demands for a first contract and then marching to the Post Office to hear from postal workers. Members of the Portland Education Association and a trans student poet headlined the stop at Portland High School and a librarian union rep spoke in Monument Square before the final rally that heard from the president of the Metal Trades Council at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, a rep from the Maine State Nurses Association, members of the Maine Coalition for Palestine, an organizer from LGTBQ+ community group Portland Outright, a local immigrant rights group called Presente! Maine, and others. It was a great demonstration and showed the thirst for a broader coalition. Twenty-five other towns held actions, bringing the total number of Maine participants to over 5,000, the largest Maine May Day anyone can remember. 

It would be shortsighted to overstate the power and stability of this fledgling coalition. Large doses of patience and understanding will be necessary to foster bonds of trust. Sectarian pressures to draw “red lines” that exclude workers new to political activity and organizations who have various programs and interests represent one danger. A narrow focus on the midterm elections represents another. Fortunately, there’s a lot of room for creativity between those two extremes. 

Long road ahead

May Day was the first test of strength for the left and working class against Trump, MAGA, and forty-plus years of neoliberal rot. We face a long, complex problem where political pressures to return to passivity will be strong, but May Day 2025 constitutes a small step towards healing deep wounds in the American working class, the divide between organized and unorganized, immigrant and US born, etc. If brother Fain’s call for 2028 is to grow strong, then 2026 and 2027 must be practice runs.  If 2026 and 2027 are to be real demonstrations of strength, they must grow out of tighter bonds between labor, community, and the left, more active membership participation in all of those forces, and a combination of defensive struggles we are forced to fight and battles we pick on our own terms. As Sarah Hurd, co-chair of DSA’s National Labor Commission, spells out, “This year’s May Day actions showed the power of what we can accomplish just by setting a date and inviting people to take action together. It has also highlighted what work we need to do to scale up our level of organization in the next three years.” 

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

The post Unions and Community Unite for May Day: Lessons for the Fight Ahead appeared first on Pine & Roses.

On April 15, Border Patrol agents tackled a 27-year-old Salvadoran man to the pavement on Massachusetts Avenue in Portland. They zip-tied his limbs and threw him into the back of an unmarked vehicle. “It looked like someone getting kidnapped,” a witness told reporters. That’s because it was: a state-sponsored abduction, a spectacle of fear, and a message.

Eyidi Ambila, a man from the Democratic Republic of Congo, served a short sentence in Cumberland County Jail and has since been caged for over eight months by ICE with no new charges, no passport, and nowhere to be deported. This is not immigration enforcement—it’s indefinite detention and state-sanctioned cruelty. A federal judge ruled that Ambila can stay in the U.S. while appealing his deportation, acknowledging that returning him could mean arbitrary arrest, prolonged imprisonment, or torture. Let that sink in: the government admits deportation could lead to torture and still wants to deport him. He’s not a threat. He’s not a flight risk. He’s a living example of a system that dehumanizes, disappears, and discards. 

Marcos Henrique and Lucas Segobia, two skilled immigrant workers en route to a job in Maine, were abducted by ICE without charges. They were disappeared for over 36 hours and moved from one facility to another, while ICE lied to their families about their location. Jail staff refused responsibility. It was only after public pressure that officials finally tell their families where they were detained but the respite was brief, ICE, against their families wishes, moved them out of state.

These are not outliers. These are the cases that made it into the press. In April, documents obtained by the ACLU revealed that Cumberland County Jail was detaining 80 people for ICE, and Two Bridges Jail another 25. That’s over 100 people disappeared into the deportation pipeline with the full cooperation of local law enforcement. This is not policy failure—it’s policy success. It is not an accident—it is the infrastructure of repression being put to work to manage the turbulence of dying world.

We are living in the chaos of a collapsing order. Since the 1970s, the twin engines of neoliberal globalization and carceral expansion have reshaped United States: dismantling public institutions, deregulating capital, and replacing mass employment with mass policing, imprisonment, and deportation. What we are witnessing now is not an aberration but the terminal stage of this conjuncture—a world where crisis is met not with care or redistribution, but with cages and scapegoats. Immigration enforcement emerged to discipline labor, to create a hyper exploited strata of the labor market. Now it is being used by the Trump Administration to impose a blatantly fascist order.

To confront this reality, we start with a simple demand: End Cooperation Between Cumberland County Jail and ICE. And we understand that this demand is also a call to end suffering now, dismantle the deportation machine, and it opens the door to new solidarities and new ways of life.

The Event: Spectacle, Terror, and the Demand for Community Defense

The spectacle of forced removal is meant to terrify. It’s meant to be seen. It teaches entire communities to live in fear and sends a warning: no one is safe. The raids, the unmarked vans, the zip-ties—this is fascism in rehearsal. These moments are not isolated incidents; they are performances of state power. The goal is not merely removal. It is submission.

But for every spectacle of fear, we must respond with a celebration of solidarity. These bewildering, terrifying event demand community defense. They demand mutual aid. They demand we show up: outside jails, inside courtrooms, on the streets. The Trump Administration wants to fear going viral. Resistance must spread faster.

The Conjuncture: Neoliberalism, The Carceral State, and Crimmigration

Beneath the immediate spectacle is a broader structure of political economy. Over the last four decades, both parties have built the crimmigration regime—a fusion of carceral control and immigration enforcement designed to regulate the labor market and manage surplus populations. Reagan began immigrant detention. Clinton passed the laws that made mass deportation possible. Bush created ICE, consolidating immigration enforcement into a nationwide, federal police force. Obama used these tools to deport more people than any president in history. And Trump, despite all his gratuitous authoritarianism, has, in both terms, been unable to match the monthly deportation numbers of his democratic predecessors.

The system was not built to ensure justice. It was built to create a precarious workforce and a permanent underclass. It fabricates social order by dividing workers, criminalizing mobility, and treating migration as a security threat. The Trump administration is now using this bipartisan machinery to impose a more openly fascist order.

This is why ending ICE cooperation in Cumberland County matters. It’s not just a local demand. It’s a strike at on the pillars of the crimmigration system. It removes key logistical support. It complicates ICE’s ability to function. It interrupts the flow of bodies from street to cell to deportation. It is a lever of disruption—and it must be pulled.

The Longue Durée: Capitalism, Racial Division, and the Possibility of a New World

Zoom out further, and the contours of a deeper struggle emerge. The United States is a settler-colonial state founded on land theft, racial hierarchy, and labor exploitation. From slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration, from the reservation to the ghetto to the border, the same logics persist. Capitalism appropriates and exploits labor and then organizes abandonment. It produces surplus people: unemployed, unhoused, undocumented, untreated. It punishes these victims and twists and contorts their situations to make them appear as enemies to be contained, excluded, and expelled.

But from within that hell, new worlds are being born.

Presente! Maine is showing us how. Their land and food sovereignty programs, mutual aid work, and wellness initiatives are rooted in the labor and leadership of Maine’s Latine immigrant communities—most of whom work in the very sectors propping up this state’s tourism and agricultural economies. This is not charity. It is not service. It is revolutionary infrastructure. It builds autonomy. It deepens solidarity. It models a different way to live—with the land, with each other, and beyond the violence of borders and bosses.

This campaign is part of that same struggle. It’s not just about removing ICE from our jails. It’s about removing ICE from our future so we can build something better, something more humane, something that can unite New and Old Mainers.

We Are Not Asking—We Are Organizing

Of course, movements that threaten power face opposition—not just from reactionaries, but from liberals who want to manage dissent. We see it already. Some prominent liberal immigration advocacy organizations oppose ending ICE cooperation with the Cumberland County Sherriff, arguing that keeping people detained in Maine in the state aids legal defense. But proximity is not justice. Marcos and Lucas were hidden for 36 hours. Their families were lied to. Eyidi has been held for months with no end in sight. The system is built on opacity and cruelty. Local detention doesn’t protect—it enables.

The point is not to make the system more efficient. The point is to make it impossible.

Real change doesn’t come from appealing to authority. It comes from disrupting business as usual. From making the status quo ungovernable. From forcing elites to choose between justice and disorder. This is how power concedes. This is how history shifts.

We are not asking for better policies. We are not asking for a seat at the table. We are organizing to break the table in half.

For Marcos and Lucas.
For Eyidi.
For every neighbor taken in silence.
For every worker forced into the shadows.
For every life destroyed, for family shattered by the perpetual police war in the name of security and order.

End ICE cooperation in Cumberland County.
Free them all.
Stop the deportation machine.

The post Stop Deportation Machine: End ICE Cooperation in Cumberland County appeared first on Pine & Roses.

By Nick Lavin

SOMERVILLE, MA — Just outside the Somerville Farmers Market, two Somerville for Palestine organizers – Lauren and Hala – lead a training for a dozen canvassers prepared and ready to engage people in the street. The group is gearing up to collect signatures for a ballot question demanding the city divest from from Palestinian occupation and genocide.

“While I’m frustrated the City Council voted not to divest, I’m proud so many people are doing the hard work to make this petition happen,” said Andrew, a Somerville resident and canvasser for the campaign.

Despite heavy rain all of the past twelve weekends, Somerville for Palestine has hit the streets hard since their ballot question campaign began a couple months ago after Somerville residents nearly overwhelmed City Hall in support of city divestment, only to be struck down by council. The campaign has collected well over 2,000 verified signatures for their petition calling for Somerville to “end all current city business and prohibit future city investments and contracts with companies… that sustain Israel’s apartheid, genocide, and illegal occupation of Palestine.” In order to get on the ballot, the campaign must collect verified signatures from 10% of the voting population. That’s 5200 certified signatures in total that are necessary, which means Somerville for Palestine has collected around 38% of the signatures needed so far to obtain ballot access.

Fundamental to the ballot campaign is an intensive canvassing operation that organizers hope will develop new pro-Palestine organizers and deepen support for the movement in Somerville. “We’re aiming for 10,000 signatures, that’s 10,000 conversations about Palestine in Somerville,” says Lauren, a Jewish pro-Palestine Somerville organizer. 

For many canvassers, the latest news from Gaza underlines the urgency of their work. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, with firm backing from American allies, is systematically starving Gaza by blockading international aid. The entire 2.1 million population faces famine.

While pro-Palestine organizers had hoped national and international pressure on the American government to suspend weapons shipments would force an end to the war, the election of Trump in 2024 foreclosed the possibility of an end to the catastrophe. President Trump wholeheartedly supports Israel’s siege, explaining his vision for Gaza with an AI-generated video transforming the Palestinian territory into a luxury resort while outlining a plan for the ethnic cleansing of its population.

Many organizations like Somerville for Palestine have responded to this changing political terrain by orienting to local petitions to consolidate a pro-Palestine constituency in the town while continuing to build the national movement for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions), operating on both levels through concerted campaigns. Just as Somerville was the first town in Massachusetts to pass a ceasefire resolution in early 2024, a movement which quickly spread like a wildfire across the state and country, organizers hope momentum for municipal divestment in Somerville will encourage similar efforts while preparing the groundwork for continued state and national pressure.

Hala, a Palestinian and longtime Somerville resident, is motivated by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the petition from the community and hopes their work will inspire people elsewhere.

As the song says at Somerville High, Somerville leads the way, so Somerville for Palestine is leading the way on divestment.

Somerville for Palestine has had a lot of success in organizing coalitional support to harness to achieve the ballot measure and build a municipal base for Palestine. Their weekly canvasses, jointly organized with groups like Allston/Brighton for Palestine and Boston DSA, bring people from all across the Boston area to talk about Palestine, ceasefire, and divestment with Somerville residents.

Immigration, Palestine, and Civil Rights

Somerville for Palestine’s divestment campaign comes as Trump cracks down on civil rights. Just two months ago, Somerville’s own Rümeysa Öztürk was kidnapped by Trump’s ICE officers for writing an op-ed about divesting her university from Israel. Then too, Somerville for Palestine members were out in force protesting the decision and demanding her release.

Öztürk’s arrest also ignited fury from the labor movement: as a Tufts graduate student and member of SEIU 509, her arrest garnered immediate reactions from unions across the state and country demanding her release. 

While unions were on the frontline in the fight for a ceasefire and arms embargo under Biden, pro-Palestine labor activists are still finding their footing on the shifting terrain under Trump. For DSA’s National Labor Commission, the focus remains squarely on an arms embargo; but rather than targeting federal officials, union activists are plunging headfirst into organizing pressure against local governments to prevent weapons shipments through their ports and transportation hubs.

In Somerville, it is crunch time for the divestment ballot question: with about three months left to collect the needed 5,200 signatures, Somerville for Palestine needs all hands on deck to get across the threshold to be on the ballot this fall. To support Somerville for Palestine’s efforts, you can sign up for a canvass at tinyurl.com/canvass4s4p.

Nick Lavin is a Boston Public Schools paraprofessional and a member of the Boston Teachers Union.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated there were 5500 signatures necessary to obtain ballot access, when the number is actually 5200.

The post Somerville Fights for Palestine appeared first on Working Mass.

By: Liam Noble

BOSTON, MA – In early May, a supermajority of the 70 Blank Street Coffee employees in the Boston area filed for voluntary recognition from management as members of the New England Joint Board (NEJB). Their motivating factors were a desire for better wages, better schedule accommodations, better training, safety protections, and adherence to just cause discipline. 

Blank Street workers operate the shops in shifts of two to three baristas, one on the machine and one on the point-of-sale. The myriad of tasks to keep the store running (opening, cleaning, customer service, heating the food, tracking down the perennially absent manager, etc) fall to the couple of baristas. This fits neatly into that holy scripture of neoliberalism: workers do as many simultaneous jobs as possible for as little pay as warranted, for as little pay as possible.

Besides wages accounting for the sheer amount of labor done, employee safety is the biggest common reason given for organizing. 

One worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Working Mass that their location had a broken A/C that caused the shop to heat up to 90 degrees. While the employees labored behind the counter in brutal heat, management was vague and uncommunicative about repairs. No one seemed to care. The owners were simply unwilling to invest in keeping their employees safe, viewing quitting for burnout as merely normal employee turnover.

Coffee from Big Tech

To some extent, it’s no wonder the business model has led to both paltry pay and safety concerns. Blank Street was founded by two tech guys in Brooklyn who, after a couple failed schemes to attract the largesse of venture capitalists, aimed to automate the cafe experience into a push-button assembly line. This model has been used to justify slimming down staffing, minimalist accommodations, and a small floor space. This is not a social site. Blank Street is geared towards getting customers in, then back out again. Time is money, and quicker turnaround equals more money.

Blank Street is a company subsidized by big-name finance: Tiger Global, among others. Blank Street has money to burn in its quest to corner the market (seven locations in Boston, and thirty-six in NYC). Blank Street attracted $113.8M in funding from venture capitalists that pushed for rapid expansion across the East Coast and United Kingdom, rewarding the business model for harming workers’ livelihoods and access to healthy workplace conditions. 

Meanwhile, the boss remains difficult to access let alone march on with demands: there are only three managers between seven locations. 

Working for the Man, Working for the Machine

Blank Street is not so much focused around the process of coffee-making as around a single, finicky, over-engineered, touch-screen, all-in-one espresso robot that’s very expensive and prone to faults: the Eversys espresso machine. When the machine breaks down, everything stops. If the Wi-Fi goes down, espresso can’t be made. Cries for help on how to repair the Eversys, by both managers and baristas, are frequent posts on Reddit coffeeshop forums. Everybody tries to avoid the costly technician, who inevitably comes swaggering in with a heavy toolkit and a big invoice. In one Reddit post, a user begged for solutions for their machine needing to be torn-down and cleaned after every other use. The fix: change the time/date on the machine’s clock to before 2024. A y2k style bug in deficient software turned out to be the culprit. 

Our anonymous employee had this to say about the Eversys, following a thoughtful pause: “Could be better. It tries to clean itself every ten minutes and we have no control over that. It interrupts training and makes everything more difficult. There’s a problem where sometimes the steam wand won’t shut off, and it’s dangerous to team members and customers.” Most forbodingly, they reported:

The machine has burned people before.

Software issues plague the machine. Nobody in the store is qualified to fix the Eversys; the manager has to call the local service organization. But remember – since the managers are on-call, workers must play a game of telephone tag to reach one of the only three managers in the Boston area to access critical equipment that are needed to do their jobs. Even with preventative maintenance, the machines start breaking down about a year into use (exactly as you’d want from a machine with a $20k price sticker).

That’s a recipe for employee frustration— especially when it’s just a couple of you in a cramped and hot shop trying to tell the teeth-gnashing, convenience-addicted customers that your espresso machine that’s somehow also an iPad is broken, but at least you can still do matcha.

Coffee with Dignity

I popped down to the Harvard Square Blank Street in May and there was a line out the door. Five minutes later, I had a cappuccino in my hand. The business is built for speed, workers go fast. Everything is like clockwork. Just like any other “fast-café,” but faster. I wondered how the baristas had time for any of the other responsibilities management saddled them with, that they weren’t being compensated for. The speed of the workers, and the rhythms they followed, reminded me of working retail during a holiday rush. Everything turns into a well rehearsed blur of muscle memory. Brains tick with the rhythm of the machine, and all behind the counter are a harmonious One— except the customer who remains a precarious Other.

In contrast to management and its machine, the workers expressed that their motivating goal is being able to look out for each other.

There’s a strong sense of pride and security that comes with belonging to a good union shop. For baristas, that entails needed benefits— Boston is an expensive city, and the cost of living keeps rising. Housing alone is 119% higher than the US average. While tenant unions fight against rent, workers fight for better pay to battle the crushing weight euphemistically called the “cost of living.” And the workers in Boston are not alone, as Blank Street Coffee workers ratified their contract earlier this year after beginning a campaign in 2023.

Emma Delaney and others at the NEJB are helping the baristas in Boston to win.

Delaney is a NEJB organizer for the Blank Street unionization campaign, but comes from a proud history of barista organizing predating the NEJB. Emma was employed at Pavement Coffee, and helped lead the initial unionization effort in 2021. Pavement was the first coffee shop contract won in New England, followed by City Feed, 1369, Diesel, Bloc, and Forge. Now, the NEJB helping workers across the city accomplish the same in their own workplaces. 

Now the union is confident, and preparing for negotiations that will follow member ratification. “We want the vote to speak for itself,” Delaney said. 

Our anonymous Blank Street worker was cheerful about the prospects of belonging to a union shop.

We’re all pretty excited. We’re going forward feeling positive and want to keep spreading the word. We have a great team, and just want a safe work environment. We’re going to be able to look out for each other, now.

Liam Noble is a writer, photographer, and a member of Boston DSA. Find his substack here: liamnoble.substack.com

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article listed Blue Bottle as a contract won, when in reality, they remain in a fight for a contract. City Feed, which unionized with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) during the same year as 1369 and Diesel, was also ommitted.

The post Baristas Versus the Machine: Boston Workers of Blank Street Coffee File for a Union appeared first on Working Mass.

Every June, Chicago DSA holds our annual membership convention. Typically, our convention is more-or-less another General Chapter Meeting of the type we hold every quarter. Currently the only unique features of the convention are that any existing chapter Priority Campaigns are sunset unless they submit a resolution to “reauthorize” for a period of time up to a full year, and that there is generally a forum with candidates running for Chapter Officer.

As I wrap up my term as Chapter Co-Chair (and run for a second one), I’ve been thinking a lot about 1) how we give our chapter a clearer political focus, and 2) how we can make our chapter convention a bit more special. While it’s good that we use every convention to evaluate our Priority Campaigns, not every political priority is going to be an issue campaign. I think it’s important we spend time at the chapter convention to debate our broader priorities and direction as an organization, and I hope next year we can do more proactively to start that discussion in the lead up to the convention. 

This year, I am submitting a resolution that outlines four major political priorities for Chicago DSA, both in hopes of giving our chapter a clearer direction, and to help facilitate discussion and debate about what our priorities should be if not these four. Those four priorities are as follows:

1. Fight the boss. We must work to get masses of workers into motion against the capitalist class by encouraging, supporting, and precipitating class struggle, whether waged in the form of labor action, issue campaigns, direct action, or at the ballot box. 
2. Make more socialists. We must work to expand democratic socialist consciousness in the working class. We define democratic socialist consciousness as both engagement in purposive action (i.e., fighting the boss) and awareness of the ultimate goal of socialist transformation.
3. Be socialists everywhere. We need to become embedded in working class communities, especially in our workplaces and in unions, as well as in civic life and organized communities of all kinds.  
4. Build a class party. We need to build DSA as the foundation for a mass party of the working class. The party is an instrument to carry out the aforementioned tasks and for conquering the political power necessary for the transition to socialism.

The resolution is supplemented by a longer “commentary” on these priorities, which is presented in full below. 

Some of these priorities are already oft-repeated mantras by chapter cadre. That’s good, but we should formalize them and incorporate them into our orientation events and refer to them regularly as a way to evaluate ongoing and potential chapter work, not dissimilar to the Campaigns Criteria we adopted for our priority campaigns in 2018. 

The state of the world in 2025 is ever-changing and chaotic. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, to feel powerless, and to get pulled in new directions every week as the second Trump administration carries out its ultra-reactionary program. These priorities are designed to be “evergreen” and be applicable nearly no matter what the current situation is. We will always need to be working to carry out these four tasks. 

Additionally, while these are priorities for our chapter, and the commentary makes specific references to some of the particularities of Chicago DSA, these are also broadly applicable enough that I think any DSA chapter and the national organization could adopt them as well. Let’s trial run them in Chicago first and see how they work for us.

I hope that this proposal will lead to productive debate in our chapter. I would encourage anyone interested to submit amendments, whether partial or full on “substitute” amendments that would propose a completely different text entirely for us to adopt. Midwest Socialist is also a great avenue to share perspectives in longer form. You can also share your thoughts directly with me at Co-Chair-2@chicagodsa.org. 

Forward

Commentary on “Political Priorities for Chicago DSA”

There is no dignity or democracy under capitalism. It is a system for producing life that depends on exploitation and dictatorship ensuring private accumulation of wealth and power by an elite few. We are democratic socialists because we believe we, the working class, should control our own labor power and run society democratically to benefit everyone. Our ultimate goal is a complete rupture with capitalism and the establishment of a new political order where workers rule.

Socialism will require uniting and empowering workers the world over in common pursuit of a shared vision for a new socialist society. To commit to the socialist project is to commit to lifelong struggle, to commit oneself to a larger whole, and to commit to working towards a total transformation of life as we know it today.  

Our organization, the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, has adopted the following political priorities to move us forward towards a socialist future. 

I. Fight the boss. 

We live today under the dictatorship of the capitalist class: the bosses. The bosses live in luxury off our labor while we spend the majority of our waking hours toiling at their behest to “make a living”. Our two classes are locked into a relationship of domination and subjugation. It is an irreconcilable conflict, and the only resolution will be through a total abolition of the capitalist system. 

The capitalist class have erected a vast superstructure to veil this class conflict and to prevent workers from realizing their common interests and common purpose. Our first task as socialists is to bring this conflict out and into the open through organizing workers as workers against the bosses — to encourage, support, and precipitate class struggle. We must take every possible opportunity available to engage in these struggles and leverage our membership and organization to achieve victory. 

Naturally, a primary site of class struggle is the workplace and through unions. This makes our chapter’s Labor branch an essential project. In addition to supporting labor struggles through strike solidarity activities, our members must work to cultivate a “militant minority” in their workplaces that can lead workers in struggle against the bosses directly from the shop-floor. While we want to see workers organize everywhere, our members should focus on industries, employers, and unions determined to be strategic priorities by the Labor branch, up to and including taking specific jobs to that end.

Our fight against the bosses extends to all their encroachments into our lives outside of the workplace, and in particular political struggle against the bosses’ representatives in government. Half a century into the neoliberal era we continue to find ourselves in retreat, fighting back against the further erosion of civil liberties and social welfare. We must wage a vigorous defense against these attacks while also working to go on the offensive, organizing to win transformative “non-reformist” reforms that shift the balance of power in our favor, such as those in DSA’s Workers Deserve More program. We need to fight for major structural changes to our political system too, from the expansion of voting to all residents including non-citizens and the incarcerated, to winning proportional political representation and an end to restrictive ballot access laws, all the way to a new democratic constitution that puts an end to minoritarian rule. 

