After Friday’s midnight deadline, the United Auto Workers went on strike against the Big 3 automakers of Ford, GM, and Stellantis, marking the first time in history the UAW has gone on strike against all three auto companies. As of this recording, 12,700 auto workers have walked off the job at three plants: a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan, a GM plant in Wentzville, Missouri, and a Stellantis plant in Toledo, Ohio, and there are potentially many more plants to follow. While here in New York City, postdoctoral workers with the UAW at Columbia University and Mt. Sinai Hospital are fighting to transform the working conditions for postdocs in Higher Ed. Tonight, we are joined in-studio with Brandon Mancilla, Director of UAW Region 9A, and Chris Voila, an auto worker and UAW member, to hear the latest about this historic auto strike. We will also hear from PJ and Andrea, postdocs with the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers Union and Sinai Postdoctoral Organizing Committee, on their respective contract fights and how postdoc workers are ready, if necessary, to strike. 

Follow SPOC-UAW at @spocuaw (Twitter) and https://sinaipostdocunion.org/

And CPW-UAW at @CPWUAW (Twitter), cpw_uaw (IG), and https://columbiapostdocunion.org/

UPDATE: It’s on! Stand with United Auto Workers (UAW) at the Big 3 auto companies fighting for:

• An end to two-tier wages and benefits
• Cost of living raises
• Secure union jobs in a just transition to electric vehicles!

After years of concessions to the bosses and skyrocketing executive compensation, autoworkers are standing firm and saying enough is enough. They’ve organized in their shops and communities ahead of the contracts at Ford, Stellantis, and GM expiring. But the companies refused to give them what they deserve. Now that the bosses have refused their demands, they’re doing stand-up strikes at worksites around the country to keep the companies guessing where they’ll be next!This fight is important not only to the 150,000 UAW members who work at the Big 3. Their fight is the fight of the whole working class. Workers need to support each other as we fight for a better world. Pledge to support UAW workers in their fight and join them on the picket line!

Are you a DSA Member and want to stand with UAW? Sign the Strike-Ready pledge!

The strike has begun, DSA is in full solidarity mode, and even members in smaller chapters with no picketing nearby should take the Strike Ready Pledge. Duluth has no UAW plants, but we have heard that many of the auto mechanics at the dealers are members of the UAW. Stay tuned for actions, and meanwhile, take the pledge.

Thorn West: Issue No. 174

State Politics

• Thursday was the deadline to pass bills at the California state level, prompting a flurry of activity. CalMatters is tracking which bills have advanced to the governor to sign or veto. More below.

City Politics

• More on LA City Council expansion from LA Forward, which also maps some of the activist groups that have been pushing for reform. Both the Forward piece and this article in the LA Times note one elephant in the room: the latest report from the city’s Chief Legislative Analyst recommends delaying implementation until 2032, the first election after the next scheduled redistricting. The other key area of debate among sitting councilmembers is how many new seats to add, with Councilmember Nithya Raman pushing for doubling the size to 31 members, while others are calling for more limited expansion.

• DSA-LA membership is currently voting on three potential LA City Council endorsements, following a member forum last Sunday. If you are a member in good standing, you should have received an email ballot, and you may view the recording of that forum in the Member Portal.

Labor

• This week the Legislature advanced a number of bills that would benefit workers, all of which are now before Governor Newsom. AB 1228 slightly scales back the strength of a fast food workers council bill passed last year; but in exchange the fast food industry will withdraw a ballot measure that would fully overturn the worker’s council bill… SB 525 raises the minimum wage for tens of thousands of healthcare workers to $25 an hour, but prevents municipalities from raising it higher than that for ten years… AB 1 allows state legislative workers to collectively bargain; many similar bills have failed to advance out of the legislature… AB 799 allows workers who have been on strike for two weeks to claim unemployment benefits.

Housing Rights

• The state Legislature advanced two bills — SB 555, a study bill, and AB 309, a pilot program — that would take small steps to advance the cause of social housing in California. Both bills originated in the Legislature’s new “renter’s caucus,” but were significantly watered down from their original versions.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• SB 50, a bill introduced by Senator Steven Bradford that would combat racial profiling by prohibiting the police across the state from pulling over vehicles for pretextual stops —– a policy Los Angeles instituted last year — was pulled from consideration for this legislative year. Last year, a similar bill, also authored by Bradford, was also unable to overcome police opposition.

• Nearly 700 LAPD officers have joined in a harassment lawsuit against the city over the city’s compliance with a public records request last year. The release of records resulted in the publicly available headshots of every LAPD officer being made available in one searchable database — a measure intended to increase police accountability. (The plaintiffs are not “undercover officers” as the LA TImes repeatedly refers to them.)

Transportation

• SB 253, which will allow local governments to implement speed cameras, has advanced to the governor. Speed cameras have shown to be an effective deterrent against vehicle speeding where they have been tried. The bill was heavily qualified to accommodate opposition.

Environmental Justice

• SB 253, which would require business entities with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion to publicly disclose the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operations, has advanced out of the legislature.

• Under AB 1572, now before the governor, ​​California businesses and institutions will have to stop irrigating decorative grassy areas with drinkable water.

• In April, a federal court ruled that Berkeley can’t ban gas in new construction. Now 25 California cities, including LA, have sent a letter to Governor Newsom saying he needs to step in to create a statewide zero-emission building standard.

The post Significant Labor + Climate Bills pass at Close of 2023 State Leg. Session appeared first on The Thorn West.

DSA stands in solidarity with the ​​150,000 UAW auto workers in their contract fight against the Big Three Detroit car makers — General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. As of midnight, Ford Michigan Assembly Plant (Final Assembly and Paint) in Wayne, Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio and General Motors Wentzville Assembly in Missouri are on strike. Workers in other plants will continue working under the expired agreement, with no contract extensions. Future timing and locations of strike targets will be announced by the UAW based on progress at the negotiating table.

Their contract demands include an increase in wages and pensions, eliminating tiers, a 32-hour work week, a just transition to electric vehicles, with EV workers not relegated to second class, and the ability to strike over plant closures, among others.

Their demands are inspiring, but well within reach. The Big 3 companies are raking in record profits off the backs of their workers. These brave workers are striking today to take back power on the shop floor and win a better future, and we could not admire them more.

Over the past several weeks, DSA has prepared its members across the country to get strike ready to support the UAW auto workers. From electeds, to union workers, to DSA members in chapters large and small, we are ready to support our UAW siblings.

Today, we stand beside them on the picket lines, and we will continue to do so until they win the contract they deserve. The fight of the UAW auto workers is the fight of all of us. Solidarity forever!

The post DSA Stands With UAW Workers appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Situation for August showed that unemployment rates were on the rise. The rate for Hispanics climbed from 4.4% to 4.9%, for whites from 3.1% to 3.4%, and for persons with disabilities from 6.9% to 7.4%. The Black rate was a surprising outlier, falling from 5.8% to 5.3%.  The unemployment rate for the whole labor force increased from 3.5% to 3.8%, so it is rising but still under the 4% level that mainstream economists used to think was essentially full employment.

In the household survey from which we derive the figures just mentioned, the number of unemployed persons jumped by 514,000. That’s a lot, but the number of employed persons increased by 222,000. On the one hand this and on the other hand that. Why the surge of job-seekers–the unemployed–is not clear. Perhaps it is just a crazy one-month blip. Or perhaps more people had to look for work more diligently because they were running out of money. Some may have used up their cache of savings from pandemic benefit programs. 

If unemployment is on the rise, are we entering a recession? It is hard to tell. In a separate publication, the Department of Labor used Bureau of Labor Statistics to show that initial unemployment claims in recent months were roughly 20% higher than last fall. The number of people receiving benefits every week in regular state programs was about 25% above last year’s level. As far as unemployment benefits are concerned, we are on a higher plane than a year ago. But there has been no sustained increase in the number of beneficiaries recently, as we might expect if we were beginning a recession. 

