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.

by Jack Mottley

Hello to you all, and thank you for coming out today to show support and solidarity for your own, and other student’s, right to express discontent with the policies and practices of a government halfway around the world, and also the government here in the United States, and here at the University of Rochester. 

I came to the University of Rochester in 1986, before most of you were born, and saw students then having demonstrations and an encampment calling for the end of apartheid in South Africa. The University later claimed to be proud that students, working closely with the community here in Rochester, persuaded Kodak to become one of the first multinational corporations to participate in the boycott of the then-government of South Africa, eventually leading to the fall of that government and the abolition of apartheid there.  

All of this was in direct opposition to the wishes of the US  government, until politicians realized that acting humanely  toward your fellow human beings was actually popular among voters, and then you could not fight them off with sticks as they jumped in and took credit for it themselves. They even passed  laws that made it illegal for the US to sell arms to countries that  were probably going to use those arms to violate the human  rights of their own residents. Laws that those same lawmakers (or their successors) now simply ignore. 

At that time, here at UR Campus Security, or whatever they called  themselves at the time, were unarmed, and relatively well behaved. They respected the right of community members to  express opinions and present arguments, sometimes in  different and “unapproved” ways, even when the Board of  Trustees did not enjoy it.

Move forward some years, and the Department of Public Safety became a “sworn force” in 2013, meaning they can make arrests and file charges against individuals. And even against massive  opposition on campus some officers were allowed to carry guns  beginning in 2016. By 2020, over 200 people a year were being  criminalized by UR DPS, mostly around the Emergency  Department at the Medical Center, responding to people during  times of crisis with force and incarceration. 

That approach to the community has carried over to the River  Campus. When there were protests here over the illegal  collective punishment of all the people who lived in Gaza by the  Israeli government for an illegal act committed by a few Gazans in Israel, the Administration here at UR retreated behind a wall of  “security” rather than engage in conversation or healing.  

Any support for the Palestinian people, who are being murdered in  huge numbers every day, is denounced as “terrorism” and “antisemitism”. 

Any criticism of the actions of the government of Israel is denounced as “antisemitism”. Criticism of a government’s  actions is not an ad hominem attack on the supporters of the  COUNTRY: those who opposed America’s war in Vietnam were  not “anti-American” or “anti-democratic”, they were in reality  more pro-democracy than those who favored the war. “My  country right or wrong” is the chant of Fascists, not (small dee)  democrats. 

As you all know, this rush to condemn was nothing unique to the University of Rochester. Boards of Trustees and government officials hounded and destroyed presidents of universities for being too “soft” on “antisemitism” and “terrorism”, and even called them (here’s where Boomers gasp and clutch their pearls) “socialists” and “communists”. 

Slightly to their credit, the Administration here at UR did not call in the Rochester Police Department to violently crush the encampment and protests. Despite attempts by the UR  Department of Public Safety to goad protesters into violent  response, and in spite of lies being told to the community and  on social media, we succeeded in holding the longest-lived  encampment in the US! 

To their dis-credit, when things were winding down and most  students had left campus the UR Administration gave control of  dismantling the encampment over to the Department of Public  Safety, who proceeded to destroy virtually every personal article  they could lay their hands on in the encampment. Tents,  sleeping bags, cell phones, laptops, driver’s licenses, UR ID cards, medicines, even prayer shawls, were deemed “dangerous  materials”, put into dumpsters, and shipped off to landfills at  breathtaking speed. UR was the only University in the US that  did not at least try to return personal property to students, but  instead intentionally and maliciously destroyed it. 

Last summer, here at UR and across the country, University  administrations moved to consolidate control of their campuses  and to destroy the “rampant antisemitism and terrorism that  had been thriving there”.  

Specifically here at UR, the Administration created the  “Demonstrations, Vigils, and Peaceful Protests Policy” or DVPP,  that criminalizes behavior that the Administration does not like  EVEN IF THERE IS NOT A SINGLE COMPLAINT BY A SINGLE  PERSON.  

Further, the Administration created a “Camping Policy” that, simply  put, bans any encampment from happening again, ever. And it  includes a clause that all personal property seized when  enforcing the camping ban can be destroyed at the DPS’s  discretion. 

These policies were put in place with no discussion, no deliberation,  and no input from faculty or students, except for a few select  individuals who were bullied into acquiescence.

When an infraction of these policies occurs (which the  Administration and DPS get to decide using unknown criteria)  how do they know who to “charge”? There are at least 1600 security cameras all over this campus, so DPS “investigators” sit at a computer and search through recorded videos from all over  campus, making “timelines” of the “crime”, selecting the most  “incriminating” pictures, culling “incriminating evidence” from social media, and then putting it all together into a “dossier”.  

They also send sworn officers (with guns on their hips) out to  interrogate the “perps”, using all the good police tactics of  intimidation, all the way up to threatening students with arrest.  For a foreign student this could mean automatic loss of a  student visa and deportation just for having come to the  attention of a sworn officer. All this time the DPS Officers are  collecting evidence for possible use in CRIMINAL cases, but  without the presence of a lawyer or even an advisor. 

I have been a faculty advisor in two “hearings” since the  encampment was destroyed, and have talked to faculty who  were involved in others. The pattern in all is the same: The  “charges” presented to the University for adjudication have no complaints, no “victims”, just “violation of policy”. None of the  interrogations are mentioned, no potential criminal charges are  revealed, no mention of or opportunity to confront the  “accuser”. 

We have also learned that UR Department of Public Safety  collaborates with and engages with other law enforcement  agencies, all the way up to the FBI. We do not know if they have  collaborated with ICE yet, though the head of DPS appears to  believe that if ICE comes here then their administrative warrants will have to be obeyed.  

So far, I have not heard any assurance that the University  Administration will withhold information demanded by ICE or  any other federal agency, even if that request has no basis. The 

University’s stance seems to be one of pre-emptive appeasement, which, as we have seen with Columbia  University, does not work when facing bullies. 

The University of Rochester has abandoned all pretense of  academic freedom, of being allowed to express ideas that make  some people happy, some people thoughtful, some people uncomfortable, and some people apoplectic.  

They have, as their supporters, the very people who want to destroy  all universities, since colleges and universities tend to be places  where people with wide ranges of ideas get together to discuss  and criticize and expose the good and the bad sides of them all. Universities try to make the world “Ever Better”. 

Those who live by telling lies do not like that. They do not like people  to have facts with which to challenge their lies, or to disturb their  belief in their own “stable genius”.  

What can you do? You cannot know whether the UR Administration will defend your rights when the government comes after you. None of us can. We can only watch how the Administration acts BEFORE the government comes for us, when they come for others, and try to goad our Administration into doing the RIGHT things, instead of the “legal” things. You are here today, expressing your fears and concerns, and you should continue to participate in rallies and protests like this. You can write to the Campus Times. You can e-mail the President of the University. You can e-mail the people who are probably already asking you for donations and tell them that you will not make any donations unless you see direct evidence that the University is protecting its vulnerable students, faculty, and staff, and that you are  lobbying your friends and parents to do the same.

An addendum after giving the address: 

After additional reflection, the best thing you can do is to recruit  more (younger) students to the cause: the Administration often  downplays “student issues” because they know that the students complaining right now are going to graduate and will be gone soon. You have to plan who will keep up the fight after you leave. Students are here 4 years, the Presidents I have known averaged 8 years, Board of Trustee members are normally  limited to 10 years, and faculty stay forever (as of this writing I am going on 39 years here.)

The post Hands Off the Students first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

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.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday, June 11 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour at Zeitgeist (In person at Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

Thursday, June 12 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Rescheduled – Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, June 12 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, June 14 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): 2025 DSA SF Chapter Convention Day 1 (Zoom and in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Sunday, June 15 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): 2025 DSA SF Chapter Convention Day 2 (Zoom and in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday, June 16 (10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.): Family Shelter Hearing (In person at SF City Hall Room 250)

Monday, June 16 (5:50 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Socialist in Office + Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)

Monday, June 16 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Tuesday, June 17 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom)

Tuesday, June 17 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group & East Bay DSA: Know Your Rights & Immigration 101 Training (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, June 18 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): What Is DSA? (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, June 19 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, June 20 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Maker Friday (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, June 21 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Monthly Food Service (In person at Castro & Market)

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

Events & Actions

Chapter Convention This Weekend!

Our 2025 Chapter Convention will be held this weekend on June 14th and 15th at Kelly Cullen Auditorium (220 Golden Gate Ave) and will take the place of our June Regular Meeting. At convention we will debate amendments to our bylaws, select our 2025/2026 chapter priorities, re-charter chapter bodies, and elect new leadership. RSVP at dsasf.org/convention-RSVP. The Convention Packet with reflections on our work from the last year and proposals for the next year can be viewed at dsasf.org/packet2025.

Supporting Sup. Fielder’s Family Shelter Stay Policy

DSA SF’s Electoral Board is organizing this campaign to support Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s proposed ordinance to extend the stay of families in shelters to 1 year. Mayor Daniel Lurie and the Department of Homelessness have been enforcing a harmful policy of limiting the stay of families with children to 90 days which is not long enough to secure permanent housing. Please use this link to submit a letter to your supervisor in support of families getting to stay sheltered.

You can also attend the Family Shelter Hearing in person on June 16th at 10:00 a.m. at City Hall to show your support!

Email electoral@dsasf.org with any questions.

IJWG & EBDSA: Know Your Rights + Immigration 101 Training

Join the DSA SF Immigrant Justice Working Group and EBDSA Migrants Defense Working Group for a joint Know Your Rights + Immigration 101 training! We will be discussing the current political moment, a brief history of immigration in the U.S., and important Know Your Rights information, including the difference between a judicial and administrative warrant and how to exercise your rights or intervene as a bystander in various scenarios. The training will take place on Tuesday, June 17, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St.

Maker Friday on June 20

Join us for Maker Friday on June 20 at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister from 7:00 p.m. to  9:00 p.m.! Come make some art and connect with comrades. All are welcome. See you there!

Summer Social(ist) Events!

Mark your calendars for our Summer Social(ist) event series!

• June 22nd, 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. – Picnic @ Dolores Park! Bring some food or drinks, bring your dog, bring your friends, bring your friend’s dog! We will be in the Northeast corner by the tennis courts.
• June 25th @ 7:00 p.m. – Screening of They Live at Roar Shack (34 7th Street) – Let’s watch the classic monster movie inspired by the scariest monsters of them all (Ronald Reagan and Capitalism)!
• July 6th @ 11:00 p.m. – Screening of The Room at the Balboa Theater! We’ll meet outside at 10:30.
• July 11th @ 7:30PM – Comrade Karaoke at the Roar Shack (34 7th Street) – Come hang out and do some FREE karaoke with your fellow DSA SF comrades or cool people you want to impress with your incredible singing voice! No songs refused, no entry denied! Suggested Donation: $10. Drinks: Wine + Beer Available / BYOB
• July 27th @ 1:05PM – Oakland Ballers vs Northern Colorado Owlz baseball game + “Halloween in July Night” (at Raimondi Park) – RSVP here by July 13th so that we can put in a group order of tickets! Group tickets are are $15 per ticket, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds!

EWOC: How to Talk About Organizing

EWOC (Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee) is a project of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and DSA working to build a distributed grassroots organizing program to support workers organizing at the workplace. To learn more about the work EWOC does, come by the DSA SF office to pick up a copy of Unite and Win or tune into the Labor Board’s weekly meetings every Monday at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

The next EWOC event hosted by DSA SF features EWOC staff members conducting a training on generating workplace leads and conducting organizing conversations on July 17th from 6:30 p.m to 8:30 p.m. Let us know in if you can make it! Hope to see you there!

Know Your Rights Canvass Reportback

On Saturday, June 7, a group of DSA and non-DSA members gathered to distribute red cards and Know Your Rights (KYR) information for business brochures between 30th St and Cesar Chavez. The event had a good turnout with many new members who were eager to get involved as the Trump administration continues to escalate its attacks against immigrant communities across the country. The Immigrant Justice Working Group (IJWG) will continue holding monthly canvasses and other events. Stay tuned for the next one! If you would like to get involved in KYR canvassing or are interested in joining the IJWG, reach out at immigrantjustice@dsasf.org or join the #immigrant-justice channel on the DSA SF Slack!

Socialist in Office Meeting Summary – June 2

At the June 2 Socialist in Office (SiO) meeting with Jackie Fielder’s office, DSA SF members received key updates on the city’s budget and pressing policy fights.

Budget and Social Services
The Mayor’s proposed budget expands police and sheriff overtime spending for next year, even as social services like legal aid services, food stamps and elder care face deep cuts. Jackie’s office highlighted the opaque budget process and the challenge of influencing it, as they are not on the budget committee.

The mayor is seeking to redirect Prop C funds from permanent affordable housing to temporary shelter beds, a move that would prioritize reducing visible homelessness over creating real homes. This reallocation requires a supermajority at the Board.

Family Shelter Policy Win
Jackie’s Family Shelter Ordinance is being heard at the Rules Committee June 16th. On June 9th, Jackie, Faith in Action Bay Area, and the Coalition on Homelessness presented a plan to the Mayor’s budget office to end family homelessness for $66.5M. We are in active discussions with the Mayor’s office about this policy proposal and also his upcoming proposals around families who are living in RVs.

Next Steps
Members discussed holding a July session to demystify the city’s budget process for the chapter. Jackie’s office continues to build coalitions with labor and community groups to fight for transparency and social priorities.

Stay tuned for action opportunities, and join us at SiO next week to stay engaged with our efforts at City Hall!

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.

By Dan Albright, with additional reporting by Siobhan M.