These kinds of revolutionary reforms not only chip away at the power of the bosses but through their achievement give workers an understanding of their potential power and the necessity of political struggle. We need to run campaigns around these reforms and around issues that are widely and deeply felt by the working class. These campaigns should develop winnable demands and identify clear targets and timelines for escalation, emphasize tactics and actions that engage the largest number of people possible, and center the development of new activists and leaders. 

Because of our conflicting material interests, there is no way for both workers and bosses to win on any issue. A victory for workers is necessarily a loss for the bosses. This is why we must prioritize mass action that forces concessions over negotiation that yields meager compromises. 

A common tactic of the bosses to try to dull class conflict is by dividing workers based on race, nationality, gender, religion, immigration status, and other lines of difference. Working class unity cannot be achieved by simply trying to ignore these divisions and specific forms of oppression. We must fight them head on and identify them as attacks on the international working class as a whole. This means committing to organize around issues and through campaigns that focus on fighting these specific oppressions directly, such as struggles to weaken the power of the police, to combat imperialist wars and US militarism, or to fight back against attacks on bodily autonomy and transgender rights.

II. Make more socialists.

To achieve victory in the class struggle, the US working class needs a massive expansion in democratic socialist consciousness. While many in the US have come to hold a more positive view of socialism in the past decade than they have since the Red Scare, socialism is still quite marginal, and the common understanding of socialism by most is very rudimentary. 

We define democratic socialist consciousness as both engagement in purposive action (i.e., fighting the boss) and awareness of the ultimate goal of socialist transformation. Many workers are engaged in some level of the former, and many who identify as socialists or leftists have an understanding of the latter, but a much smaller number possess both qualities. 

No one is born a socialist. One becomes a socialist through a combination of action and education. This brings us to our second major task: guiding workers towards the path of becoming socialists, towards achieving both purposiveness and awareness. 

Our aim is not shallow indoctrination or to bring salvation to workers from above. Our aim is the transformation of workers’ capacity for analysis and self-activity, and to grow the ranks of workers who identify with a socialist tradition that spans the globe, several centuries, and many distinct tendencies. It is through strengthening workers’ insights and organization, through making more socialists, that socialists can hasten the day that the working class emancipates itself.

Making more socialists means an extensive focus on political education. While the elucidation of Marxist politics is paramount, socialist political education must involve the direct application of this theory to understand the present moment, to contextualize history, and to shape concrete organizing. Training workers in the practical skills required for organizing must likewise be an essential objective of a socialist political education program.

Political education is for everyone. We have to accommodate a series of concentric circles of different audiences ranging from organizational leaders and activists all the way out to the non-monolithic masses. This is a challenge given our limited resources. 

Focusing solely on the specific interests of members who are already deeply committed socialists is not very effective for developing new cadre (members who have made a serious long-time commitment to building the organization and advancing socialism). Developing popular education is of crucial importance for socialists, but popular education cannot scale without a corresponding increase in organizational capacity resulting from the recruitment and training of new cadre. For now we must prioritize political education programming that can bring together the socialist curious, non-cadre members, and core activists and leaders into shared spaces of vibrant debate and discussion, as is exemplified by our chapter’s most successful Socialist Night Schools.  

Intellectual awareness in total isolation is not consciousness though. Consciousness requires motion. This makes direct participation in class struggle perhaps the most valuable form of political education. These engagements transform abstract concepts into observed phenomena and resituate individual experiences into a dialectical framework. This makes both getting workers into motion against the bosses, and creating dedicated space to collectively debrief and evaluate those struggles, fundamental for the process of making more socialists. 

III. Be socialists everywhere.

Socialism in the United States today is largely subcultural. Like with many subcultures, the demographic make up of self-identified socialists is generally very skewed and unrepresentative of the working class as a whole. DSA’s current membership is disproportionately white, non-union, college educated, white collar, and millennial. In Chicago, our chapter’s membership is especially dominated by “transplants” who may have only recently moved to the city in their adult life and are less likely to have deep social and community ties as a result.  

If we want to expand our reach and grow beyond our existing narrow social base we need to work to become embedded in working class communities, in our workplaces, and in civic life. And we need to do so as socialists. We call this being socialists everywhere. 

