Member Bryce Springfield

During my first semester at Princeton, I, like many students, decided to look into student organizations that I could get involved with going forward. Apart from wishing to satisfy my “speedcubing” hobby with the Cube Club, I also looked into left-wing organizations to which I could contribute, as I had been a committed socialist for several years at that point.

While several left-wing organizations had gone dormant, one that caught my interest was The Prog. A quick glance at the description made The Prog seem like a great fit for me: it is Princeton’s only left-wing campus newspaper written by and for students. However, after taking a look at The Prog’s website, one piece raised a lot of questions for me: “OPINION: What’s Really Happening in Xinjiang?” by an anonymous author. As I read the article, I found myself disappointed with the article’s arguments, which sounded similar to points I had heard from some Marxist-Leninists and even the Chinese government’s own public comments.

My first thought was this: the Left is meant to question the status quo and its institutions. Considering the pervasiveness of capitalist institutions in China’s economy and authoritarian bureaucracy, one should think that a minimization of the Chinese government’s oppression of minority groups should be something that leftists radically reject. However, I did not find this article to follow that ideal.

In its introduction, the author of “What’s Really Happening in Xinjiang” rightly points out that the United States has utilized unfounded claims and racist propaganda to justify its imperialist ambitions. Most visibly, this is what happened after the September 11 terrorist attacks as President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” in response. Many Muslim Americans were targeted and discriminated against by individuals and the government, which has had lasting repercussions until today. Even in recent years, nearly half of Americans see Muslims as a group more inclined to violence than others, and Muslims are the least approved-of religious group in the United States, according to survey data from the Pew Research Center.

The War on Terror gained widespread legitimacy and support through the construction of an Islamic “threat” that justified US-backed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and other regions, leading to at least 37 million displacements, mass food insecurity, and the deaths of 897,000 to 929,000 people.

Yet, alongside vague references to “CIA front groups, defense contractors, and Western government sources” fabricating empirical support for key claims regarding the genocide, the author resorts to suspiciously familiar fearmongering about the “increasing radicalization of some of [Xinjiang’s] Islamic citizens” — referring to a few notable cases of terrorism — as, seemingly, a mitigating factor for the oppression that the Chinese government commits against an entire population. Though I applaud the author for at least acknowledging officials’ “eager[ness] to surveil, arrest, and racially profile Uyghurs,” some parts of the article appear to me to question whether key claims of atrocities in Xinjiang are true or imply an alternative framing of “vocational schools.”

In this article, I hope to demonstrate compelling evidence from the Chinese government itself and other openly available sources to emphasize the state oppression of Uyghur Muslims in the majority-minority Xinjiang province, particularly from 2017 to 2019. Then, I will discuss how leftists can reconcile legitimate claims of atrocities with anti-imperialism and international solidarity against statist and capitalist systems that profit off of oppressed groups.

Genocide

Of course, “genocide” is often a loaded term used to overcharacterize a wide range of atrocities, as the author of the opinion piece points out. For the sake of using this word in line with international standards, I will compare the United Nations’ definition of genocide with what I believe is occurring in Xinjiang based solely on the information presented in this article.

In Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or simply the Genocide Convention, ratified or acceded to by 149 countries, including China, the following definition was approved:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a. Killing members of the group;

b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Most people likely immediately only think of part (a), but this excerpt demonstrates that genocide also includes other sorts of atrocities while maintaining clear, defined bounds. In the case of Xinjiang since at least 2017, I would argue that, with the points made in this article, at least (b) through (d) likely apply due to mandatory “re-education” for Muslim practices and especially forced birth prevention. Therefore, I will use the term “Uyghur genocide” to refer to the state oppression particularly against Muslims in Xinjiang, but that may also target others in Xinjiang.

For the purposes of this article, in addition to mentioning a few things about forced cultural assimilation (which some refer to as “cultural genocide”), I will primarily focus on the genocidal aspects of oppression in Xinjiang according to the UN definition, although there is also much to be said about surveillance and repression of free expression in Xinjiang for the sake of “stability,” including against activists pushing for — and this is of particular interest to the Left — environmental protections.