How will the labor movement and the left more broadly respond as Trump takes unionists for political prisoners and threatens martial law?

BOSTON, MA – Hundreds rallied at City Hall Plaza on Monday in solidarity with actions across the nation demanding the release of Los Angeles union leader David Huerta, president of SEIU United Service Workers West, jailed by ICE Friday for protesting a workplace raid.

“As ICE conducted terror raids against workers across Los Angeles on Friday,” said David Foley, SEIU Local 509 President, in an interview with Working Mass. “Among the protesters was my brother, David Huerta. They pushed him to the ground, beat and detained him. We’re out here to demand an end to the ICE raids and to demand immigration justice.”

ICE’s actions in Los Angeles on Friday – targeting day laborers outside a Home Depot, lining up and cuffing garment workers indiscriminately at a Fashion District wholesaler, firing flash grenades at protesters as they marched in full military garb along with hulking armored tanks, as well as detaining Huerta – inflamed the community and spurred massive protests over the weekend and continuing this week. President Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard and 700 Marines on standby as protesters escalated the rebellion, briefly shutting down a major freeway and setting several ICE-allied vehicles and robot-operated taxis aflame.

Huerta, 58, is a prominent leader in the California labor movement and Latino community. He represents 45,000 janitors, security officers and airport service workers in California, many of whom are immigrants. Huerta was serving as a community observer at one of the Fashion District raids when he was arrested. He faces up to six years in federal prison for “conspiracy to impede an officer.”

Shortly after the Monday rally, Huerta was released on $50,000 bail. However, the protests in Los Angeles are raging, and criticism of ICE is intensifying, with more and more solidarity rallies and marches taking place nationally.

Boston-based SEIU Local 509, representing 20,000 health and human service workers and educators in Massachusetts, organized Monday’s rally at Government Center. This spring, Local 509 made national headlines as it condemned the fascistic ICE imprisonment of its member Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate worker. Her sole “offense” was in 2024 writing an op-ed criticizing the college’s complicity with genocide in Gaza; one year later, plainclothes agents kidnapped her in Somerville and shipped her to a Louisiana prison cell for six weeks.

In a parallel, Huerta was among the SEIU leaders who advocated for pro-Palestine resolutions in the union, helping put the highly influential 2-million-member Service Employees International Union at the forefront of Palestine solidarity within the labor movement.

Other union members and leaders have been targeted too, taken as political prisoners in what can only be seen as overt suppression of organizing workers across national origin: Lewelyn Dixon, 10-year SEIU Local 925 member in Seattle detained by ICE February 28; Mahmoud Khalil, a former member of the Student Workers of Columbia (SWOC), UAW Local 2710, detained in New York March 8; Lelo Juarez, Washington state farmworker organizer taken March 25; undergraduate worker Mohsen Mahdawi in Vermont, April 14. Of them, concerted campaigns by UAW and SEIU helped contribute to Dixon and Mahdawi’s later release.

“We are facing an enormous amount of repression right now,” Foley continued at the Boston rally Monday, “The billionaire class is trying to divide working people based off of immigration status and documentation status. We will not tolerate it, and we’ll continue to escalate. We’ll disrupt as much as we can to end these terror raids. Free David Huerta. Free them all.”

Leaders from all SEIU unions in the Massachusetts State Council, including 32BJ SEIU, 1199SEIU, SEIU Local 888 and CIR/SEIU, also spoke at the Boston rally, as well as Chrissy Lynch, Mass. AFL-CIO state federation president, Darlene Lombos of the Boston AFL-CIO Central Labor Council (GBLC), and Chaton Green, Business Agent of the Greater Boston Building Trades Unions. Members from various area unions, community groups and socialist organizations made up the crowd.

“Community members need to know they are not alone,” said Tefa Galvis, co-chair of the Boston chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). “Whether we’re in a union or not, socialists or just capitalism-critical, or whether this is the first time you’ve felt activated, Boston DSA is here to lend a hand to those itching to take action.”

As the rebellion unfolds in Los Angeles – and as the nation anxiously anticipates martial law, Trump’s promised turning of the military against the American people – time will tell how the labor movement and the broader left will meet the moment. Will we buy the billionaires’ narrative that rebellion is unlawful, anti-patriotic, or detrimental to “shared” progress? Will we be inspired by our LA brothers and sisters’ courage and organization, or will we sit this one out and fade further into cultural irrelevance?

