By: Teddy Georgeoff

On Aug 1, 2023, the Sacramento city council heard from an impressive 36 members of the public, and thereafter spent an additional 3 hours in passionate debate. This resulted in the narrow 5-4 passage of the Ordinance Authorizing the City Manager to Implement a Temporary Shelter Program. The ordinance gives full authority to the City Manager, Howard Chan, to select locations and establish safe grounds for our homeless population.

This is the third time Mayor Darrell Steinberg has suggested a plan like this, but this was the first time he had a majority of support on the city council for it. The ordinance is targeting a very specific problem. As we astutely heard from Council Member Katie Valenzuela, enforcement of city code upon our unhoused population is in a constant state of displacement with no destination. This style of enforcement has harmful effects on the unhoused with no progress towards a solution. In addition, this type of shuffle-along policy is in direct violation of Martin v. Boise, which states cities cannot enforce anti-camping ordinances if they do not have enough homeless shelter beds available. This makes our current practices not only ineffective, but illegal.

It has taken a few iterations of this ordinance to pass with previous versions being bogged down in deliberation due to the complexities of the negotiations and NIMBYism when choosing safe ground locations. With the passing of this ordinance, the City Manager will have full discretion and 60 days to select the city owned parcels of land among the 8 districts and move as many people into these safe shelter zones as is possible. These will be unmanaged zones to reduce cost, but the city will, by law, be forced to provide a “dignified” level of support to all who reside there. This “dignified” level is still up for discussion between the county, the City Manager, and City Attorney Susana Wood. This specific lack of clarity around the word “dignified” is a reason why Mayor Pro Tem Mai Vang, a supporter of safe ground, voted no on this ordinance as presented.

Although there were some dissenting opinions from the public, more praised the measure than protested it. “This is a dream I have had for 13 years,” a member of the public who helps with safe grounds said in public comment. “For the first time I agree with the mayor,” said a DSA member as he started his two minutes at the podium. After public comment, Caity Maple mentioned that she and Katie Valenzuela had been advocating for this since the first day they joined the council stating, “It’s kind of amazing that we are here.”

However, Council Member Karina Talamantes lashed out at the mayor and accused him of not visiting her district and for the lack of good neighbor policies in the ordinance. Her rationale that we don’t want to give the City Manager unilateral decision on this issue was thwarted by Vice Mayor Guerra’s reminder that it takes 5 votes to give him the power and 5 votes to remove that power should the council be dissatisfied with the city manager’s direction. Although the good neighbor policy was amended by Vice Mayor Guerra’s motion, Council Member Talamantes still voted no, seemingly out of frustration with the Mayor.

Safe ground is not a new concept and has been utilized successfully in places like San Diego, LA, and in many other states. Safe ground has some of the highest impact per dollar invested due to economies of scale and ease of creation. It becomes easier to ensure safety and provide services to the unhoused if the city gives them a sanctioned space to reside.

This ordinance does not come to us in perfection. There is a lack of clarity on the services that are required to be offered at each site. How can we be sure that these grounds are safe? There is debate on if Howard Chan, the City Manager, is the right person to drive this initiative, in addition there is a lack of metrics which define success. There is also a lack of specificity in the geodiversity of the plots to be selected outside of the mayor’s directive to the City Manager to “try your best”. Even with these faults, the council voted to pass in hopes that it will quickly show signs of progress for the city.

My Opinion:

After watching this debate unfold for over 6 hours, I have come to the following conclusions:

Human beings need a dignified place to reside. Given we have a fully utilized 1100 bed capacity to house our 10,000 unhoused people, this ordinance will be beneficial and could potentially lead to upwards of $5 million in funding to create a more permanent destination for our remaining 8900 unhoused citizens. We should continually advocate for the most vulnerable among us, and funding initiatives that favor solutions over bandaid enforcement is a key to success.

When the rest of the council rightfully asked for City Manager Chan to be receptive to public input, Council Member Sean Loloee of district 2, voiced an undemocratic opinion. Stating, “I don’t think, when it comes to the sites, advocates or activists really help the situation.” As someone who is supposed to represent the people, I find it disgraceful he would try to silence them. Or perhaps he thinks the public dumb and incapable? The experience of the social workers who are on the ground, and the homelessness population itself need to be involved in giving comments for this process to maximize success.

I will echo the council members in saying that we should not lose focus on the long term goal of housing for all, but until we are able to achieve this politically and financially, this is good policy. The council did well, although barely, to realize perfection should not be the enemy of progress and passed this step towards addressing our city’s homeless crisis.

The workers of Barboncino Pizza in Crown Heights, Brooklyn made New York history on July 26th, as they voted unanimously to form a union with Workers United. Barboncino Workers United became New York’s first unionized pizzeria, an incredible show of strength for the cause of Labor in the deeply unorganized food service industry. Tonight, we hear from Alex and Mike, two workers involved in the organizing effort, about their successful campaign at Barboncino, and the fight that’s yet to come not only in their own workplace but across the restaurant industry.

Today we submitted a petition to both the City of Bozeman and Gallatin County to establish a Housing Authority. This is the first step to building Social Housing and lowering the cost of housing in Bozeman.

With a Housing Authority, we can take an active role in increasing the supply of affordable housing. We cannot continue to look for remedies from the status quo. The reality is that when housing is tied to profits, it is more profitable for developers to maintain scarcity. Meanwhile, non-profit developers statewide fight over a small pot of LIHTC and Section 8 vouchers to serve a growing need. With a public housing authority, the city could use its tools – the same ones that build our schools and fire stations – to access bonds to start building Social Housing.

With Social Housing, we can have local control of development to meet the needs of our community in Bozeman – including deciding the cost of rent, developing in a way that meets crucial sustainability standards, and creating communities welcoming to workers, students, pets, and families. Social Housing is a sustainable model of publicly owned and publicly developed mixed-income housing that would remain permanently affordable. With our own housing authority, the city can set the rents for their own developments and the reasonably-priced rents can go back to maintaining the building, rather than being pocketed by for-profit developers.

The city cannot mandate requirements for private developers to have more low-income units, meaning that we continue to use public funds to subsidize landlords and developers to maintain their profits. The city cannot mandate that LIHTC units are kept affordable in perpetuity, meaning there is always a threat that we will lose affordable units each year. But the city CAN have local control on development if the city establishes a public housing authority and starts creating its own supply of Social Housing.

Want to learn more about the concept of Social Housing? Join our Topical Discussion on Sunday, August 20 to learn about how the model of social housing could work in Bozeman. https://www.facebook.com/events/214570914505353

Scholar, philosopher, and prolific author Dr. David Bentley Hart joins the podcast to discuss Bible translation as an act of resistance, the Christian sources and support for social democracy, and the moral demands of human and creaturely relations to care for one another. Don't forget to join us at Theology Beer Camp (www.theologybeer.camp) and use the promo code HEARTGODPOD for a discount! – Check out his New Testament translation (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300265705/the-new-testament/) – For essays on his theological and political ideas, check out "Theological Territories" (https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268107185/theological-territories/) – And per Hart's own request, check out his works of fiction like "Roland in Moonlight" (https://angelicopress.org/roland-in-moonlight-hart)

Read the Official Teamsters Press Release

Teamsters Win!

The Teamsters have reached a tentative agreement with UPS by staying firm to their demands, showing that if we fight for what we deserve we can win! The agreement includes major changes, including:

• Historic wage increases. Existing full- and part-time UPS Teamsters will get $2.75 more per hour in 2023. Over the length of the contract, wage increases will total $7.50 per hour.
• Existing part-timers will be raised up to no less than $21 per hour immediately, and part-time seniority workers earning more under a market rate adjustment would still receive all new general wage increases.
• General wage increases for part-time workers will be double the amount obtained in the previous UPS Teamsters contract — and existing part-time workers will receive a 48 percent average total wage increase over the next five years.
• Wage increases for full-timers will keep UPS Teamsters the highest paid delivery drivers in the nation, improving their average top rate to $49 per hour.
• Current UPS Teamsters working part-time would receive longevity wage increases of up to $1.50 per hour on top of new hourly raises, compounding their earnings.
• New part-time hires at UPS would start at $21 per hour and advance to $23 per hour.
• All UPS Teamster drivers classified as 22.4s would be reclassified immediately to Regular Package Car Drivers and placed into seniority, ending the unfair two-tier wage system at UPS.
• Safety and health protections, including vehicle air conditioning and cargo ventilation. UPS will equip in-cab A/C in all larger delivery vehicles, sprinter vans, and package cars purchased after Jan. 1, 2024. All cars get two fans and air induction vents in the cargo compartments.
• All UPS Teamsters would receive Martin Luther King Day as a full holiday for the first time.
• No more forced overtime on Teamster drivers’ days off. Drivers would keep one of two workweek schedules and could not be forced into overtime on scheduled off-days.
• UPS Teamster part-timers will have priority to perform all seasonal support work using their own vehicles with a locked-in eight-hour guarantee. For the first time, seasonal work will be contained to five weeks only from November-December.
• The creation of 7,500 new full-time Teamster jobs at UPS and the fulfillment of 22,500 open positions, establishing more opportunities through the life of the agreement for part-timers to transition to full-time work.
• More than 60 total changes and improvements to the National Master Agreement — more than any other time in Teamsters history — and zero concessions from the rank-and-file.

The decision has not yet been officially ratified, but given that all of the contract demands were met by UPS, it seems likely that this will be agreed upon by all Locals.

What can we learn from this?

As socialists, what can we take away from this? