On Tuesday, December 13th, 2022, several members of Colorado Springs DSA and the Chinook Center delivered the following public comments during the Colorado Springs City Council 2023 budget meeting. The full text of our statement is below.

Part one: Introduction and Budget Summary

My organization operates out of the Chinook Center, a local community center that provides a safe haven for progressive community organizations. They also offer a free grocery service every Sunday out of their office in southeast Colorado Springs, which is an area that is historically low-income and historically underserved by city resources. The shopping center where they are based is also home to two other food banks by other community organizations. Yet even with three food banks, our community still struggles to meet the demand for food and basic necessities like clothing and personal care items. Our community lacks access to public transportation to get around the city for work and the necessary errands that keep life flowing. In the southeast, we see poverty and homelessness every day, while only a few miles away, people in wealthier, better-funded sides of town enjoy easy access to grocery stores and parks, recreational activities, and well-funded schools. 

I’m here today to advocate for real change in the community, change that benefits the working class in Colorado Springs — not change that caters to the wealthy real estate corporations, nor change that criminalizes poverty. The change we’re looking for is investment in communities, rather than a bloated budget for CSPD. 

Out of the City’s overall 2023 budget of $420,306,552, CSPD is proposed to receive a total of $132,216,218. This gigantic proposed 2023 budget makes up 31% of the total city budget and represents an increase of almost $7 million dollars from 2022.

When salaries are compared across the departments in the proposed budget, CSPD is receiving 43% of the salaries, compared to 9% going to Public Works, 4% to Parks and Recreation, and a meager 3% to Planning and Community Development.

This lopsided budget reflects the upside-down priorities of this city council. For our communities to flourish, the communities themselves must receive the necessary funding for strong social safety nets. There are no excuses for the hunger and poverty that exist in this city, especially in Southeast Colorado Springs. When working class families and individuals have their basic needs met, they’re able to live the dignified lives that all Colorado Springs residents deserve.

Part Two: Addressing Homelessness

The covid-19 pandemic not only had a detrimental impact on our economy, but on our collective mental health. This has led to more bad outcomes for those suffering with mental illness and substance use disorder. Colorado currently has some of the lowest funding for mental health in the nation. These issues factor heavily into the rates of homelessness in our state and locally.

From 2007-2021, homelessness rose 266% in Colorado, more than any other state in the country.

Nationwide, we rank 5th for the number of sheltered, chronically homeless individuals, and 11th for the number of people who are unhoused. Statewide, officials estimate that over 9,000 people are currently experiencing homelessness.

In El Paso County, the most recent point-in-time survey found that more than 1,400 people are unhoused, with over a quarter of those being teenagers and young adults aged 15-24.

The city wants to give CSPD 31% of the city budget. Politicians say that crime is on the rise here due to police reforms. While crime is on the rise nationally, crime in Colorado Springs has overwhelmingly decreased from 2019-2021 according to a recent study that was reported on in CPR in March of this year. We also have seen nothing in the way of true police reforms, so it is difficult to understand why politicians are crediting something that never happened for statistics that don’t exist. We must put people above inflammatory politics to give our people the lives of safety and dignity that they deserve, but our city continues to push homelessness farther and farther out of the city with the Pedestrian Access Act, to criminalize our most vulnerable, and to put money into police and business interests. 

Meanwhile, our crisis of homelessness is deepening as inflation rises. Fentanyl deaths are also on the rise. Contrary to how conservative state and city leaders prefer to frame the issues of homelessness, substance use disorder, and mental illness, these are not problems that can be solved with sweeps, jobs, and more willpower from the people affected. These are public health emergencies that desperately need funding to provide people with homes and care. 

Recently, a U.S. News & World Report ranked Colorado Springs as one of the best places in the country to live, but this is not true for those who struggle to make ends meet as housing prices continue to skyrocket. In 2021, the National Low Income Housing Coalition reported that people working full time would need to earn $22 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs, yet our state minimum wage will only go up to $13.65 per hour next year. We have people experiencing homelessness when they are fully employed. This is not a crisis of laziness, it is a crisis of low wages and exorbitant corporate greed. We should not be enabling predatory housing practices in our city. 

And when it comes to those who are unhoused due to severe mental illness, disability, and substance use disorder, these issues are public health issues and we must care for our most vulnerable. It is a shameful and cowardly act for those who occupy positions of power to punch down at those with no power. Our people deserve better, and we expect better of you. 

Housing first with supportive wraparound services is the only policy proven to end homelessness and effectively treat the substance use and mental illness of the people that suffer from them, in addition to being proven as the more economical choice. In other words, we must fund compassion and meet people where they are, NOT fund measures that contribute to a culture of victim-blaming people for their own illnesses. Housing and healthcare are human rights. We don’t want excuses. We want housing for all, and we want you, our City Council, to give this issue the funding it deserves. 

Part Three: Mass Incarceration and the Criminal Injustice System

In theory, police are here to stop crime, but they do nothing to address crime at its roots, because police only respond once a crime has taken place. In fact, our policies of mass incarceration are directly linked to rises in crime. When you punish people who are victims of poverty and trauma with the traumatic experience of incarceration, where they are subject to strip searches and the loss of all their basic rights, you do not set these people up to be rehabilitated members of society upon their release. 

According to The Compassion Prison Project, 64% of the U.S. population has experienced at least one adverse childhood experience of violence, abuse, or trauma. In comparison, 98% of the U.S. prison population has experienced an adverse childhood experience. The more adverse childhood experiences that people have, the more likely they are to end up incarcerated. It is estimated that 20-25% of people in jails and prisons have mental illness, meaning that they are overrepresented in carceral detention compared to the rest of the population. Another study has found that formerly incarcerated people are 62% more likely to die by suicide. Prisons and jails are not mental health treatment facilities, yet we use them to imprison those amongst us who need the most help. While prisons fall under the state domain and the jail is in the jurisdiction of the county, CSPD, as the point of arrest, serves as the gateway to the mass incarceration of our community members that don’t need to be in jail or prison, but need to be treated by medical and behavioral specialists. 

It is well-known that the root causes of both non-violent and violent crime are often found in economic stressors such as housing insecurity, food insecurity, lack of access to medical and mental healthcare, and lack of access to childcare. Yet the city and the nation as a whole refuse to put money towards helping people with these issues and instead put money into militarized police, jails and prisons, and for-profit halfway homes. 

It is also well-evidenced that the entire criminal injustice system economically burdens those who enter it, from court and attorney fees to fees for drug testing and court-mandated classes, to halfway house and sober living fees, and more. All together, the criminal injustice system punishes those who are most vulnerable and works to make it more likely that people will return to jail and prison, rather than supporting them to lead better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities in the future. 

Colorado Springs is one of the top three cities alongside Denver and Aurora that send people to state prisons, with most of the Colorado Springs prison population coming from Southeast Colorado Springs, the community that the Chinook Center and its member organizations serve. Our incarcerated are disproportionately people of color, especially Black and Latinx people. This is also the area of town where people are most likely to be low-income, to live in food deserts and experience food insecurity, to lack health insurance and access to medical and mental healthcare, to lack adequate transportation, and to be overlooked by city resources. 

We must also call attention to the recent deaths in El Paso County CJC. At least nine people have died in CJC custody in 2022 alone, with the most recent one passing away just this past Sunday. Again, CSPD serves as one of the main points of arrest in our city and a gateway to CJC. We should be putting our city dollars towards helping people and giving them the resources they need to live healthy, safe, and dignified lives, not signing them up for a death sentence at the hands of the carceral state before they are even found to be guilty of a crime. 

When we put our city, state, and federal dollars into supporting people, it builds a healthier, friendlier, and safer place for all to live. The failures of our local police and criminal injustice policies only serve to make us less safe, and our community deserves better.

Part Four: Club Q

Less than a month ago, an armed gunman put Colorado Springs in the national eye with a mass shooting in one of the few safe spaces for the LGBTQ+ community in a city that has historically marginalized them. There are no words for the depth of the pain and trauma that this has inflicted on members of our city, especially those in the LGBTQ+ community, and especially our youth that are still trying to understand themselves and their place in a world that tolerates hatred and violent rhetoric towards people on the basis of who they love and how they identify.

The anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric comes from all corners of Colorado and Colorado Springs. Our House Representative Doug Lamborn wrote a statement on December 5th, 2017 defending the rights of business owners to discriminate against potential customers on the basis of their sexual orientation. That statement remains on his website to this day. Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert has also regularly posted anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric on her social media, characterizing members of the LGBTQ+ community as groomers seeking to harm our children. For a long time, Colorado Springs has been known as the home of Focus on the Family and other anti-LGBTQ+ evangelical churches that regularly encourage their members to condemn queerness as a sin. The problem is also growing in local Colorado Springs school districts, where parent groups like Advocates for D20 Kids, FEC United, Moms for Liberty, the deceitfully named FAIR organization, and others have lobbied for the dissolving of the equity and inclusion department at D-11, for segregation of LGBTQ+ students onto a separate campus in D-20, and for the squashing of the Social and Emotional Learning program at D-49, which school board member Ivy Liu, who openly posts Hitler quotes on her social media, has characterized as “indoctrination.” All of these organizations and politicians have the blood of our community and LGBTQ+ people throughout the nation on their hands. We ourselves came terrifyingly close to losing people that we love and value deeply, and we have mourned the losses of those who were taken from us with our friends that knew the victims. This tragedy was extremely personal, and we will never stop fighting for the agenda of queer liberation as members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community.