The established national labor movement in recent years has, in a sea-change from past nativist stances, started to embrace immigrant workers. The SEIU was one of the leaders in this effort in the early 2000s, which partially culminated in the SEIU departing the AFL-CIO in 2005, particularly through the Justice for Janitors campaign beginning in 1990. Low-wage immigrant workers were crushed by L.A. cops in the same streets as the rebellion today in the Battle for Century City, which then led to a long-term base-building campaign beyond the limits of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) process to build immigrant worker power under the SEIU umbrella. David Huerta began his career as an organizer for Justice for Janitors, and since leading SEIU in California, has overseen organizing campaigns involving thousands of janitors and English classes for union members to integrate immigrant workers. Meanwhile, the largest federation has also traveled far: today, the national AFL-CIO distributes Know Your Rights, organizing resources, and hosts immigrant worker working groups.

Nonetheless, accountability for union-backed politicians engaging in anti-immigrant politics has been limited. Though the tactics and optics may be different, President Biden oversaw more deportations (4 million) than Trump did in his first term (1.9 million), and Trump’s current pace of deportations still lags Biden’s. Biden and congressional Democrats increased ICE’s budget by 20% in Biden’s term; Kamala Harris’s campaign even sought to outflank Trump on immigration ”toughness.”

In a telling irony, many unions distributing the AFL-CIO’s new Know Your Rights cards have found themselves in a dilemma. The cards instruct the user to hand the card to the enforcement officer if approached. The bottom of the card has a fill-in-the-blank spot for the number of a local immigration defense lawyer or advocate. But immigration lawyers are so overwhelmed and unions so under-resourced that local unions often don’t have a number they can reliably list there. This dilemma, though, also points to a solution: less reliance on legalistic strategies by unions, and greater investment in organizational strength, i.e., to what extent is the membership prepared to flex the basic, collective union power of shutting down business-as-usual to win demands? And further, to what extent are we organizing across divisions of language, immigrant and documentation status to build power that shatters capitalists’ ability to divide and conquer?

While unions represent only about 10% of the workforce, trending downwards even in recent years as public approval of unions has risen, the labor movement still represents the best hope in the fight against fascism. Unions, at their best, go beyond the negotiation of wages and benefits and give workers a real say in how things are done in the workplace. The workplace, where we spend most of our lives, is otherwise a site of unrestricted authoritarian dictatorship (of the boss). When workers act in unity across worksites, even if often largely illegalized in America, ever larger demands and grander victories are possible. Labor history shows unions’ greatest rise – and, subsequently, working people’s highest point of prosperity – came at a time of widespread, technically illegal, strike action. The corporate media, then, as today with the LA protests, often cast and derided these strikes as violent.

As Trump’s administration presses union-busting full throttle, gutting what’s left of a broken NLRB and attempting to slash public sector bargaining rights, legalistic defenses seem unlikely to hold organized labor’s fort, and with it, democracy itself. Vice President Vance recently advised the President that if the courts stopped him, he should make “like Andrew Jackson” and tell the courts to raise their own army to enforce it. Maybe, at this moment, working people need our own kind of army, too.

Dan Albright is an editor of Working Mass, union media producer and organizer, DSA member, and Recording Secretary of IUPAT Local 939.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report listed Mahmoud Khalil as past president of the Student Workers of Columbia; he was a member. Mohsen Mahdawi was listed as a grad union member; he is an undergraduate.

The post Boston Unions Take to the Streets Against ICE, Arrest of Los Angeles Labor Leader appeared first on Working Mass.

[[{“value”:”An SEIU union member addresses the Boston rally demanding the release of Los Angeles union leader David Huerta from ICE detention, June 9, 2025. Photo credit: Dan Albright / Working Mass

By Dan Albright, with additional reporting by Siobhan M.

CITY HALL PLAZA – Hundreds rallied in Boston on Monday in solidarity with actions across the nation demanding the release of Los Angeles union leader David Huerta, president of SEIU United Service Workers West, jailed by ICE Friday for protesting a workplace raid.

“As ICE conducted terror raids against workers across Los Angeles on Friday,” said David Foley, SEIU Local 509 President, in an interview with Working Mass. “Among the protesters was my brother, David Huerta. They pushed him to the ground, beat and detained him. We’re out here to demand an end to the ICE raids and to demand immigration justice.”

ICE’s actions in Los Angeles on Friday – targeting day laborers outside a Home Depot, lining up and cuffing garment workers indiscriminately at a Fashion District wholesaler, firing flash grenades at protesters as they marched in full military garb along with hulking armored tanks, as well as detaining Huerta – inflamed the community and spurred massive protests over the weekend and continuing this week. President Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard and 700 Marines on standby as protesters escalated the rebellion, briefly shutting down a major freeway and setting several ICE-allied vehicles and robot-operated taxis aflame.

Huerta, 58, is a prominent leader in the California labor movement and Latino community. He represents 45,000 janitors, security officers and airport service workers in California, many of whom are immigrants. Huerta was serving as a community observer at one of the Fashion District raids when he was arrested. He faces up to six years in federal prison for “conspiracy to impede an officer.”

Shortly after the Monday rally, Huerta was released on $50,000 bail. However, the protests in Los Angeles are raging, and criticism of ICE is intensifying, with more and more solidarity rallies and marches taking place nationally.

SEIU Local 509 President David Foley addresses the crowd. Photo credit: Dan Albright / Working Mass

Boston-based SEIU Local 509, representing 20,000 health and human service workers and educators in Massachusetts, organized Monday’s rally at Government Center. This spring, Local 509 made national headlines as it condemned the fascistic ICE imprisonment of its member Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate worker. Her sole “offense” was in 2024 writing an op-ed criticizing the college’s complicity with genocide in Gaza; one year later, plainclothes agents kidnapped her in Somerville and shipped her to a Louisiana prison cell for six weeks.

In a parallel, Huerta was among the SEIU leaders who advocated for pro-Palestine resolutions in the union, helping put the highly influential 2-million-member Service Employees International Union at the forefront of Palestine solidarity within the labor movement.

Other union members and leaders have been targeted too, taken as political prisoners in what can only be seen as overt suppression of international worker solidarity: Mahmoud Khalil, former president of Student Workers of Columbia, UAW Local 2710, detained March 8; Lelo Juarez, Washington state farmworker organizer, detained March 25; Local 2710 member Mohsen Madhawi, detained April 14.

“We are facing an enormous amount of repression right now,” Foley continued at the Boston rally Monday, “The billionaire class is trying to divide working people based off of immigration status and documentation status. We will not tolerate it, and we’ll continue to escalate. We’ll disrupt as much as we can to end these terror raids. Free David Huerta. Free them all.”

Photo credit: Dan Albright / Working Mass

Leaders from all SEIU unions in the Massachusetts State Council, including 32BJ SEIU, 1199SEIU, and SEIU Local 888, also spoke at the Boston rally, as well as Chrissy Lynch, Mass. AFL-CIO state federation president, Darlene Lombos of the Boston Central Labor Council (GBLC), and Chaton Green, Business Agent of the Greater Boston Building Trades Unions. Members from various area unions, community groups and socialist organizations made up the crowd.

“Community members need to know they are not alone,” said Tefa Galvis, co-chair of the Boston chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). “Whether we’re in a union or not, socialists or just capitalism-critical, or whether this is the first time you’ve felt activated, Boston DSA is here to lend a hand to those itching to take action.”

As the rebellion unfolds in Los Angeles – and as the nation anxiously anticipates martial law, Trump’s promised turning of the military against the American people – time will tell how the labor movement and the broader left will meet the moment. Will we buy the billionaires’ narrative that rebellion is unlawful, anti-patriotic, or detrimental to “shared” progress? Will we be inspired by our LA brothers and sisters’ courage and organization, or will we sit this one out and fade further into cultural irrelevance?

Photo credit: Dan Albright / Working Mass

The established national labor movement in recent years has, in a sea-change from past nativist stances, started to embrace immigrant workers, with the AFL-CIO even sharing “Know Your Rights” and community defense resources this year. Yet funding for organizing in immigrant communities and accountability for union-backed politicians has been limited. Though the tactics and optics may be different, President Biden oversaw more deportations (4 million) than Trump did in his first term (1.9 million), and Trump’s current pace of deportations still lags Biden’s. Biden and congressional Democrats increased ICE’s budget by 20% in Biden’s term; Kamala Harris’s campaign even sought to outflank Trump on immigration ”toughness.”

In a telling irony, many unions distributing the AFL-CIO’s new Know Your Rights cards have found themselves in a dilemma. The cards instruct the user to hand the card to the enforcement officer if approached. The bottom of the card has a fill-in-the-blank spot for the number of a local immigration defense lawyer or advocate. But immigration lawyers are so overwhelmed and unions so under-resourced that local unions often don’t have a number they can reliably list there. This dilemma, though, also points to a solution: less reliance on legalistic strategies by unions, and greater investment in organizational strength, i.e., is the membership prepared to flex the basic union power of their ability to shut down business as usual to win our demands?

While unions represent only about 10% of the workforce, trending downwards even in recent years as public approval of unions has risen, the labor movement still represents the best hope in the fight against fascism. Unions, at their best, go beyond the negotiation of wages and benefits and give workers a real say in how things are done in the workplace. The workplace, where we spend most of our lives, is otherwise a site of unrestricted authoritarian dictatorship (of the boss). When workers act in unity across worksites, even if often largely illegalized in America, ever larger demands and grander victories are possible. Labor history shows unions’ greatest rise – and, subsequently, working people’s highest point of prosperity – came at a time of widespread, technically illegal, strike action. The corporate media, then, as today with the LA protests, often cast and derided these strikes as violent.

As Trump’s administration presses union-busting full throttle, gutting what’s left of a broken NLRB and attempting to slash public sector bargaining rights, legalistic defenses seem unlikely to hold organized labor’s fort, and with it, democracy itself. Vice President Vance recently advised the President that if the courts stopped him, he should make “like Andrew Jackson” and tell the courts to raise their own army to enforce it. Maybe, at this moment, working people need our own kind of army, too.

Dan Albright is an editor of Working Mass, union media producer and organizer, DSA member, and Recording Secretary of IUPAT Local 939.

“}]] 

by Portland DSA’s Immigrant Justice Working Group

Portland DSA stands in solidarity with immigrants and all the people of Los Angeles as they face the oppression of militarized federal ICE forces and the National Guard. 

We condemn the Trump administration’s use of violence—including tear gas and rubber bullets—to suppress protests against its illegitimate deportation regime. 

In 2020, the Portland community experienced the same violence from the same forces and under the same president. 

The rebellion in Portland, which lasted for more than 100 days, was a clear response to the daily violence experienced by colonized peoples across the United States. 

We stand with immigrants in the face of these reprehensible and unconstitutional attacks and call on the people of Portland to join us in condemning and resisting this violence. 

Through a diversity of tactics, we speak with a united voice:

Abolish ICE!

No one is illegal on stolen land! 

¡Se ve, se siente, el pueblo está presente!

The post Statement on Trump Administration Violence in Los Angeles appeared first on Portland DSA.

The post 🌹June 10 General Meeting Agenda🌹 first appeared on Memphis-Midsouth DSA.

In recent weeks Seattle has seen an outrageous escalation in dangerous tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On Thursday, June 5th at the Seattle US Immigration Review Court, community members were detained and dragged through the hallways of the courthouse by masked men in plainclothes. Seattle DSA rejects this continued use of intimidation and dehumanization. These extrajudicical arrests and the implications they create for those with upcoming court dates is tantamount to psychological terrorism against the immigrant population, both in Seattle and across the country.

The silence from Seattle’s public officials is disgraceful and yet another example of their failure to provide the leadership this moment requires. Their prioritization of funding for new police surveillance technologies over legal and housing assistance for immigrants, and their use of our city as a hunting ground for Gestapo-style goon squads should infuriate us all and send shivers down our spines.

Under current conditions, the designation of Washington as a so-called “sanctuary state” for immigrants is not only meaningless, it’s offensive and disingenuous. The Seattle US Immigration Review Court is where people must go for immigration appointments and for ICE contractors to encroach upon this space in a confrontational and violent way does massive harm to our community. It is critical that Washington provide meaningful efforts to improve immigrants’ material welfare. 

We encourage all Seattleites to contact Mayor Bruce Harrell, your council member, and your state legislator. Tell them we do not accept this inhumane treatment and that ICE is not welcome here. If you’d like to get involved in direct action in supporting immigrant welfare, we encourage you to follow Superfamilia KC, La Resistencia, and the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, and for Seattle Democratic Socialists of America members to join our Immigrant Justice Working Group. We refuse to take these advances of state violence sitting down.

by Gregory Lebens-Higgins

“We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.” ― Frantz Fanon

In April, ROC DSA participated in no less than ten rallies or protests: The anti-Trump “Hands Off” protest on April 5, organized by Indivisible and endorsed by National DSA. The pro-LGBTQ+ “Greater Rochester Rally for our Freedom” on April 6, endorsed by ROC DSA. On April 19, the 50501-organized “Day of Action,” supported by ROC DSA. On April 21, a rally with the U of R Graduate Students Union. 

In coalition with Rochester Grants Pass Resistance on April 22, “Housing Not Handcuffs” against carceral anti-homeless measures. Another rally with the U of R Graduate Students Union on April 25. “Hands off the Students” on April 26 to protect international U of R students. “Finals Not Fascism” on April 28 to protest student deportations at RIT. 

When Trump border czar Tom Homan visited Rochester on April 29, “Fight for our Sanctuary City.” A rally at City Hall in coalition with Rochester for Energy Democracy on April 30. All culminating in a massive (until the rain) rally for International Workers’ Day on May 1.

ROC DSA also hosted a “Socialist Sunday School” political education event, a cookout and canvass training session, a board game social, an art-making party, a new member orientation, general meeting, regular organizing group meetings, and livestreams of Speak to Council and a two-night Rochester Candidate Forum. All while supporting a slate of six candidates for City Council and Mayor with canvassing and fundraiser events.

This is an impressive feat, demonstrating the energy of membership and an appetite for politics beyond the limits of liberal capitalism. Yet while experiencing growth, we must remain self-critical to ensure we are building a mass working-class movement.

Shortcomings of Protest

In its raw form, protest is an outburst; the collective rage of the masses spilling onto the streets in response to events. Such spontaneity has no structure, no binding program beyond rage. The “Hands Off” rally, for example, was united by opposition to Trump, but guided by irreconcilable ideologies. Signs proclaimed everything from ‘Not Left, Not Right, But Center,’ to ‘Eat the Rich.’ No lasting coalition can be created on the basis of these contradictions. 

Spontaneity becomes a substitute for organized action. But protest cannot be sustained, and ultimately becomes a spectacle of weakness. Unable to achieve our demands, we resort to merely expressing our displeasure. This experience of catharsis dissipates energy from the movement, and as fractures begin to appear in the coalition, participants tire of their limited impact while congratulating themselves for showing up. 

With no collective program for building a better future, and no democratic process to see it through, spontaneous protest cannot confront the ruling class. Street protest will not remove Trump from office nor stop the deportations. The strength of the masses must be directed into focused demands informed by critical analysis.

Beyond Protest

As part of an organized campaign, protest can be a useful tactic. It acts as a “structure test,” measuring the level of support. Who will turn out in response to the organization’s call? And how will those in power respond? Protest can also be an act of disruption, placing our bodies upon the gears. The strength of the working class is in our numbers, and we can flood the streets and halls of power or halt the means of production.

Protest must be in service of our objectives. This requires an understanding of the tasks at hand to advance the cause of socialism. What can we achieve now to lay the groundwork for a socialist horizon? Our work must center demands which clearly highlight the path to victory and resonate with the masses.

A revolutionary organization has many responsibilities: Administering the organization in a democratic and effective manner. Educating the populace and instilling working-class consciousness. Ensuring the social cohesion of its members. Effectively planning events. And developing member skills. These priorities cannot be lost in an effort to keep up with the spontaneous energy of the streets.

The Role of ROC DSA

The role of ROC DSA is to organize spontaneity. To create lasting formations of working class power, the energy of the masses must be directed into campaigns that can achieve a transformative material basis for society.

At our latest chapter convention, ROC DSA voted to prioritize three campaigns: The formation of an Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), resisting the criminalization of homelessness, and supporting a socialist slate for city council and mayor. As a democratic decision of the chapter, we must stand behind these priorities.

The chapter also has a platform. As elected officials, our endorsed candidates will legislate in favor of these policies. But we cannot wait for electoral victory to bring our platform to life, it must be woven throughout ROC DSA’s work.

To demonstrate the possibilities of a socially-organized society, we must embody effective cooperation in this moment. As we have recognized, “the Chapter’s capacity for planning and organizing outward-facing events is fundamental to successful member recruitment and retention, as well as laying the groundwork for a future socialist society.” We must establish working-class formations capable of governing.

The first ROC DSA event* I attended was the 2022 No ReAwaken America Tour (“No RAT”) Teach-In, held in Batavia and planned by a coalition of groups across Western New York. Following a curated program of speakers who contributed perspectives from history, education, and religion, trained facilitators led small-group discussion on the roots of enchantment with the right. In this tense political moment, a team of marshals reassured our safety. As a new member, I was impressed with ROC DSA’s capacity for organizing such a skillfully-run event. 

When other newly-radicalized liberals are seeking the next steps in their political development, ROC DSA should be the guidestar for getting involved in robust, capable campaigns with a plan to win. New members will be onboarded directly into work that advances our cause if it is understood as a worthwhile time commitment.

This is not to say there were no compelling reasons to participate in these April protests. ”Hands Off” and “Day of Action” offered opportunities to promote socialism to Democratic voters seeking another option. Rallies with the Graduate Student’s Union strengthened connections with the labor movement. “Housing Not Handcuffs” represents the work of a priority campaign. Others were held in response to far-right encroachments on civil liberties during Trump’s first months in office.

Perhaps the frequency of these April protests can also be tacked up to the coming of warm weather. Whatever they signify, they must become part of a broader strategy. Protests are not the only form of structure test, and awareness is not the only benefit to be achieved. Our tactics must always be calculated to strengthen working class power. We have a world to win.

*Shout-out to our newly-formed Genesee County DSA branch for its contribution to the teach-in’s success.

The post Beyond the Streets first appeared on Rochester Red Star.