The clearest example of this in practice is the model of the socialist shop steward. The socialist shop steward builds tight organization and unity against division amongst their coworkers. They know their contract backwards and forwards, keep watch for when the boss inevitably violates it, and take responsibility for being their coworkers’ advocates in grievances and disciplinary matters. To be effective, and generally to get elected in the first place, the socialist steward must win and sustain the trust of their coworkers. This is not accomplished overnight through sloganeering and polemics, but through the slow work of developing personal relationships and demonstrating a capacity for purposive action and leadership. 

The socialist steward does not discriminate. They stick up for even the most reactionary or even anti-union workers. Through this they come to gain the respect, however begrudgingly, of those same coworkers. The socialist steward does not substitute themselves for the union either. They act as a conduit for collective action, bringing others with them into motion against the boss. The degree to which the socialist shop steward identifies themself as a socialist will depend on the conditions of each particular shop. Ultimately though, even if it takes years, workers should come to understand that the reason that the socialist shop steward acts as they do is because they are a socialist, that a socialist is someone who looks and acts like their shop steward. 

This process taken at scale is how we begin to transform the popular understanding of socialism in the working class, how we grow from subculture to mass culture. These same principles can be applied outside of the workplace too, though there will be some major qualitative differences. 

US society today is deeply individualistic and atomized. This is not human nature. It is the product of a half century of neoliberal rule. Everywhere workers are taught to fear each other, that anyone who struggles to survive has only themselves to blame, and that the only way to advance in the world is to advance individually and at a necessary cost to others. 

Socialists need to build a culture of solidarity and cooperation for the common good. We do this by uniting others, by leading by example, by being socialists. We do this at work with our coworkers, on our block with our neighbors, around elections with voters in our precinct, in civic life, and as members of organized communities that few think of as being political, such as leisure and athletic groups. 

A significant challenge we face is the way that screens, digital media, and the internet have become the primary way that social life is mediated. Whatever expansion in potential reach for socialists that has resulted from social media has also come at the cost of our most basic social muscles atrophying. It’s not hard to imagine how a sudden black out of telecommunications could be entirely paralyzing for many. Only organizations built on strong social ties and personal relationships will  be resilient through such crises.

IV. Build a class party.

Fighting the boss, making more socialists, and being socialists everywhere will require socialists to build and participate in many different kinds of organizations. However, socialists and their various organizations need a connective tissue, a political organization that acts as a ballast to give focus and direction to the larger workers movement. We need a party.

The party we need to build is nothing like the existing political parties in the US today. We do not need a “third party”. We need to build the first party in the United States that is truly democratic, has a mass character, is explicitly socialist, and is solely of and for the working class. Much more than a ballot line, more than a caucus of elected officials in legislatures, the party is an instrument the working class uses to become “a class for itself”. It is an instrument for fighting the boss, making more socialists, being socialists everywhere, and ultimately, an instrument for conquering the political power necessary to catalyze the transition to socialism. 

We know we cannot simply declare the formation of such a party today. We see DSA as the foundation that can make such a class party possible. As such, building a class party means building DSA, both the national organization and our local chapter. We see DSA as well positioned to be the foundation for a working class party because it is explicitly socialist, because of its multi-tendency “big tent” nature, its commitment to being member-driven and democratic, and its nation-wide scope. In contrast to the large number of progressive NGOs that are staff-driven and dependent on foundation money, DSA is an organization that any ordinary working class person can not only join but actively shape and have ownership over through their participation in it.

There is, of course, much work to be done to build DSA. We need to shape DSA into an organization that can regularly fight and deliver for workers, that unlocks members’ potential for activism and leadership, that is more representative of the working class as a whole, and that is recognized as a powerful political force, a force independent from the Democratic Party, from entrenched political elites, and from the ruling class. We need to transform DSA from an activist organization to a mass organization that can be the political home of millions of ordinary working class people who do not yet see themselves as political actors.

***

Our road to power is long and the path will not always be clear, but our hope is not dimmed. At every possible juncture along the way we will need to engage in constant analysis of the present moment, evaluate our trajectory, and rigorously debate our next steps. As we undertake this journey we see these four priorities as guiding principles to keep us focused, to keep us united, and to keep us moving forward towards democratic socialism. 

The post Political Priorities To Move Chicago DSA Forward  appeared first on Midwest Socialist.