Internment Camps

The most well-reported aspect of the Uyghur genocide is perhaps its internment camps, described by the Chinese government as “vocational education and training centers” or “re-education camps.” According to Chinese government officials, there is an “urgent need” for these camps in order to fight the “Three Evil Forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism that have threatened Chinese territorial and civil stability “[b]etween 1990 and the end of 2016.”

Shortly after this policy realignment, the creation of internment camps was first observed in 2017. In 2018, Xinjiang officials responded by either denying the camps’ existence or justifying them as agents of social stability and economic growth. What is interesting is that in 2015, a few years before this major policy shift, Chinese government officials claimed that they had already been extremely effective in preventing terrorist attacks, indicating that the new policies in Xinjiang were not in response to heightened terrorist activity.

Since then, Chinese government sources have shifted toward acknowledging the re-education camps and have even invited Western journalists to observe them under highly restrictive conditions, presenting them as bona fide educational facilities. However, an analysis of the birth rates and arrest rates in Xinjiang suggests something more nefarious.

Crude birth rates and incarceration rates

One does not need to rely on Western researchers or on testimonials to find drastic irregularities that cannot reasonably be explained by normal demographic or developmental trends. In fact, we only need to look at the Chinese government’s own annual statistical reports, the China Statistical Yearbooks, which it publishes online and in print. Unfortunately, the Yearbooks do not report on ethnic breakdowns. Regardless, an analysis of the provided data points to abnormal trends in Xinjiang, which is mostly populated by minority groups and nearly half Uyghur, that are not observed in other regions in the same time frame.

The first piece of evidence that should raise serious concern is Xinjiang’s change in birth rates over the last few years. Although the Chinese government began omitting regional birth rates from the 2020 statistics, the data up to 2019 is clearly unusual.

My analysis begins with recent regional birth rate data from 2013 through 2019 provided by the China Statistical Yearbooks. Below are a couple of graphs I constructed to visualize the data. In the first, we see a significant drop of 49% in the annual birth rate in Xinjiang between 2017 and 2019, which is a much faster drop than that of China as a whole. This brings the regional birth rates significantly below that of the country, which is all the more concerning given that Xinjiang’s historical birth rates had been notably higher than that of the national average.

To compare this to other regions in China, below is a histogram showing Xinjiang as the lowest instance of birth rates from 2017, when the “vocational camps” opened, to 2019. One thing to note is that with the rescinding of the One Child Policy in 2015 and 2016, according to many Chinese demographers, we should see an immediate increase in birth rates followed by decreases over this period — due to “two-child policies” — to a greater extent than natural changes. Given that Xinjiang was exempted from having one-child restrictions as mentioned in the article, meaning it should not have experienced shocks from this, it should be concerning that it is an extreme outlier even compared to other Chinese provinces that were expected to experience significant changes.

The only comparable drop in reported birth rates since 1950 that I am aware of is that of Greenland from mass sterilization under Danish colonial rule, which is a fitting comparison. Even this, however, was over the course of nearly a decade rather than two years.

We see unusual changes in official contraceptive data in 2018 in Xinjiang, as well. In the China Health Statistical Yearbooks, we see rapid increases in the national proportion of sterilizations — which include vasectomies and “tube tying” — in Xinjiang especially in 2018. The author of the original article correctly notes that Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist and senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation widely cited for claims about the Uyghur genocide, performed serious errors in his calculations of sterilizations in Xinjiang, but the data displayed below demonstrates the point to be generally correct, despite his obvious biases and propensity to exaggerate.

In addition to information on birth rates and birth control, we can look at incarceration rates reported by government officials in various work reports. Analyzing the official work reports of the Xinjiang provincial government and the Chinese national government, I produced the graph below to represent the percentage of arrests in China as a whole that were in Xinjiang. Clear abnormalities are present from 2017 to 2019, and provincial reports are notably missing from 2022, when national arrests exploded from the White Paper Protests, where protestors sang “The Internationale” and other socialist messaging against authoritarian suppression, particularly aggravated by the Ürümqi fire in Xinjiang. Incidentally, while the arrest reports mention the regulation of monopolies and fraud, their defense of capital is evident in their talk of promoting the “deep integration of party building and business,” “serving private enterprises,” and highlighting the punishment of “crimes against the legitimate rights and interests of private enterprises.” This is a topic I will return to later.

Despite Xinjiang being just 1.5% of the national population, it quickly went from making up less than 5% of national arrests to more than 20% after 2017, and arrests remained quite high in the following years. Considering that terrorist incidents in Xinjiang did not more than quadruple between 2016 and 2017, this should suggest that a campaign against a more vast swath of the population had been coordinated.

Razing of cultural sites

Beyond statistical data on reproduction and incarceration, it is also important to look at the cultural effects of the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang, which may also help us think about why China chose to ramp up repression in the region despite declining terrorist incidents. Evidence from publicly available satellite imagery has been studied to look at how religious and cultural sites in Xinjiang have been affected. Systematic studies have demonstrated an unusual 32% of mosques in Xinjiang having been destroyed and another 28% significantly damaged between 2017 and 2020. One of the more visible examples of this was the erasure of the ancient Imam Asim Shrine, where thousands of Muslim pilgrims regularly prayed and tied flags just a decade ago before its apparent destruction.

Islamophobic legislation

Next, I will examine the policies and prevailing ideas that may be driving Uyghur persecution in Xinjiang. For this, I closely read the 2017 “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulation on De-Extremification,” hosted on the Xinjiang regional government’s website. While I used a browser extension to translate the document, which could lead to misinterpretation, others have performed their own translations, which read similarly to my computer translation. Revisions to the law in 2018 see nearly identical restrictions.

Beginning in Chapter I, article 3 of the legislation, the definition of “extremification” is left very broad. Specifically, it notes that “[e]xtremification … refers to speech and actions under the influence of extremism, that spread radical religious ideology, and reject and interfere with normal production and livelihood.” Extremism refers to ideas and behaviors that “incite hatred and discrimination, and advocate violence by distorting religious teaching and other methods.”

What is inciting hatred and discrimination, or violence? What is “radical religious ideology”? What is considered an interference “with normal production and livelihood”? These questions are not answered in the document and these terms are left open to interpretation so that any idea one may find challenging could be a “violent” thought and any behavior deemed atypical could be “radical” and interfere with “normal production.” This enables the document to provide sweeping powers to the government to persecute Muslims in Xinjiang who adopt more visibly Islamic clothing, speech, traditions, and political and religious thought.

The legislation specifically prohibits “irregular beards or name selection,” the wearing of “burqas with face coverings,” or other “symbols of extremification” in Chapter II. The former two restrictions are common presentations and behaviors of Muslims worldwide, and the latter can describe anything the government deems as “extreme,” leaving ample room for arbitrary discrimination.

In Chapter III, the legislation reveals the main objective of these strict regulations: “De-extremification shall persist in the correct political orientation and direction of public opinion” (Article 12) and “shall do a good job of … combining ideological education, psychological counseling, behavioral corrections, and skills training [emphases added]” (Article 14). From this 2017 legislation, the pervading theme seems to be the Chinese and Xinjiang governments’ interest in forcing cultural and political conformity and the “correct political orientation” of Xi Jinping onto the Uyghur and Muslim populations of Xinjiang.

Global imperialist and capitalist intersections

As mentioned in the opening paragraphs, it is important to recognize that the justifications given by Chinese officials for increased control of the Uyghur population is a continuation of the global “War on Terror” proliferated by the United States. After the September 11 attacks, Chinese state rhetoric on the Uyghur population shifted toward dubiously connecting Uyghur organizations and jihadist groups rather than emphasizing “pan-Turkic separatism.” In fact, some of the United States’ current foreign policies in Central Asia may actually bolster the deportation of Uyghur Muslims to China, as the US subsidizes security systems and massive hauls of military equipment for authoritarian regimes in the region who are themselves supportive of the crackdowns in Xinjiang or who find some of their own Uyghur citizens too disruptive.

It should be mentioned that the Chinese government stands to benefit from oil deposits and other economic opportunities through its grip on Xinjiang and by employing War on Terror-esque justifications against the majority Muslim peoples that populate much of the province.

In addition, while labor conditions in China as a whole are quite squalid, oppression and surveillance in Xinjiang have been particularly beneficial to global capitalism’s exploitation of workers for endless profit. Regardless of concerns about human rights violations in Xinjiang, companies like Nike and Tesla benefit from the province’s cotton and polysilicon production supported by forced laborers and actively try to water down labor laws related to it; and billions have been invested in public-private security technology partnerships, drastically higher than in previous years. Meanwhile, as hinted in the section on incarceration, the Chinese Communist Party’s deep defense of private interests is clear in its own rhetoric and overt actions, even incorporating capitalist CEOs and business leaders as a major part of the National People’s Congress and as a core piece of the Party itself.

* * *

There is far more to be said about the complexities of state oppression in Xinjiang, including the silencing of left-wing activists, anti-LGBTQ laws, the government leaks of mass surveillance data, the heavily restricted conditions of foreign inspections, and more. Alas, there is only so much that can fit in one piece.

Of course, several aspects of what has been documented in Xinjiang have been committed by Western governments, particularly toward indigenous and Black populations. However, this does not mean that the Uyghur genocide is any less troubling because other countries do the same. It does indicate that the working class has multiple competing enemies sustaining the same system of globalized state capitalism. To this day, state oppression in Xinjiang benefits global capitalism, including Western firms, through its securitization and production of materials under poor conditions. We must find ways to liberate the oppressed in Xinjiang, regardless of the atrocities of either “side.”

We should always question government and corporate media narratives as well as their motives. However, we can look at concrete data and other public information to substantiate at least some claims espoused by agenda setters. Perhaps exaggerated conclusions and the history of US imperialism rightly result in a higher degree of skepticism, but, in this case, we have convincing primary source evidence available, free from the manipulation of US propaganda outlets, Adrian Zenz, or any other potentially biased Western source.

As leftists, we should respond to the clear motives that some interest groups and US officials have regarding the expansion of US imperialism not by trying to dismiss or mitigate claims of atrocities as only “in service of a larger imperial project” or by giving credibility to government-constructed visits or other authoritarian governments’ representatives and ambassadors, but by educating our peers about what war hawks wish to do with information of atrocities. US statements and policies acknowledging the Uyghur genocide are not the problem; the problem is the imperialist tendencies of the United States and the influence that pro-interventionist interest groups have over our government.

It is not easy to provide a simple solution to end and provide restitution for the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, but surely most leftists can agree that putting American boots in China or attempting to externally change the country’s regime aren’t viable options if we want to reduce violence and promote freedom across the world. Part of the solution will need to involve teaching international solidarity for the liberation of all working class people, including for Chinese Uyghurs potentially seeking refuge. This is what many in the Muslim world have already demonstrated through mass demonstrations in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Indonesia, just to name a few, and through polls in Palestine. It may also involve accepting refugees, and independent socialist groups developing alternative media and support infrastructure to aid those potentially suffering from oppression or organizing for liberation.

Neither the US’s democratic capitalism nor China’s capitalism with Marxist–Leninist aesthetics will save us. Only the working class can save itself through building solidarity and, in this case, critically assessing claims of atrocities without lending fallacious credibility to either imperialist or denialist tendencies.

This piece was originally published in The Princeton Progressive.

Our focus this week is on Cuba, where a 62 year blockade is being continued by President Biden. We’ll be hearing from the DSA. International Committee activists campaigning to end the blockade on a recent political win, and a from Desirée Michelle Molina, a recent Columbia University graduate who has just spent four months living in the country.  Our episode starts with an update from Jeremy Cohan, co-chair of New York City DSA, about what to expect from the DSA’s National Convention in Chicago this weekend.

On Monday, July 24, 2023, Columbus City Council voted 6-1 to approve the American Campus Communities / Blackstone development proposed at 50 West Lane Avenue.

Blackstone is the largest corporate landlord in history. They own thousands upon thousands of properties across the United States and abroad. They have earned international condemnation for their aggressive rent hikes and use of eviction as a profit-making scheme.

Now, City Council has given them a piece of our city–and are poised to sweeten the deal even further by handing over the public’s money in the form of tax abatements.

Despite so many community members testifying about Blackstone’s horrific human rights record and business practices–including its having been lambasted by the United Nations for its role in the global housing crisis–Council rolled out the red carpet to welcome them into our housing market. Even worse, Blackstone indicated that they intend to seek tax abatements for their trouble.

This is yet another example of Council weighing the business interest of a developer over the wellbeing of its constituents. It confirms our fear that Council’s purported “Housing for All” policies are a sham, meant only to placate voters while they continue to line corporations’ pockets with money lifted from our neighborhoods and schools.
For months, constituents flooded Columbus’s democratic channels with their fears over Blackstone coming into our city, providing written and spoken testimony at the University District Area Commission, the Development Commission, and finally, City Council. Of these bodies, only the Area Commission rejected the proposal, though City Council neglected to listen even to them.

Columbus DSA’s Housing Priority Campaign made it our responsibility to inform the public about Blackstone’s abysmal history and organize opportunities to speak out against them. We are so proud of the energy and tenacity the community supplied to our campaign. Columbus DSA will continue to oppose tax handouts for the rich so long as the working people of our city struggle to find housing that is affordable, dignified, and secure. We are sick of watching the working class get cut out of the deal. We are tired of seeing our schools gutted, our public services plundered, and our neighbors left to rot on the sidewalk. We are finished with the housing crisis being used as an excuse to build playgrounds for the wealthy instead of seeing our people safe. A bed for every person. A meal in every stomach. A city for every one of us. That is our future, and we are the ones to build it. Not Blackstone.

By Emil McDonald

On Saturday, July 22, 2023, fifty workers and community members rallied at San Francisco City Hall in solidarity with 340,000 UPS Teamsters. Since UPS walked away from the bargaining table earlier in the month, UPS workers had been busy preparing for a potential August 1 national strike with the potential to shut down 7 percent of U.S. GDP.

The tide had turned a day earlier, when UPS relented and agreed to return to the bargaining table. Just a few days later, on July 25, the union announced a tentative agreement (TA) for a new five-year contract. Members will be voting on whether to ratify the TA through August 22, and the strike deadline has been postponed. 

At the July 22 rally, Emil McDonald, a five-year UPS worker and member of Teamsters Local 315 in Richmond, CA, spoke about the changes that he saw in the union’s rank and file, and beyond, as a result of strike preparations. – The Editors

A UPS Teamster at the Local 315 “practice picket” in Richmond, July 20. (Photo: R. Marcantonio)

As many of you may know, on July 5th negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS broke down. UPS told our negotiating committee they had “nothing more to give.”  This is a company that recently paid more than $5 billion dollars in dividends to Wall Street and bought back $3.5 billion of its own stock so that executives and major shareholders could fatten their wallets. 

Not only do we know that UPS has a LOT more to give —- we’re gonna make sure they give it.  We’ve made it perfectly clear to UPS that if they can’t find the money to give our essential workers a living wage and reward some of the hardest working people in the country for the tens of billions of dollars we made them during the pandemic,  UPS executives will be putting their own company on strike and that profit faucet is gonna get shut off. 

Thank you all so much for being here and for supporting UPS Teamsters as we fight for a contract that will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers and bring historic change to our union.

The kind of change I’m talking about isn’t just union leadership that is willing to build a credible strike threat and go to the mat for our lowest-paid members. It is the experience of rank-and-file Teamsters put into motion, united with the community to win a good contract for ourselves. 

For the last few weeks, all over the country UPS Teamsters have been holding practice pickets outside of our hubs joined by DSA, PSL, Jobs with Justice, our friends and families–even some of our customers. 

Drivers I work with are asking me about these signs they keep seeing up out on road. In store windows, taped to peoples’ front doors—some have even taped the signs up inside their trucks. 

Your efforts are not going unnoticed. It is one thing to feel cheated or unappreciated as an individual worker. Everyone here has felt that and it sucks. But when you see that you are not alone and that you have brothers and sisters who are willing to fight with you and that the community has your backs — it can be a very powerful thing. 

The experience of banding together and fighting for something that’s right changes you. It cuts through all of the noise and the cultural divides that keep us powerless and disillusioned.  

A couple of Teamsters in my local — who to my knowledge had never attended a picket line before — came out to San Francisco this week to join academic workers at a rally at the UC Regents meeting.  This is the kind of change I’m talking about. Seeing yourself as part of a broader labor movement.  United we fight, divided we beg. 

Emil McDonald celebrates a successful practice picket with a co-worker (Photo: R. Marcantonio.)

Whatever happens between now and when we have a new UPS contract, the contract campaign over the last year has created hundreds if not thousands of new shop floor leaders in our union and given us experience organizing against one of the largest corporations in the United States.  This is something we will continue to build on in the coming years. Militant stewards will be born out of this fight.  Solidarity will be born out of this fight. Five years from now, when it’s time to negotiate the 2028 contract, we will be many times stronger and many times wiser from the start. 

And guess what?  It turns out maybe UPS does have something more to give than poverty wages. They must have checked their couch cushions and went to Coinstar because this week they reached out to our union requesting to go back to the table in an effort to avoid a strike.  

But when Sean O’Brien and our NorCal negotiators go back to the table next week they will not be alone.  They will be backed by the tens of thousands of Teamsters who attended practice pickets, 80,000 supporters who signed petitions demanding a living wage for part-time workers and the knowledge that our members — backed by our brothers and sisters in the labor movement and our communities —- are ready to strike if we have to to win what we deserve. 

Emil McDonald is a UPS Teamster and a member of Local 315 in Richmond, CA.

The delegation of the Houston chapter of the Democratic Socialists ofAmerica stands with the BDS Working Group in support of their proposed amendment to NPC Recommendation #8, “Make DSA an […]

The post HDSA for an Anti-Zionist DSA appeared first on Houston DSA.

For Immediate Release: July 28th 2023

Contact righttocounseljc@gmail.com

The Right to Counsel JC coalition is not surprised by Ron Simoncini’s baseless and frivolous lawsuit meant to slow down the implementation of much needed aid for Jersey City’s housing crisis.

• The Mount Laurel legal decisions made in the New Jersey Supreme Court give municipalities the right to do what they would like with money raised for the affordable housing trust, including utilizing the fees for administrative purposes like distributing the Right to Counsel program.

• Landlords and property owners are already favored by the system, the law, and are more often than not already represented in housing court. This is about balancing the scales and joining 20 other jurisdictions that have also passed RTC.  

• The will to fund our right to counsel with a fee that many other cities in New Jersey have also raised is a political decision. We plan to primarily organize a mass movement of tenants to bring public political pressure on these shady real estate actors, but also fight the suit and win.

• We cannot let a few rich and powerful real estate players determine policy that impacts the over 70% of people who rent in our city.

For over a year, UPS Teamsters have been prepping for the largest private-sector contract fight this country has seen in decades – saving money for personal strike funds, signing pledge cards, and in more recent weeks, organizing practice pickets in the early morning hours outside of UPS facilities. UPS, meanwhile, repeatedly delayed the bargaining process by failing to come to the table in good faith and presenting workers with an inadequate contract. Following broken down negotiations mid-July, thousands of Teamsters and community supporters flocked to practice picket lines and began to seriously accelerate preparations for a nationwide strike.

After weeks of coordinated practice pickets and the increasing fear of a work stoppage, UPS was convinced to return to the bargaining table. On Tuesday July 25th, the Teamsters national negotiating committee announced a tentative agreement with UPS, subject to a vote of its membership which will begin August 3 and last until August 22. DSA stands in unflinching solidarity with the 350,000 UPS Teamsters whose tireless militancy gave their negotiating committee strong leverage throughout this fight.

Despite the narrative pushed by corporate media that the deal is entirely sealed, approval of this tentative agreement is entirely up to the rank-and-file to vote on, and Atlanta DSA commits to stand with workers no matter the outcome of this vote. The gains made in this tentative deal were only possible because of years of hard work and rank-and-file organizing on the ground, and the credible threat of a strike that would cost the company billions. Contrary to UPS’s narrative, it was worker power – not corporate benevolence – that forced UPS’s hands in making significant concessions like ending the two-tier wage system, protecting against forced overtime, securing air conditioning in delivery trucks, making MLK day a paid holiday, and more. Workers bravely organized to withhold their labor, hold down picket lines, and build meaningful community support for their efforts. For this all UPS Teamsters should be extremely proud, and we are proud to stand in solidarity with them through the duration of this fight until the last vote is cast and beyond!

Under capitalism, major companies like UPS are incentivized to maximize profits at all costs, at the expense of human safety and dignity. Both part-time and full-time UPS workers bore the brunt of the pandemic – risking their own lives to deliver essential medication and other goods to working people and families around the country. These workers on the front lines are the reason UPS brought in record breaking profits of $10 billion in 2021, and still, because of corporate greed, UPS CEO Carol Tomé takes home a larger salary in one day than the average UPS worker earns an entire year. DSA will always stand with workers fighting back against injustice and demanding their fair share — no matter whether Teamsters vote to accept or reject their TA. The UPS Teamsters have run a militant, fighting campaign that left a major company shaking in its boots. Their organizing will inspire workers everywhere to continue building power and resistance through their leverage to withhold their labor. Solidarity forever – when workers fight, we win!

When workers at the JFK8 facility in Staten Island won the first union at an Amazon distribution facility on April 1, 2022, by voting to form the independent Amazon Labor Union, their stunning victory was a surprise and an inspiration. Now, a little over a year later, workers at that same facility are organizing for reform to the Amazon Labor Union, which they say has adopted a top-down structure that stifles shop floor democracy. Regular listeners of Revolutions per Minute will certainly be familiar with union reform efforts in more established unions like UAW, the Teamsters, and UFCW, but the Reform ALU movement brings a new twist to this common story by organizing within an independent union that has yet to reach a first contract for its workers. To understand this moment and what led up to it, we speak live with David-Desyrée, a worker-organizer at the JFK8 facility and a member of the Amazon Labor Union Democratic Reform Caucus.

 

Follow the reform efforts inside Amazon Labor Union on Twitter @ReformALU or Instagram @reform_alu.  

 

 

This episode explores the growing alliance between the U.S. and the Indian far right, the various appearances of Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism)in US public life, anti-caste discrimination, and how Hinduism and socialism can be mutually informed. For more on this topic, check out – Hindus for Human Rights @hindusforhumanrights www.hindusforhumanrights.org – Sadhana Coalition of Progressive Hindus @sadhanahindus www.sadhana.org

What is happening?

UPS Teamsters are fighting for better pay, hours, and treatment on the job! If UPS doesn’t respond to workers’
demands before their contract expires on July 31st, UPS workers are prepared to launch the largest private-sector strike in decades. We should be there to support them in their struggle!

UPS made over $13 billion in profits last year. But they want their workers to settle for less. It’s unacceptable that UPS CEO Carol Tomé earns more in a day than the average UPS worker makes an entire year! UPS Teamsters are at the bargaining table to demand:

• End Part-Time Poverty: A majority of UPS workers are part-time employees making poverty wages. They want higher wages and more full-time jobs.
• Win Equal Pay for Equal Work: UPS wants to pay some drivers less to do the same job. Teamsters say no way.
• End Excessive Overtime: For many Teamsters, the rallying cry is “I don’t want to be a part-time parent.”

UPS Teamsters voted by 97% to strike if UPS doesn’t deliver a fair contract. And they’re not just fighting for themselves. UPS workers move 6% of the country’s GDP every year. What they win sets the standard for everyone else.

How do I get involved?

1. Let our chapter leadership know you are committed to supporting the strike by signing the Strike Ready Pledge. This way we know how to contact members to get involved.
2. Learn about the demands being made and how DSA can support.
3. Show up to the picket!