In 2023, DSA chapters nationwide carried out a campaign called “Strike Ready” to build connections with UPS Teamsters and prepare to support them on the picket lines. When the expected strike didn’t happen it was easy to declare victory, but the campaign had never really been tested. It demonstrated that it was possible to organize in preparation of a strike in parallel to the union itself, but what this would lead to was still unknown. 

The contract negotiations between Boeing and IAM were closely watched for years in our chapter and others. The 33,000 IAM members at Boeing constitute one of the largest bargaining units in Washington state, and Boeing is the state’s third-largest private employer. Our plan developed in the final months of negotiations: get people interested, build a list of interested people, and keep them informed. Strike support at the picket lines was the main objective: bring people out to join the machinists on the line, talk to them about their fight, let them know that it’s shared across unions and across the working class. Unlike other organizations, we wouldn’t bring literature or recruit on the lines, but we would show up.

At 12am on Friday the 13th in September, the strike began after votes to reject the tentative agreement and to strike passed by overwhelming margins. Seattle and SnoCo DSA members were on the line in Everett at midnight, in a huge crowd that was just one of the Everett plant’s many picket locations. We drew on our planning to bring a large number of SDSA members to the picket line in Renton the next day, spreading out across 2-3 different picket locations when we outnumbered the actual strikers at one.

What became evident very quickly after the beginning of the strike was that attendance at the picket lines was different here than in past strikes we’d worked to support. UAW 4121 members might have 3 main picket locations, Unite Here 8 struck at a few Homegrown locations or hotels at a time. IAM picketed at over a dozen locations in each city (Seattle, Everett, Renton, and Auburn), with each site so far away from the next that you often couldn’t see them. Machinist shift organization to keep up 24/7 coverage meant that there were usually only a few people at each site. While it was impressive to show up in large numbers, we’d usually only encounter a small handful of IAM members each time.

The scale of the strike also made other forms of support somewhat daunting. Many picket lines have an abundance of donuts and snacks, and IAM is no exception. Anyone who’s been to one of the halls has seen the evolution of a combination snack depot and food pantry over the weeks of the strike, on a scale that’s simply beyond DSA’s ability to make a dent in. The scale of the strike support payments going out to the strikers is a good example of the scale: each week, strike support payments total more than DSA’s national annual budget!

So much of our lives are structured around monetary transactions, more-so every year as the neoliberal snare squeezes tighter. Breaking out of this intellectual trap means thinking of value separate from money, and identifying concerns in the same way that an organizer would in the workplace. Once you see the areas of need, you can start brainstorming how to address them in ways besides throwing money at the problem.

For example, we saw at Unite Here 8 pickets over Labor Day weekend that the supplies from the union would sometimes leave out one or two important items. It could vary every time, but there were a lot of little crises on the line as signs broke, materials blew away, wagons hauling supplies back to a car overflowed, etc etc. In response, we put together a kit of gear that we could bring to pickets to solve a lot of these issues on the spot: staple gun, various tapes, bungee cords, scissors, first aid kit, and more. It’s rare that a picket site hinges on any of these issues, but repairing a stack of broken signs or producing a roll of duct tape at a crucial moment helps keep momentum up (and makes us look like we know what we’re doing!).

Another issue came from those same snacks and donuts mentioned earlier. Although the pickets were supplied with actual food besides the snacks, first from sandwich shops and later from the hall kitchens, they were still largely focused on practical and immediate energy. PB&J or egg salad sandwiches and all the chips you can eat are fine, but they don’t feel like a meal.

We tend to think of ourselves as individuals, only able to contribute as individuals; a whole society thinking like the peasants in Marx’s proverbial sack of potatoes. The connections between individuals, the community and solidarity which we can build, lets us act far beyond our individual means. On the individual level, this looks like luck: one of our members was lucky enough to know some farmers, and lucky enough to be in the room when they were wondering where to donate extra produce after the farmer’s market season ended. Our member proposed donating this to an IAM hall kitchen, and after some back and forth, a plan was hatched: we’d pick up a load of fresh produce from the farmers each week, and deliver it to the hall, where kitchen volunteers would use it to prepare heartier, healthier food for picketers. While this plan worked great, it’s not necessarily something that could be replicated in the future, but the key is this: take opportunity when it is presented to you, and make opportunity where it doesn’t exist yet. Unions are popular, and even people who might never accept an invitation out to the picket lines or to a DSA meeting still like to feel that they helped. By looking for a need and identifying how we could address it through personal relationships and community, we were able to make this program of food delivery happen.

Strike support has another value beyond the line itself, and it’s one that can feel a little impolitic to mention. It’s nice to win! It’s nice to be part of something that wins! By getting involved with a strike, by showing up and doing what we can, by contributing according to the strike’s need and to our abilities in the best way that we can, we can share in the victory when the strike resolves. Reaching out and drawing upon our own communities can not only let us do more, it can also spread this feeling around to those who might be a little less politicized in their day-to-day lives. As Walter Crane’s The Workers’ Maypole (1894) declares: the cause of labor is the hope of the world. What’s better than sharing a little hope?

Featured Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Workers%27_May_Pole.jpg 

The post Building Community & Seizing Opportunity: Seattle DSA’s Strategy to Support Machinist Pickets appeared first on Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.

Discontent is high in the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) as a rank-and-file campaign seeks to vote the new contract down.

By Connor Wright

BOSTON – Last Friday, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) signed a tentative agreement with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), outlining a proposed contract that would last through 2026 if approved by rank-and-file letter carriers. NALC members have been working without a contract for almost two years.

The leadership of the 200,000-member union released a summary of the tentative agreement (TA) on Saturday. It includes raises of 1.3% per year, annual cost of living adjustments (COLA), and small increases in base pay for some positions. The raises and COLA will also be paid retroactively for the roughly 600 days the current contract has been expired.

The proposed agreement is now pending approval from NALC’s membership. Ballots are slated to go out in mid-November. A simple majority is needed to approve the TA.

The new contract is not guaranteed to pass. Friday’s announcement sparked a wave of discontent among members, according to local carriers who spoke to Working Mass. Almost immediately, a national NALC Votes No campaign was set up, calling for members to vote down the TA for a chance at a better contract.

“The Tentative Agreement between NALC and the USPS, announced on October 19th, is unacceptable,” the campaign website reads. “After 600 days of negotiating and promising an ‘historic’ contract, our union leadership has failed us.”

The campaign cites multiple reasons for rejecting the TA. The 1.3% raises fall well below inflation, amounting to a pay cut; the COLAs are small and tied to already low base wages; healthcare payments are even higher than last contract’s; and the use of “City Carrier Assistants,” a lower-paid second tier of the union workforce, is left unchanged.

Multiple groups within NALC oppose the TA and have thrown in with the No campaign. Build a Fighting NALC (BFN) – a group that aims to “transform our union into a democratic, fighting union” – seems to be the driving force behind the campaign. Concerned Letter Carriers, another rank-and-file network, has also endorsed NALC Votes No. Even some top union officers are calling for a No vote, opposing a deal largely negotiated by current NALC president Brian Renfroe.

For years, there has been widespread dissatisfaction among NALC’s rank and file over weak contract gains and harsh working conditions. Those issues came to a head during the union’s last national convention, when BFN clashed with the union’s current leadership, demanding that the union open up bargaining to rank-and-file members and strengthen its demands in negotiations with USPS.

The letter carriers have a history of militancy. Famously, in 1970, rank-and-file NALC members launched a massive wildcat strike over brutal working conditions. The 8-day strike remains the largest wildcat in U.S. history, and laid the groundwork for decades of more militant, democratic unionism at the Postal Service, after rank-and-file strike leaders wrested leadership of the union from a corrupt old guard.

Strikes by federal workers are illegal, and national workplace action doesn’t seem to be on the horizon this time around. But the NALC Votes No campaign hopes to draw on the legacy of the 1970 strike.

“We’ve been here before,” one local NALC member told Working Mass. “Whatever it takes to get them to listen to us – that’s what we’ll do.”

Unions have relied on staff to encourage members to build the union through new organizing at non-union workplaces, but they could be doing much more.

The post Who holds the power in your workplace? appeared first on EWOC.

San Jose Against War, joined by SVDSA, held a rally on October 6, 2024 to mark a year of Palestinian resistance to genocide.

Today, a nuclear-armed state rains down terror on an oppressed population of natives, behind a multi-billion dollar shield of rockets protecting its settlers. Built on the ethnic cleansing of almost a million natives, the occupying state imposes a system of apartheid and ethnosupremacy over its claimed territories, placing its own settlers’ rights above the natives’ democratic will. Despite the natives having an internationally recognized right to resist their subjugation and pursue self-determination, other major powers refuse to recognize this – saying only the occupier has a “right to self defense.”

We could have written a similar introduction about any number of colonial and occupied groups. White Americans and Indigenous people – who were similarly genocided under the guise of “manifest destiny.” Hindutva supremacists and occupied Kashmir – where Kashmiris have been denied their internationally recognized right to a plebiscite and self-determination.

As Israel today continues its genocide on Palestine and begins to destroy Lebanon, we must be clear as socialists that we oppose not only Israel’s actions, but also the racist, colonial ideology underpinning it all. Just as DSA has previously taken stances on anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and anti-imperialism, today we commit to organizing around dismantling Zionism in our local governments and communities.

At our end-August chapter meeting, Silicon Valley DSA unanimously passed a resolution reinforcing our chapter as an anti-Zionist organization in principle and practice.

Zionism, as defined by Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century, has always been a settler-colonial project intended to dispossess natives – to create “a wall of Europe against Asia… an outpost of [Western] civilization against [Eastern] barbarism.” Armed with the lie of “a land without a people for a people without a land,” Zionists regularly terrorized Palestinians alongside the British, and built their own segregated systems during the years of the British Mandate. During the Nakba (“catastrophe”) of 1948, Zionists prevailed in ethnically cleansing 750,000 Palestinians to form the state of Israel – against the consent of most natives.

In opposing Zionism, SVDSA seeks to end all forms of oppression and ethnosupremacy, in line with our prior opposition to caste discrimination and white supremacy.

Since October 2023, SVDSA has mobilized to call for a ceasefire, helped pass ceasefire resolutions at the Democratic Party and local levels, initiated Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns, and educated our neighbors about Israel’s genocide. We recognize that, as U.S. taxpayers, we are directly paying for the destruction of Palestine – to the tune of $3.8 billion in annual military funding, and a further $10+ billion in arms approved just this year. Redirecting these funds alone would give $1250 per year for every American child in poverty.

Following the lead of other DSA chapters, including DSA SF and East Bay DSA, we drafted a resolution to fully commit our chapter to anti-Zionism, and place ourselves firmly on the side of the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

The adopted resolution clearly defines anti-Zionist expectations for our membership and endorsed candidates. With the passage of this resolution, Zionist positions — such as opposing BDS or the Palestinian right of return — are considered to be in substantial disagreement with Silicon Valley DSA’s principles and policies. Supporting Zionist lobby groups — such as Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) — is also now a violation of our principles, because we recognize how these lobbies disingenuously provide political cover for Israel’s genocide. Members who commit these violations can be subject to expulsion, as is the case with violating any other DSA principles.

Along the same lines, our endorsed candidates must now publicly support BDS, disaffiliate from any Zionist lobby groups, and — when elected — politically support the Palestinian cause and oppose Zionist legislation.

Our resolution against Zionism is a product of our diverse chapter. Just as we firmly rejected any conflation between Hinduism and ethno-nationalist Hindutva in opposing caste discrimination in 2023, so too do we reject any conflation of Judaism and Zionism. We recognize and commend the long history of Jewish anti-Zionist and non-Zionist organizations – such as Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, the 20th-century socialist Jewish Labour Bund, and the modern Jewish Labor Bund – as well as the efforts of our own anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish members.

We expect our anti-Zionist resolution will make us an even stronger ally in the struggle for a free Palestine, and commend the work of several local organizations and coalitions fighting towards this end, including Palestinian Youth Movement, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Jewish Voice for Peace, CA15forPalestine, Vigil4Gaza, Stanford Against Apartheid in Palestine, and San Jose Against War. We look forward to working more closely with our allies, who have made it clear that DSA nationally must explicitly connect the fight against Zionism with our socialist and anti-colonialist principles.

We commit to making Palestine central in our ongoing struggle against global capitalism, settler colonialism, and U.S. imperialism. Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea!

Join SVDSA!

Help us build democratic socialist power locally by joining SVDSA! Join our mailing list through the form below. We will get you set up with email & text updates, and reach out to you individually. Please also read our Code of Conduct for participating in SVDSA spaces.

The post SVDSA Unanimously Passes Anti-Zionist Resolution appeared first on Silicon Valley DSA.

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, October 22 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): What is DSA? (In person at 518 Valencia)

Wednesday, October 23 (5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Phonebank for Extreme Dean (In person at 1630 Haight)

Wednesday, October 23 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Doorknock for Yes on L (Meet in person at Noe Valley Town Square, 3861 24th St.)

Thursday, October 24 (5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Phonebank for Extreme Dean (In person at 1630 Haight)

Thursday, October 24 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, October 24 (6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Ecosocialist Monthly Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, October 25 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, October 25 (3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): No Appetite for Apartheid Canvass (Location TBD)

Saturday, October 26 (11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.): GOTV Unity Rally – Turn Out for Prop L, Prop 5, Jackie, and Dean! (In person at Duboce Park)

Saturday, October 26 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Outreach Training + Outreach (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, October 28 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, October 28 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at 220 Golden Gate Avenue)

Monday, October 28 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Wednesday, October 30 (7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.): Organizing 102 (In person at 1916 McAllister)

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

Events & Actions

Door Knocking for MUNI with DSA SF!

We’ll be heading out tomorrow (Wednesday, October 23rd) at 6:00 p.m. from Noe Valley Town Square (3861 24th St.) to talk with voters about voting YES on L and securing funding for MUNI!

No experience or knowledge about the measure is required. You’ll be trained at the start of the event, get a buddy to knock doors with, and you’ll have a script to speak from. This is the most important work to reach voters and win funding for MUNI service in November. And, if you complete your list of doors, you’ll get a Yes on L campaign t-shirt that’s exclusive to volunteers.

You can register to join us here!

Canvass with the Dean Team, SF Bicycle Coalition, and Yes on L!

Join us this upcoming Sunday, October 27th at 10:00 a.m. at Alamo Square to canvass voters with the Dean Team, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and the Yes on L crew! We’ll be meeting at Scott and Hayes and then heading out to stack some “yes” votes for Prop L and Dean’s re-election!

Tenderloin Healing Circle

We’d like to invite you (yes, you!) to join the Tenderloin Healing Circle every 2nd and 4th Monday of the month! We serve food right before the meeting at 6:00 p.m., and meet from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at 220 Golden Gate Avenue.

This is a free healing circle for the neighborhood. Join other Tenderloin folks for support, hope, and food. All are welcome. The venue is wheelchair accessible, bathrooms are available, and masks are encouraged.

Get Out in the Field and Get a T-Shirt!

If you’ve been considering doing some door-knocking but haven’t yet found the right motivation, let this be it! DSA SF is giving out free t-shirts exclusive to volunteers to folks who meet either (or both!) of the following criteria:

• you’ve completed 6 field shifts for a candidate campaign between October 11th and election day on November 5th
• you’ve one a full day of Get Out the Vote work for one of our candidate campaigns in the days right before the election

T-shirts will be arriving soon, and we can’t wait to give them out, so let’s give it our all and show SF the power of socialist organizing and get this socialist power grab done!

On October 17, the Save Our Schools Working Group of Seattle DSA invited Kim Walls and Dave Sieber from the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) to report from their struggles to stop school closures. Here is the recording of Kim’s and Dave’s comments.

Audio:

Video:

The post Audio & Video | From Chicago 2013 to Seattle 2024: How to Stop School Closures? appeared first on Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.

By Siobhan M.

In recent years, Republicans have waged an increasingly aggressive war on transgender rights. Through bans on transition-related healthcare, sports participation restrictions, prohibitions on access to public spaces, and much more, Republican-controlled states are wreaking havoc on the lives of their trans residents in an effort to drive them out of public life and further stir the passions of their most frenzied adherents. 

Donald Trump has made restricting trans rights a centerpiece of his campaign, promising to ban federal funding for “promoting” gender transition and airing ads relentlessly criticizing Kamala Harris’s past support for providing transition-related care for people held in government custody. The right-wing Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration, Project 2025, promises to roll back regulatory protections on LGBTQ+ rights, including by permitting harassment at work and banning trans people from the military. There is little doubt that the Republican Party is an existential threat to transgender people in this country.

At times, Democrats have drawn a stark contrast and taken relatively strong positions supporting trans rights. Harris herself, as Trump’s ads love to point out, stated her support for trans healthcare in government custody in 2019–though she argued the opposite position in her capacity as California Attorney General in 2015. Trans women, Sarah McBride and Danica Roem, were invited to speak at the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions, respectively. LGBTQ+ advocacy non-profit organizations have, in recent decades, been some of the most visible supporters of LGBTQ+ rights. Their advocacy and relationship-building within the Democratic Party has helped shore up LGBTQ+ rights in blue states, and their legal advocacy against anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, often specifically in red states, has led to well-known victories like Lawrence v. Texas (2003), U.S. v. Windsor (2013), Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), and Bostock v. Clayton County (2020).

Democrats Retreat On Trans Rights

However, in the face of increased Republican pressure on the issue, the Democratic Party establishment has notably changed their tune on trans rights. No trans people spoke at the 2024 DNC, and trans rights were only briefly mentioned twice. Harris’s response to these Trump ads—other than silence—has been to criticize Trump for transition-related procedures provided to incarcerated people during his administration. The Biden administration, in May, went along with a Republican plan to ban Pride flags at U.S. embassies. The Democratic nominees for U.S. Senate in Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin are even running ads explicitly opposing trans rights.

The response from some to concerns about this harmful messaging has been to suggest that while the Democratic Party’s messaging is unsupportive, their policies show they have trans people’s backs. However, a closer look reveals the Democratic Party has been souring on its previously-broad conceptions of trans rights since at least April of 2023. Then, in an early indication of wavering support among establishment Democrats, the Biden administration issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding “Sex Related Eligibility Criteria for Male and Female Athletic Teams” under Title IX, the landmark law requiring sex equality in education. The administration could have used this as a moment for a full-throated defense of trans kids’ rights to play with their friends. They had a defensible legal position—it would have been consistent with the Supreme Court’s holding in Bostock to treat anti-trans discrimination as prohibited discrimination based on sex. Instead, Biden’s Department of Education put together a weak, unmanageable rule that allowed Democrats to claim they were protecting trans kids while leaving gaping holes for discriminatory policies. This proposed rule was written with the most obvious benefits for trans youth who are able to begin hormone therapy before starting puberty, but between unsupportive parents, the costs of receiving medical care, and state bans on youth transition, this encompasses only a tiny fraction of trans people. For all others who do begin endogenous puberty, the rule spells out the formula for Republican bans, allowing restrictions on sports participation based on alleged concerns over competitive fairness or injury risk.

On the issue of trans students’ sports participation, the closeness of LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations to the Democratic Party may have stifled criticism of the proposed rule. Shortly after it was released, a coalition of more than 20 progressive organizations, including several which explicitly exist to advocate for LGBTQ+ people, issued a press release lauding Biden’s “restoring and reinforcing vital civil rights protections for all students.” The organizations knew of the rule’s grave flaws–they even said in this release that “this regulation does not go far enough”–but they still advocated for it and, with a largely celebratory tone, congratulated Biden’s administration for issuing it.

To their credit, Democrats’ other proposed Title IX rule, “Enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 With Respect to Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Light of Bostock v. Clayton County,” was generally seen quite positively by advocates for trans rights when it was proposed in June of 2021, excepting the absence of protections in sport. It recognized harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity as prohibited sex-based harassment and granted trans students’ rights to use gender-appropriate bathrooms and locker rooms. However, after it was challenged in court, Democrats and their appointed justices ultimately appeared to abandon the proposal. In her dissent in Department of Education v. Louisiana (2024), Justice Sonia Sotomayor—an Obama appointee—wrote, “Every Member of the Court agrees” to block “three provisions of that Rule: 34 CFR §106.10 (2023) (defining sex discrimination), §106.31(a)(2) (prohibiting schools from preventing individuals from accessing certain sex-separated spaces consistent with their gender identity), and §106.2’s definition of hostile environment harassment.” Sotomayor further acknowledged the Biden administration, despite proposing the rule, “does not contest” the blocking of provisions allowing locker room and bathroom access or prohibiting a hostile school environment for queer and trans students. This even has implications beyond schools–the Affordable Care Act’s protections against discrimination in healthcare also flow from Title IX, meaning federal protections for queer and trans people in medical settings are now also at significant risk.

Establishment Democratic Party Senators and their allies are also starting to take anti-trans legislative action. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) blocked a federal judge nominee on the grounds that she had previously ruled to allow an incarcerated trans woman to transfer to a women’s prison–sending a signal to careerist-oriented judges to not make similar rulings in the future. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), a former Democrat still in their Senate caucus, also joined with Republicans to push through committee prohibitions on some trans healthcare for veterans and their families. Across the highest levels of American government, trans people are seeing a sharp change in tune from a Democratic Party that was recently proud of its support for trans rights.

Where Is This Headed?

One does not need to look far to see the potential end point. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party, once supportive of trans rights as part of a broadly left agenda, has made a sharp rightward turn and is now leading a government that appears intent on driving trans people from existence in the UK. Labour have maintained a Tory ban on hormone therapy, including puberty blockers, from trans youth, forcing them to endure an excruciating puberty we have the capacity to prevent, but not entirely reverse. There are also disturbing reports of National Health Service GPs discontinuing their adult patients’ hormone therapy and functionally forcing them to detransition. When a formerly-supportive party turns on a vulnerable constituency, the consequences are dire.

Notably, Labour leader Keir Starmer’s heads of strategy and policy were in Washington to meet with Democratic Party strategists in early September. These Labour Party advisors suggested Harris go “on the front foot and launch[] a new policy on” immigration akin to Starmer’s “Border Security Command,” and encouraged Harris to think about a “longer-term question of making sure that the Democrats stay on the center ground.”

The Democratic Party’s changed tune on trans rights is beginning to echo their dramatic shift in immigration policy. When Trump made anti-immigrant sentiment central to his 2016 campaign, Democrats responded with forceful calls that “no human is illegal” and a platform to “defend against those who would exclude or eliminate legal immigration avenues and denigrate immigrants.” As Trump and Republicans have continued attacking immigrants, however, the Democratic Party has largely stopped speaking up in defense of immigrants and ceded more and more ground on immigration policy. Biden’s administration has worked to expand Trump’s border wall, even pushing to waive environmental regulations to allow them to do so more quickly. The administration has also taken executive action to significantly reduce avenues to apply for asylum. Perhaps most publicly, in early 2024, Biden and Congressional Democrats pushed a harsh immigration bill that Biden himself called the “toughest” in decades. After Republicans refused to pass the bill, Biden excoriated them in his State of the Union, touting the bill’s potential to “hire 1,500 more border security agents and officers” and its endorsements by the Border Patrol Union and the Chamber of Commerce and asking conservatives, “what are you against?” This total surrender by the Democratic Party to right-wing framing and policy on immigration could be an ominous sign for their commitment to trans rights.

Only A Socialist Workers’ Movement Can Win Lasting Protections

In the face of Republican exterminationist policies and increasing Democratic indifference, trans people must find another vehicle to fight for our rights–and socialist organizing is that vehicle. 

As long as capitalism exists, the right wing of the capitalist class will seek out cultural issues upon which to divide and conquer the working class. Hatred against minorities, whether immigrants, queer and trans people, religious minorities, or people of color, is time and time again intentionally stoked by the funds of billionaire donors, fanned by right wing media outlets, and all coordinated by right wing political operatives. For many of these capitalists, fueling hatred is “just business, don’t take it personally.”

But for those of us on the receiving end, this hatred they cultivate is profoundly personal and often violent. As long as the capitalist system remains, so too will exist the incentive and ability for a handful of billionaires to turn working people against one another. Every improvement won under the leadership of the liberal wing of the capitalist class is in jeopardy of being revoked from day one, so long as the capitalist system remains intact. The only solution which can win lasting security for trans people, and all marginalized groups, is to replace capitalism with a socialist system. Instead of being used to sow division, the resources of society, and especially our media, can be used to educate society on our beautiful diversity and collective commonality. The supposed divide between culturally-conservative working-class people and socially-progressive urban and college-educated people is not insurmountable. This was proven by the socialist-led Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign, a story dramatized in the movie Pride (2014), in an inspiring demonstration that these two sections of society can be united in struggle.

Ultimately it will not be trans people organizing as a minority, but the socialist-led working class which will have the ability to contest for power with the capitalist class and win, establishing a workers’ government which can carry out the socialist transformation of our economic and social structure. Without abandoning for a second the fight for the particular issues facing trans people, trans socialists must take their place in this fight for a socialist workers’ movement, especially by joining trade unions and working to form a new party.Trans and gender-nonconforming people are already leaders across socialist movements, including several members of DSA chapter leadership across Massachusetts. Evan MacKay–a nonbinary person, member of the Cambridge LGBTQ+ Commission, and DSA member and endorsee–came within a handful of votes in their bid earlier this year to unseat establishment Democrat Marjorie Decker. DSA is engaged in a nationwide campaign to protect and expand Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy.

Still, we must do more. We must organize our workplaces into militant unions prepared to break with the Democratic Party and fight for causes like nationalized healthcare, including free and readily-available gender-affirming care on demand. We must dramatically scale up our political mobilization to escape the capitalist economic system that keeps trans people in financial precarity. We must build socialist, working-class power to fight for true trans liberation. Let every trans comrade take their place in the front ranks!

Siobhan M. is Treasurer of Boston DSA, Secretary of her UAW unit, and a UAWD member. The views expressed herein do not represent her employer.

COLUMBUS — The Columbus chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) issues the following recommendations to residents of Ohio.

1. In For Issue 1, YES.
2. In For Issue 46, YES.
3. In For Issue 47, YES.
4. In For U.S. President, NO RECOMMENDATION.
5. In For U.S. Senator, NO RECOMMENDATION.
6. In For Justice of the Supreme Court, vote MELODY STEWART.
7. In For Justice of the Supreme Court, vote MICHAEL DONNELLY.
8. In For Justice of the Supreme Court, vote LISA FORBES.

A detailed rationale for each recommendation follows.

Disclaimer: No recommendations made here are endorsements. Columbus DSA has not endorsed any candidate in this upcoming election. These recommendations are tactical considerations meant to minimize the harm likely to occur to the working class here and abroad as a result of this election.

Do you lament the lack of socialist, abolitionist, and pro-BDS candidates running for office? You can be a part of changing that, whether by running for office yourself or helping us to discover and cultivate future socialists-in-office. To advance the democratic socialist movement in Central Ohio, join DSA today: www.columbusdsa.org/join/.

Endorsed “YES” vote for Issue 1

Issue 1, the Citizens-Not-Politicians anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative, is an absolutely vital step to increase democratic representation in Ohio. We are proud to have overwhelmingly voted to endorse a YES vote for Issue 1 at our September General Meeting. 

Gerrymandering will always be a problem in politics: entrenched power has a habit of working to stay entrenched. Although Issue 1 is unlikely to eliminate the threat of gerrymandering, and we must always stay vigilant, the protections provided by the amendment and the constitutional body it creates to draw districts are much better than the politician-ran redistricting body we are currently oppressed by. Instead of having politicians draw their own districts and keeping power in the hands of political parties, Issue 1 would create a redistricting body made up of representatives from the two largest parties AND political independents (those who do not vote in partisan primaries). 

Issue 1 provides an opportunity for political voices outside entrenched parties – like us – to have a role in shaping the future of the state by creating a more realistic legislature that actually aligns with how Ohioans vote. This would be an incredible blow against the GOP-dominated state legislature, which has entrenched their supermajority not through the power of their politics (which are unpopular and not supported by Ohioans), but through bureaucratic rule-making such as redistricting. Fairer districts would also provide more opportunities for us to run our own socialist candidates in the future, creating additional pathways for us to build the power of the working class and begin to create the foundations of a party that actually serves working people instead of simply using them as an electoral base for liberal half-measures. 

It is absolutely vital that we pass Issue 1, and we strongly endorse a YES vote. Columbus DSA is also hosting canvasses in support of Issue 1 each Sunday at 1:30pm. Visit our calendar at columbusdsa.org/calendar to join one of our canvases.

Recommended “YES” vote for Issue 46

Issue 46 is a property tax levy to fund Franklin County Children Services (FCCS). Columbus DSA supports programs that help both children and families and strive for them to be robust. This is what taxes are supposed to be for: direct, material services to the people. FCCS provides a variety of important services including an abuse hotline, mental health counseling, adoption and foster care, and mentorship services. Columbus DSA has not officially endorsed Issue 46, but we recommend a YES vote to provide funding to FCCS. 

Recommended “YES” vote for Issue 47

Issue 47 is a sales tax levy providing funds to improve public transportation in the Columbus area with the Central Ohio Transport Authority (COTA) and LINKUS. More accessible and widespread public transportation is vital to driving demand away from automobiles. This would reduce pollution, help the climate, make roads and sidewalks safer. Too many of our neighbors have died while simply walking or biking city streets due to cars. The proposed funds would also be used for sidewalks, greenways, and bike paths, making our city more accessible and providing alternatives to personal cars. Columbus DSA wants to see our city thrive, and this is one way to do that while helping the world too. While we have not officially endorsed Issue 47, we recommend a YES vote on Issue 47 to fund COTA/LINKUS.  

No endorsement for President

There are no candidates for President who are fighting for working-class power on Ohio’s ballot. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris; at the end of the day, these are our options for the presidential election. These are also two candidates Columbus DSA cannot and will not endorse. We have already seen the disastrous consequences of a Trump presidency, and while a Harris White House may be less disastrous than another Trump term, Harris has not done nearly enough to earn Columbus DSA’s endorsement. She refuses to end weapon shipments to Israel despite their ongoing genocide of Palestinians and violent invasion of Lebanon. She has withdrawn support for Medicare For All – which she supported in her 2020 presidential run – and has recommitted to increased oil drilling and supporting fracking. Harris has made no commitment to ending the massive wealth disparity between rich and poor, and she has done little to fight corporate power in her time in office. 

Ohio is not even considered a “battleground” state anymore due to the abject failure of the Ohio Democrats to offer Ohio workers anything of value, so considerations of “tactical voting” are entirely worthless. Besides, we are not blind to the fact that Democrats are not working to save us from the corporate-fascist alliance that is building to take power. In many ways, they have aided and abetted it, and this nation is now at a point where half-measures are no longer good enough. 

Therefore, we offer no recommendations for the Presidential race. Members should choose for themselves the best course of action in this race. 

No endorsement in the Senate race

As with the presidential race, we cannot extend an endorsement to either of Ohio’s Senate candidates. Bernie Moreno has been involved in several lawsuits from former employees for discrimination and wage theft. Despite being an immigrant himself, he supports the mass deportation of immigrants, who are just working people just trying to make a living. He has also spoken against bodily autonomy, complaining that women over 50 should not care whether or not we have a right to an abortion. Sherrod Brown has a long history of support for working people and unions, but the majority of his policy focus is on trade, which often favors business owners over workers. These policies often harm working people in other countries for the profit of American big business. While he did vote to send humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza, he has failed to call for a ceasefire to end the genocide, voting again and again to send Israel military funding instead. While Brown may do less harm than Moreno in the long run, Columbus DSA cannot endorse lukewarm support for working people and failure to stand up against genocide. We offer no recommendations for the Senate race, and members should choose for themselves the best course of action in this race. Furthermore, the Senate should be abolished.

Recommendation for Supreme Court Candidates

Melody Stewart, Michael Donnelly, & Lisa Forbes 

The Ohio Supreme Court has been held under a Republican stranglehold for 40 over years. While many decisions over this time have shown that they are inadequate to be in such a position of power, there have been a few over the past 2 years and some coming up that are why we are recommending Melody Stewart, Michael Donnelly, & Lisa Forbes. One, we endorsed Issue 1(reasoning above), the Republicans on the Supreme Court have shown that they will do nothing to stop their friends, like Frank LaRose, Mike Dewine and other Republicans officials in the state from drawing unconstitutional maps, putting incorrect language on the ballot, to confuse voters and blatant voter suppression tactics, like allowing someone to drop off your ballot at a Dropbox. The Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment established a clear framework protecting everyone’s right to access abortion, but it is up to our court system to make sure that this amendment doesn’t just become a meaningless piece of paper. We need justices that will enforce the amendment, not ignore it like they have with anti-gerrymandering legislation. We would also like to have Supreme Court justices that do not change the definitions of words to benefit corporate America.