The unemployment rate and many job numbers come from the monthly survey of 60,000 households. But the most watched job total is from a survey of several hundred thousand non-farm employers. It’s called the payroll or establishment survey. Here jobs increased, in the initial count, by 187,000. Not too hot. Not too cold. Modest growth ought to keep officials at the Federal Reserve from biting their collective nails about excessive and inflationary job growth. But will it? By the way, the final revised payroll job addition totals for June and July were 105,000 and 157,000, not signs of a hot job market. If those two months are the model, then the final revised job increase for August will be less than 187,000. 

These numbers and the current rise in the unemployment rate show that the Fed has no reason to raise interest rates in order to stymie wage and price growth. Job growth is okay but not booming. Employers have posted somewhat fewer vacancies and worker quit-rates are down a bit, suggesting that workers are a little less confident about finding new jobs. Kelly Evans of CNBC often suggests that we are in or will soon be in a recession, but I hope that the economy is just in a slight chill. A lot depends on Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who seems obsessed with getting inflation down to 2.0%. The inflation index he prefers is now running at 2.4%. We are pretty much where he wants us to be, but he does not see it that way. He wants a weaker job market.

We Need More Jobs, Better Jobs, and Easier Retirement

Real full employment means many more jobs, and many more good jobs. The National Jobs for All Network’s Full Count shows that the real unemployment rate in August was 8.7%, not 3.8%. There are 15 million people who are unemployed or underemployed at part-time jobs because they cannot get full-time work. Whether or not the official unemployment rate goes up or down a little may suggest job market trends, but it does not tell us how far away we are from real full employment.

Nor about job quality. People who work hard shouldn’t have to worry about whether they can pay the rent or buy enough food for their families. And they ought to be able to retire some day. While the number of lucky people taking early retirement during the pandemic rose, many workers were and are too poor to retire.

But aren’t average wages pretty high? The average hourly wage for a production/non-supervisorial worker in the private sector is $29. That sounds pretty good. It’s $60,000 for a full year of work. But while that amount might be fine in eastern Kentucky, it’s not enough to pay the bills and accumulate savings in metropolitan areas, especially not in big ones like New York and Los Angeles. And there’s another disclaimer. That $29 is not the minimum wage. It’s an average. Millions of workers earn more and millions earn less, often much less. 

And by the way, gig work is not the answer. Drive for Uber? A couple of years ago, Ken Jacobs and Michael Reich, two researchers at the University of California’s Labor Center in Berkeley, determined that after unpaid waiting time, deductions for full payment of Medicare and Social Security taxes, and the cost of upkeep on the vehicle, Uber drivers were averaging about $6 an hour.

In the years prior to the pandemic, increasing numbers of people over 55 were re-entering or staying in the labor force. One reason was that they could not afford to retire. Many had worked at lousy jobs and had low savings. And it is still that way, especially for some groups. Half of the households headed by older Blacks and Hispanics are “financially fragile”; they are all but drowning in debt, housing costs, and lack of savings. These people are too poor to retire. 

Lousy jobs (and other reasons for higher poverty rates in these groups) have dire long-term consequences. More people will be working into their late 60s and 70s. Most of the people who won’t be able to retire are not professors orating in air-conditioned classrooms. Some have strenuous jobs working outside in very hot or very cold weather, or inside, cleaning 15 rooms a day in an up-scale hotel in Los Angeles, or lugging sick people around in a nursing home, or doing the dishes in the hot, crowded kitchen of an expensive restaurant. 

Some people are quitting to find better jobs. But in dozens of occupations and workplaces people are protesting, unionizing, and striking. This surge of working-class militancy is a hugely encouraging sign. 

Some useful non-governmental sources:

Teresa Ghilarducci and Christopher D. Cook, No Way Out: Older Workers Are Increasingly Trapped in Crummy Jobs and Unable to Retire.  Posted on April 28, 2023, Working Economics Blog, Economic Policy Institute.

Michael Hiltzik, “Shoplifting? Employer Wage Theft is a Bigger Deal,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2023.

Steve Lopez, “Retire? Senior Hotel Workers Can’t Afford To,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2023.

Robert Kuttner, “The Economy: Steady as She Goes,” September 1, 2023, “Today on TAP” (The American Prospect online).

The post Are We Entering a Recession or Not? The Unemployment Report for August 2023 appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

by Carlee A. Baker

While it hardly feels like the end of the summer season in perpetually sunny Austin, Labor Day has come and gone. In celebration of the holiday and the workers that make it happen, Austin DSA hosted a kickback fundraiser featuring live music by four working class acts: Typical Girls, Landline, Good Looks, and Croy and the Boys. Comrades joined together Saturday, September 2 at Sagebrush to rest, recharge, join together, and celebrate labor. It was an evening of bumping tunes, socialist socializing, and recognition of labor power. Amongst our listening to such socialist croonings as “It Seems Like You Can’t Just Be Poor Anymore” and “Keep It Light” there exists a moment for reflection on how exactly we wound up with such a holiday. 

Keeping the history of the Labor Day holiday at the forefront of the mind can be a challenge, between the bombardment of advertisements promising slashed price, invitations to barbeques and pool parties (or kickbacks!). Not to mention that the history of the holiday is largely suppressed: the Wikipedia page for the U.S. holiday doesn’t mention the pivotal role of Eugene Debs, prominent socialist activist, and has only a brief mention of the Pullman strikes and May Day – now known as International Workers Day.

A celebration demands an understanding of what exactly we’re celebrating and how we got to where we are. The history of Labor Day in the U.S. is contentious and complicated, which is all the more reason for a closer look. 

Labor Day was created and officially recognized by the federal government under the Cleveland administration in 1894. The decision to establish a federal holiday celebrating American labor came on the heels of  violent state suppression of the Pullman Strike, organized by the American Railway Union with the help of Eugene Debs, a key founder of the ARU and one of the most well-known American socialists in history.

Workers in the company town of Pullman, Illinois just outside of Chicago, felt significant economic pain following the Panic of 1893 (sound familiar?). The Pullman Company, a train car manufacturer, slashed wages and laid off workers but didn’t reduce workers’ rent. Following this decision, accompanied by general discontent from 16-hour workdays and poor living conditions, Pullman Company employees voted to strike in May 1894. 

In solidarity with the Pullman Company employees, and given that many of them were represented by the ARU, the union voted to issue a boycott effective June 26, 1894 if concessions weren’t made by the company and they refused to submit the wage disputes to arbitration. When this deadline passed, the boycott was launched and ARU members refused to work with any Pullman train cars or any trains with Pullman cars hitched to them. By June 30th, 125,000 workers were on strike across 29 railroads. 

In the midst of the boycott, trains coupled to Pullman cars were not handled or managed. One such train belonged to the U.S. Postal Service. With tensions running high after scabs were hired to replace workers, Debs spoke at a rally in support of the strikes. That rally led to protests and demonstrations, resulting in arson and train derailments. 

At that point, President Cleveland stepped in and issued an injunction against the strike on the grounds that U.S. mail, carried in Pullman cars, was being obstructed. The Army was sent to Illinois to break the strike and arrest Debs. In total, the suppression of the strike in Chicago killed 13 workers.

Following his decision to violently suppress the strike, Cleveland was desperate to find a method by which to diffuse some of the anger of the working class. Six days after the violent end of the strike, Congress passed a resolution to recognize the first Monday of September as Labor Day. 

This decision was a calculated political move to deny legitimacy to May Day, now known broadly as International Workers Day. May Day is a commemoration of the 1884 Haymarket Massacre, which began as a socialist and anarchist demonstration in support of the 8-hour workday but ended in needless death. Cleveland’s decision to recognize a September Labor Day holiday was a deliberate move to avoid the recognition and legitimization of May Day and its underlying socialist sympathies.

Labor history in the U.S. is complex and largely suppressed, unless you know where to look. The rising interest in unions and increasing energy dedicated to organizing, especially among young people, necessitates a stark look back at those who came before us and paved the way to the ground upon which we stand, organize, and dream. Labor Day and International Workers Day both provide ample opportunity for reflection, gratitude, and solidarity. Ideally done while holding a beer and listening to some local tunes.

The post Kicking Back on Labor Day with a Little History first appeared on Red Fault.

by Micah Johnson

The following article represents the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Detroit Socialist Editorial and Writers’ Collective or Detroit DSA as a whole.

Comrades, our national convention voted overwhelmingly in support of the resolution “Act Like an Independent Party.” The obligation to act like an independent party took effect immediately, and it is up to us now to take concrete steps towards making that ideal a reality. Parties have standards. They have a code of conduct. A socialist party is no different, and any true socialist party has an obligation to serve the working class. Shri Thanedar, congressional representative of most of Wayne county, and many in this room, including myself, has not only failed in this, but has stood in flagrant opposition to our goals and principles, and openly stood in support of our class enemies.

On June 22nd of this year, Representative Shri Thanedar personally escorted the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi to the Capitol to give an address before Congress. The point of this address was to affirm solidarity between the US and India in the face of heightening tensions with Russia and China. Now, if this were all you knew of the affair, I would understand skepticism towards these expulsion proceedings.

Two days before on June 20th, Rashida Tlaib tweeted this out, “It’s shameful that Modi has been given a platform at our nation’s Capital — his long history of human rights abuses, anti-democratic actions, targeting Muslims & religious minorities, and censoring journalists is unacceptable. I will be boycotting Modi’s joint address to Congress.” Ilhan Omar of Minnesota likewise boycotted the address. But why? What is so bad about PM Modi?

Modi is an open Hindu nationalist, and is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist party. As is typical with nationalists, he has a preferred minority to cast his ire on: Muslims. During his tenure as Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, in 2002, he oversaw a violent crackdown on mostly Muslim protestors. Roughly 2000 people were killed. His prime ministership, while not as overtly violent, has been no less systematically oppressive. He has overseen repression in Muslims’ rights to express themselves, to practice their religion freely, and to live as co-equal citizens with the Hindu majority. In 2005, he was denied entry into the US under an obscure ruling from the Commission on International Religious Freedom, on the grounds of his handling of the 2002 massacre. Imagine that! The US Government, in 2005, said that this guy is too extreme of an Islamophobe!

When asked by India Today about his then upcoming meeting with Modi, Thanedar said “It is a great honor.” He was proud to be associated with such a man. And this, when he is the national representative for the city of Hamtramck, a city which is notable for having one of, if not the, highest proportions of Muslim residents in the US; a majority, even, by some estimates.

Thanedar’s meeting with and open support of Modi is entirely indefensible. There was no crisis, no disaster should he refuse. This was pure and simple careerism, to associate himself with a major world leader. In doing so, he has associated us with that leader. In lending his support to Modi, we, implicitly, have done so as well. Now we have a chance, not to right that wrong, but to correct it. Comrades, vote to expel Shri Thanedar, and show that Metro Detroit DSA holds its electeds to the highest standards.

The Detroit Socialist is produced and run by members of Detroit DSA’s Newspaper Collective. Interested in becoming a member of Detroit DSA? Go to metrodetroitdsa.com/join to become a member. Send a copy of the dues receipt to: membership@metrodetroitdsa.com in order to get plugged in to our activities!

Viewpoint: Vote To Expel Shri Thanedar From Metro Detroit DSA was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.