Meanwhile, Colorado Springs District Attorney Michael Allen and the court he works for want us to believe that they could not do more to prevent the bloodshed. They want us to believe that because they could not subpoena the shooter’s families, that they could not prosecute a terrorist who had a three-hour armed standoff with a SWAT team while the terrorist live-streamed the encounter on Facebook and threatened to blow the place up. They expect us to believe that they could not prosecute someone who had over 100 pounds of explosive material, guns, and ammunition in a basement. They expect us to believe that with all the police witnesses who faced the danger posed by this individual, that they could not bring a strong prosecution against a terrorist that even the FBI knew about. We do not accept this excuse, and we cannot make sense of the fact that an armed terrorist was allowed to walk free while so many of those who are suffering from poverty, substance use disorder, and severe mental illness are prosecuted and incarcerated by the very courts that botched the opportunity to prevent an act of terror and hatred. 

Colorado ranks among the worst states for mental health funding. We need money to go to mental health services for the community that has been so deeply traumatized by this catastrophe. We need funding for LGBTQ+ specific resources and more safe spaces, pro-LGBTQ+ policies and rhetoric from all corners of our city, violence prevention and equity and inclusion programs to teach acceptance and love to our youth. City officials should condemn anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric from churches, parent groups, school boards, and local and state politicians. You all should be advocating for the IRS to amend the tax-exempt status of churches and organizations that are engaging in dangerous hate speech that amplifies and accelerates violence. We should have a Pride flag hanging from city hall and all city buildings year-round, not just when the eye of the nation is on our city. City Council must make sure LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities are prioritized to receive the services we need to keep us safe. We need justice, not excuses. We will not stop until the legacy of anti-LGBTQ+ hatred in Colorado Springs is ancient history, and neither should you. 

Part Five: Police Brutality by CSPD

CSPD has shown repeatedly that they have a culture which produces violent language and actions. This manifests in unjustifiable harm to members of our community.

Just this past October, CSPD pulled over a 29-year-old black veteran who was living out of his car for failing to produce a license plate. Officers claimed to smell marijuana and proceeded to pull the man from his car while repeatedly punching and kicking him in the head and back. This attack caused eye injuries and a ruptured eardrum. The DUI charge, which was the stated reason for arrest, was later dropped. As far as I’m aware, CSPD has yet to even comment on this incident.

Let us not forget that in 2019, CSPD officers murdered Devon Bailey after they claimed he “matched the description” of an assault suspect. They shot him 3 times in the back as he fled. The officers involved received 3 days paid administrative leave and were returned to active duty.

In 2020, police were called to the scene where a 17-year-old girl was having a panic attack. The girl in question was also a survivor of sexual assault. As she was sitting on the curb crying, how did CSPD respond to this situation? They threw her to the ground, cuffed her, and put her in the back of a cop car. Surely when the supervising Sergeant Gregory Wilhelmi arrived on scene, he was able to de-escalate the situation, right? Wrong. He thought the best course of action would be to pepper spray this teenage girl twice in the face then close the door on her, effectively sealing her in with the pepper spray. But hey, at least they cracked the window after several minutes of agonizing pain. Currently, zero consequences have been given to the officers responsible.

In the summer of 2020 as nationwide uprisings were fighting for the defense of black lives, officer Keith Wrede watched a Facebook live of a local protest. In the comments, Keith decided to comment “KILL THEM ALL.” What was his punishment? Suspended. With pay. Must be nice to get paid vacation after calling for the murders of peaceful protestors.

On July 31st, 2021, the Colorado Springs Housing 4 All Coalition held a march to advocate for affordable housing within the city. CSPD decided to disrupt this peaceful protest by attacking and arresting demonstrators who were occupying one lane of Tejon due to the narrow sidewalks near Dorchester Park. Prior to these violent arrests, CSPD officers were recorded on their bodycams speaking freely about the violence they wish to unleash on protestors who, to be clear, just wanted rents in the city to be lower. One officer expressed wanting to encourage onlookers to “stone them to death.” Another officer said that they should launch “stingers,” a nickname for flash grenades, at demonstrators. Furthermore, officers can be seen in this bodycam footage looking over a piece of paper which had names and photographs of central organizers of the march. 

For nearly a full year leading up to the housing march, CSPD embedded an undercover operative in multiple leftist community organizations. These included the Chinook Center who organizes a food bank with delivery, Colorado Springs Tenants Union who advocates on behalf of renters, Colorado Springs Democratic Socialists of America who seek to advocate for working class interests, and the Colorado Springs Mutual Aid and Solidarity Union who distribute food and supplies weekly to our unhoused neighbors. This undercover officer attempted to entrap activists into illegally purchasing firearms, and yet after over a year of investigation, no illegal activity was found by any of the organizations. 

A month after the Club Q shooter had a 3-hour standoff with the SWAT team, CSPD thought a more important priority would be to surveil community organizers who were advocating for affordable housing. These actions of infiltration, surveillance, and outright violence have traumatized members of the community and caused them to feel unsafe going about their daily lives. How can we possibly stand to give CSPD 44% of salaries in the city budget while they routinely demonstrate a pattern of violent behavior, targeting people for their political beliefs?

It is beyond time for the City of Colorado Springs to prioritize the well-being of our communities and the necessary services to support them. CSPD’s overinflated budget needs to be redistributed to focus on fixing the systemic issues that prevent our neighbors from living dignified lives. Housing first. Mental health. Drug addiction treatment. Infrastructure. Funding these, not CSPD and the criminalization of poverty, is how our communities will thrive.

Members of Colorado Springs City Council, you have a unique opportunity with the 2023 city budget to make a historic impact in our city by funding the resources we actually need, resources that make us safer, healthier, and happier. Fund communities and services, not corporations and the police. We’ve had two politically-motivated mass shootings in our city in less than a decade — first the Planned Parenthood shooting in 2015 and then the Club Q shooting last month. We need real solutions, not inaction and excuses. The whole country is looking at us right now, and what we do matters. Stop funding the problem and start funding real solutions. Our lives depend on it. 

Photo credit: Ian Castro

The historic strike of 48,000 academic workers across the ten campuses of the University of California and the Lawrence-Berkeley National Laboratory came to a close on December 23, when the two remaining bargaining units of the United Auto Workers – UAW Local 2865 and SRU-UAW – voted to ratify new contracts. That ratification vote ended one chapter in the long struggle of academic workers for union recognition, fair working conditions and a public education system that elevates the public good over private profit. 

Striking workers and their supporters utilized a range of tactics during the six-week work stoppage, from pickets, rallies and marches to building occupations and actions against individual Chancellors and Regents. Among the tactics that, many believe, put the greatest pressure on the University were pickets at loading docks. Strong contingents of strikers at several campuses picketed deliveries. At UC Berkeley these pickets, organized by rank-and-file strikers, became known as “gas pickets” due to their focus on stopping the delivery of gasses and other essential research supplies on which labs commonly depend. The result was to spread the work stoppage by slowing the progress of labs that attempted to function during the strike. 

These loading-dock pickets operated not by blockade, but by the power of solidarity. Picketers informed drivers of the nature of the strike, and requested that they honor the picket line. Many drivers – including both UPS Teamsters and non-union delivery drivers – complied. 

As academic workers reflect on their experiences, they are not only concluding that they came out of this strike stronger than they went in, but are also envisioning the next chapter in their struggle – and its connection with the broader struggles of the multiracial working class. Here, we present the reflections of one group of strikers on the lessons that emerged from the gas pickets. – The Editors

We want to take a moment to reflect on the last several weeks and on the path forward. We are fighting for contracts that make academic work accessible to all regardless of socioeconomic background, access-needs, residential status, or status as parents or caretakers. Though the gains in our newly ratified contracts are not insignificant, we have not yet achieved this goal. Regardless of whether we could have achieved more in our recent negotiations, overhauling a system that was not built to include many of our workers will take long-term and resolute persistence in the face of formidable challenges. 

We believe that the power of our strike was not discrete nor pre-determined but rather a dynamic function of our sustained individual and collective actions. No single one of us had the power to make the University concede to the demands of our union but each of us made our strike more powerful when we came together. We believe that the leverage our bargaining teams had at their disposal was primarily determined not by the size of the picket lines, but by the collective stoppage of our work and the immense amount of organizing that went into supporting members of our union in continuing to do so, through infrastructure set up by both union leadership and by rank-and-file members. Even when the University feigned normality and SRU-UAW and UAW 2865 leadership told us that our power was waning, so many of us responded not by declaring defeat, but by continuing to organize even harder to grow the power of our strike. This alone is an act of courage, an empowered recognition of our value to the University and affirmation that we can fight for what we deserve. 

Our gas and delivery pickets were organized not through a directive, but through the desire to put pressure on the University of California even beyond the stoppage of our own work. These efforts emerged organically from our involvement in similar efforts to shut down construction work and garbage pickup which were fruitful but ultimately limited by legal technicalities and by severe no-strike clauses to which the University binds its workers. As we are researchers who work in many of the buildings we picketed, we know all too well what slows research operations; in non-strike times, we are the ones eagerly awaiting packages and calling gas and cryogen companies to accelerate the deliveries and the speed of our research, the research that the University of California proudly publicizes and profits from. 

While at present we do not have the opportunity to continue to grow our strike to win more of the demands that our workers acutely need, we are very proud of the momentum that we have all built together through stopping our research and teaching and through our disruptive picket lines. Although thorough quantification of our impacts remains an effort in progress, in addition to countless anecdotes of significant threats of and actualized disruption to research and university operations, we have several concrete indications: 

• Thanks to the solidarity of the Teamsters Joint Councils 7 & 42 issuing a sanction so that members could honor our picket lines, few UPS deliveries occurred over the course of our six week strike. According to a UPS driver we spoke to, local UPS warehouses accumulated 35,000 packages that they have been unable to deliver to our campus. 
• On 12/21 UC Berkeley described their efforts to surmount our picket lines, and the impact of Teamsters not coming to campus at all, as triaging deliveries. 
• In terms of general research stoppage, a UC Berkeley HazMat employee recently told us that hazardous waste production was reduced by half during the strike.
• Tens of thousands of grades were withheld across the UC system, and at UCSD quantified to 23% of fall quarter grades 

Beyond direct impacts on the university, our picket lines were a place where we built solidarity and community. Workers from distant departments across campus stood together for hours, sometimes in the dark, cold, and rain to fight for our shared goals. We discussed bargaining and newly pertinent legal concepts, learned about the ways proposals would affect other workers in our union, creatively crafted chants, and respectfully challenged each other’s ideas. We benefited immensely from the solidarity of workers in other unions who expressed support and in many cases made monetary sacrifices or risked discipline or dismissal to refuse to cross our picket lines. We got a unique view of day-to-day University operations and the essential work that AFSCME 3299 members do on our campus every single day. We appreciate the unwavering support of DSA members, undergraduate students, and other community members who joined us on the line, shared wisdom, picked up slack when our members needed a break, and made sure we never went hungry or without caffeine. Our pickets at the loading dock became a praxis of our solidarity, bringing us together with all who share our struggles. 

So where do we go from here? What do we do with our grassroots energy and new reflexive reactions to seeing trucks on the horizon? It may take some time to get over the latter, so let each truck be a reminder of the solidarity we cultivated and received and of the fights we, as workers, have left to win. Contract ratification does not mean the end of our fight, only that it will look a little different now. Returning to our individual work does not preclude the longevity of our collective action. 

Just as we were supported by so many workers, we too can support workers in other trades in their own struggles to fight the boss, whether physically on local picket lines or from a distance. Workers in our own community are on strike or will be on strike in the near future; nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center are on strike until January 2, 2023. The teachers union, Oakland Education Association, is in the midst of contract negotiations and the United Teachers of Richmond voted to authorize a strike just last week. The Teamsters, our staunchest supporters, have a national contract with UPS that expires on August 1. These are opportunities to pay back the solidarity that our community has shown us, and to prove to them that our union fights for all workers, and not just for our own self interests. Furthermore, each and every one of us has lived experience that is extremely valuable for other academic workers going on strike. We are in the process of compiling the resources that we have developed over the last six weeks and documenting them so other academic workers can hit the ground running with disruptive pickets from the very first day of their strike. In addition to these more procedural documents, we would like to collect advice for future academic workers on strike from anyone willing to contribute. 

Lastly, though very importantly, we hope that all of you who spent the last six weeks fighting for a contract that would be transformative for all of our workers, and are in a position to do so, keep fighting both within and alongside the existing local UAW organization. We recognize that our union has failed to negotiate contracts that allow all of us to persist as graduate workers at all and to continue this fight. For those of us with more privilege, it may be tempting to give up and return to our siloed ivory tower labs and offices where we can better control our individual progress. But this is OUR union and OUR university and we must instead look forward to forging a more democratic union that fights for all of our workers, including those most precarious and those that cannot yet afford to work within this system at all. To achieve this, we need the active members of our union to be people as dedicated as all of you, who are willing to make sacrifices for each other, who read and listen to all — with critical eyes and ears and through the lens of strong principles. 

Through our grassroots efforts and those of other rank-and-file members, we have seen firsthand the power that each of us has to make things happen without waiting for directions or approval from a higher authority. The bold vision for our fight– to bring all of our workers out of the rent burden and make academia more equitable and just– was shaped by rank-and-file members. It was the principled fortitude of the rank and file that pushed our bargaining team to not settle for UC’s 12/2 offer and continue bargaining for a contract that brings us closer to what we deserve. The strength of any union, and especially our union, lies in the breadth and depth of engagement of its members. This strike and contract ratification vote represents an unprecedented volume of participation by the members of our union. Let us not take for granted that seven thousand of our colleagues believed in our collective power to keep fighting for a contract that serves all of us. 

It is difficult to find words to describe all that was our gas picket, but in this moment of history, we get to share these spots of time. We feel so grateful to have stood alongside you all over the last several weeks and want you to know that we continue to stand with you, even if not physically. We hope everyone takes time to rest and care for themselves and each other. 

Wishing you a restful holiday and an empowered new year. 

In solidarity, 

UC Berkeley ‘gas picket’ organizers

Wheareas,

1. The labor movement has long been recognized as the most important engine for socialist change in society due to its power to halt the flow of goods and services the capitalist class depends on.
2. Socialists recognize that the right to strike or threat thereof is the primary and most powerful instrument of the labor movement and should never be surrendered under any circumstances.
3. Railroad workers have been working under inhumane Dickensian conditions where their employers will not grant them even a single sick day during a pandemic in order to disgustingly benefit themselves by extracting larger profits from their labor.
4. A central demand of the rail worker’s unions has been to be granted a reasonable period of sick leave.
5. Rail workers died at more than twice the rate of other workers from Jan. 2020 to May 2022 and more than three times other workers in 2021 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s MMWR.
6. The United States shifted to a service economy model, which reduced reliance on domestic production for the stuff of everyday life. This reduced the power of domestic factory workers, but wildly enhanced the potential power of logistics workers in airline, shipping, trucking, and rail industries that are situated between a global production system and a domestic consumption system.
7. Threatened by this potential halt to critical infrastructure, the capitalist government is attempting to declare the strike illegal via the passage of legislation. This in effect would make railroad workers involuntary labor, banned under the 13th amendment (except for its racist loophole for people convicted of a crime). Presumably, such a law will be eventually backed with force of arms if workers disobey.
8. DSA National put out a statement calling for a NO vote on H.J. 100 at 10:41am, about two hours before roll call at 1:02pm. While not ideal, this is sufficient time for DSA federal representatives to be made aware of it.
9. Three DSA elected officials, Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes (AOC), Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush voted for a bill that would make the railroad strike illegal. We applaud the fact that Rep. Rashida Tlaib did vote no.
10. AOC tweeted that the union asked her to vote this way to protect a sick days amendment that would obviously die in the Senate (and did).
11. The DSA has long had issues with our federal elected officials deviating from our political platform.
12. We must call our representatives to explain themselves to the DSA National Political Committee. While we are encouraged by DSA National releasing a statement that denounces the vote to break the strike and which calls for a town hall to discuss this, this statement does not meet all of our demands, which include a meeting with the wayward electeds to demand an explanation.
13. It is critical that DSA state in the clearest terms that we did not endorse H.J. 100 and do endorse workers’ right to strike. To do otherwise will perhaps irreparably damage our ability to support striking workers. Why would they trust an organization whose representatives actively attacked them from the heights of federal power?

Therefore be it resolved,

1. Central Jersey DSA endorses the “Railroad Workers United Open Letter to Congress and the President”.
2. Central Jersey DSA endorses the letter authored by Seattle DSA Local Council “3 DSA Members in Congress Vote to Ban Railroad Strike — They Don’t Speak For Us”.
3. If a railroad strike actually develops, Central Jersey DSA will do its part to support the strike.
4. Central Jersey DSA will publish this resolution on social media to educate our constituency and the broader public on our position.

The post Endorsing & Enforcing Railroad Workers’ Right to Strike appeared first on Central NJ DSA.

The strikewave within higher education came ashore in New York last month, as more than 1600 part-time faculty members at The New School, represented by ACT-UAW Local 7902, went on strike, hitting the picket line for higher pay, benefits, and greater security for their work. After a 25-day long strike in what some have called the longest strike by adjuncts in US history and a brutal battle with New School management, the university and the union reached a tentative agreement on December 10th, which included a number of key wins for the striking faculty. Tonight, we will hear from Annie Levin, an ACT-UAW staff organizer and political writer, and Brian Allen, also an organizer for ACT-UAW and formerly a member of Teamster Local 528, to tell us more about this historic strike at the New School, and how adjunct faculty won their new contract. We will also cut to a brief interview with Bucky, a student at the New School, and hear how they and their fellow classmates occupied a university building in support of their striking faculty and their thoughts on what can be done to build a better & democratic academy. 

The Georgia runoff election is an important window into the political trends of both Georgia and the country at large. Although the individual characters of Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock are important, it is equally important to understand the larger movements at play, in order to inform a political strategy that advances the interests of the working class. 

Raphael Warnock is not a socialist. His voting pattern has been squarely in line with the record of Democratic Party leadership, although he has taken notably progressive stances on specific votes such as student loan forgiveness. However, it is significant that the Republican Party did its best to portray him as the imagined radical socialist of which they caricature even the most milquetoast Democrats. This strategy ultimately failed.

The obvious answer for why lies in his opponent. Herschel Walker, with his record as a multi-millionaire scammer, domestic abuser, and reactionary extremist, proved repulsive to enough Georgia voters that fear of “socialism” was insufficient for him to win. However, Walker’s actual policies fall squarely in line with the core of the Republican Party, and his nomination as the GOP Senate candidate was virtually uncontested among Georgia Republicans. 

The truth about American politics, that is rarely discussed directly in the press, is that the vast majority of the electorate’s votes can be predicted before any counting begins. While there are variations between individual voting habits, there are certain trends that are impossible to ignore. The vast majority of black voters, especially working class black voters, vote Democratic. Likewise, the vast majority of rural, evangelical Christian white voters, will vote Republican. Similar tendencies are visible in trends of college-educated white voters in dense, urban districts; older, white non-college-educated men; etc. Altogether, the number of “swing” voters is relatively small, even though they are the disproportionate focus of political ads, network television focus groups, and newspaper editorials.

Despite these polarizations, there are elements of the elections that are difficult to predict in advance. Why was Warnock able to win, when Barack Obama, an equally charismatic candidate, decisively lost to weak Republican opponents twice? To answer this question, we must pay attention to the changes in the margins, particularly in the shifts in demographics in Georgia, and the shifts in party coalitions.

There are three key observations from the runoff results that indicate far more at play than the candidates as individuals.

1. Racial Polarization

The racial polarization of Georgia’s rural working class remains a strong force. Nonwhite working class voters have  historically been a core constituency of the Democratic Party, but starting with Donald Trump’s reelection attempt in 2020, Republicans have seen surprising gains with Hispanic and Asian voters, with varying degrees in different regions around the country. Republican strategists cynically hoped that Walker’s candidacy would expand these trends to the black vote.

Looking at December’s results, however, there was no indication that the Republicans gained ground with rural black voters, with Warnock flipping the predominantly black rural areas of Washington County and Baldwin County from the November election. Conversely, while Warnock improved his margins in the predominantly white industrial regions of Glynn County and Lowndes county, they still voted overwhelmingly Republican. This polarization of the working class remains a long-term barrier for building a robust political movement against the capitalist class. Georgia, and much of the deep south, are right-to-work states in large part because of racist propaganda in the postwar period.

2. Changing Suburbs

The Atlanta suburbs have increasingly become home to black and Hispanic workers, which provided the margins needed for Joe Biden, Jon Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock to win their seats. Once strongly Republican upper-middle-class strongholds, these counties’ demographics have massively changed  due to working-class black and Hispanic people moving away from the city core and rural areas and into the more affordable suburbs.

Share of Votes for Democratic Candidates by County

These regions have also been the notable sites of militant labor struggles, including the locations of the John Deere and Nabisco strikes last year. A critical test in the coming years will be whether the Democratic leaders can respond adequately to the labor movement that has contributed so much to their victories. Unfortunately, their recent betrayal of rail workers is a worrying sign in this regard.

3. Abortion Rights

The right to abortion is a critical issue facing the working class, and it was a major factor in this year’s elections. Although Hershel Walker has shown unique hypocrisy in his record of funding abortions, his platform on abortion rights is in no way unique for Republicans. The Republican leadership, and the overwhelming majority of their politicians, are extremists who wish to end the right to bodily autonomy. Although Georgia lacks ballot initiatives, anti-abortion referendums have resoundingly failed even in deeply conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky. The election results and exit polls show that the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade was a major motivation for working-class people to cast their vote against Republicans.

Tasks for Socialists

While Warnock’s victory represents a defeat of the reactionary right, socialists cannot rely on politicians to protect the working class out of some inherent generosity. It is necessary to organize from below and force elected officials, even ostensible “progressives” to fulfill their mandate. 

With the Democrats now having 51* votes in the Senate, there is no excuse for their failure to codify Roe vs Wade, pass the PRO Act and fully fund the NLRB. Such actions are the bare minimum needed to address the needs of workers and unions that have provided countless funds and people power for Democratic campaigns, particularly in Georgia. 

Ultimately, we need representatives at all levels of government who are accountable to the working class, rather than the Democratic establishment and the billionaire class. Atlanta DSA  will continue to fight in the coming years to elect socialist candidates who are willing to fight against both corporate Democrats and reactionary Republicans.

*Kyrsten Sinema, Bernie Sanders, and Angus King are independents, but they have caucused with the Democrats and have voted with the party line more than 90% of the time.

The post 3 Takeaways from Georgia’s Runoffs appeared first on Red Clay Comrade.

In this episode of Revolutions Per Minute, we will taking you first to Brooklyn and then to Puerto Rico, to explore how neoliberal austerity is wreaking havoc on the lives of ordinary people. I’ll be talking to New York City Council Member Alexa Aviles, of District 38 her first year in office.

Alexa is a proud DSA member and was endorsed by the movement prior to her election. She doesnt take real estate donations and has a track record of opposing the prison industrial complex, having worked to empower marginalized communities before her election as program director of the Scherman Foundation.

The second half of the show takes us to an interview with Ruth Santiago, a trustee of the non-profit Earthjustice who lives on Puerto Rico’s southern coast. As an attorney, Ruth has represented those fighting against environmental injustice in all its forms.

Fascist violence against LGBTQ+ people in America is a terrible and growing force. Last month, five people – Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, and Derrick Rump – were murdered and nineteen others were wounded at Club Q in Colorado Springs. We will remember their names as well as the right-wing cultural narrative that made their suffering possible. Right-wing politicians, media figures, and pretend intellectuals have furthered violence against the LGBTQ+ community by spreading fear and misinformation. The entire right shares the burden of responsibility for the massacre in Colorado.

Here in Ohio, we have become intimately acquainted with the right-wing political movement. It has gained critical ground in our state and scored brutal victories against our people. From shameless police violence in Akron and Columbus to assaults on reproductive rights statewide, artifacts of the right’s surging hatred can be seen everywhere. It will next rear its ugly head here in Columbus on Saturday, December 3, when the Proud Boys – a fascist, white-supremacist paramilitary organization – will menace children and harass families at a drag queen story hour hosted by Red Oak Community School at the First Unitarian Universalist Church. This action is no doubt aligned with the fascist strategy to demonize LGBTQ+ people, incite political violence, and prevent those they deem lesser from ever feeling safe – even in places of worship. We join other groups in our city in condemning the Columbus Proud Boys, their violent rhetoric, and their intrusion into our communities. We call on our members and allies to challenge homophobic ideology wherever it manifests in central Ohio.

No one should ever feel threatened because of their sexuality or gender identity. As human beings, we all deserve safety, freedom, and joy. There is no room for joy in a culture that denies the existence of LGBTQ+ people or that subjects them to mass death for having dared to be who they are. We are finished ceding ground in Ohio to the far right. To counter the spread of fascism, we must build a unified left here in Columbus and abroad.

Columbus DSA is proud to be a part of that struggle, now and forever.
DSA is a socialist feminist and anti-fascist project for collective liberation. Our members are coordinating among themselves and within the community to protect Columbus from extremist violence. For information on how to support the event, including opportunities to fundraise for LGBTQ+ causes and volunteer on the day of, visit the Red Oak Community School website.
Additional Reading:
Abolition of White Supremacy
Gender and Sexuality Justice
Justice for Trans People Requires Power

The rail freight carriers that employ approximately 125,000 unionized employees have spent years prioritizing shareholders and executives, making record profits for the railroad industry. At the same time, the carriers have downsized the rail workforce by furloughing approximately 30% of rail workers, increasing the workload for those who remain. Workers do not receive paid sick time and are expected to be available to work any time of day or night at short notice. On top of this, workers have received a 0% pay increase over the last three years. 

The Biden administration brokered a tentative agreement that excluded a substantial amount of the unions’ demands. In a vote of the rail union membership, over half the rail workforce and four of the 12 unions representing those employees voted down this proposal. If there is a strike by the rail workers, any damaging effect on the economy will have been caused by the greed and intransigence of the rail companies, and the failure of Congress and the Biden administration to broker a decent agreement that addresses the workers’ demands.  

Boston DSA fully and adamantly supports the democratic right of the rail union workers to vote down any proposed agreement, including the tentative agreement brokered by the Biden administration. Boston DSA opposes any legislation that would impose terms and conditions of employment on the rail unions and thereby take away the workers’ right to strike. The National DSA has also recognized the rail workers right to strike and has put out a statement in support of the rail workers, and Boston DSA concurs with the statement issued by the National DSA.

Most importantly, if and when Congress and President Biden enact legislation taking away the right to strike by the railway workers, Boston DSA will support the actions of the rail workers, including any decision to strike. Boston DSA will be there to support the workers, including joining them on the picket lines. Solidarity now, solidarity forever.

While a “Red Wave” of victories did not materialize for Republicans earlier this month on election day in most parts of the country, conservatives won big here in New York gaining congressional seats as well as seats in the New York State Assembly and Senate. Republican Lee Zeldin centered his gubernatorial campaign around a false and racist narrative on crime, that dominated media coverage, and it was almost enough to defeat Governor Kathy Hochul, who ran a lackluster campaign despite a large fundraising haul.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that Republican ad blitzes focused on crime, motivated voters  to head to the polls in suburban Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley, despite many of those voters living in some of the safest places in the country, where crime rates have flattened and that many of them had exaggerated views about crime rates in New York City, which are still well below where they were for decades. 

Today we’re joined live by Nomi and DJ to break down some of the misinformation that blanketed the airways before the election. Nomi is the Constituent Services and Organizing Manager for Council Member Tiffany Caban and worked with DJ and other volunteers from the district to create a Public Safety Resource poster along with Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani’s office. We’ll talk to Nomi and DJ about how socialist are not only battling right-wing propaganda stoking fear of crime, but organizing for real public safety in our communities and dignity for all. 

We’ll also talk to Michaelangelo with Mid-Hudson Valley DSA about what Neoliberal Democrats are getting wrong in their post-election analysis and how centering socialist messaging led Sarahana Shrestha to victory in her Assembly race in the Hudson Valley.

To join a Public Safety Canvass in Western Queens on Saturday, December 3, visit: Bit.ly/safetycanvass 

Strikes are erupting across the country, from railroads to the New School and your local Starbucks. Reminder from your comrades at RPM - never cross a picket line, just grab a sign and walk alongside them. Workers  

Today we will hear from rank and file organizers about the Labor Notes troublemakers school, speak to Shep Whanon of Gays Against Guns on Trans Day of Remembrance and close out the show with Caitlin of the GYM on the brutal sweeps Eric Adams is unleashing upon our most vulnerable unhoused neighbors.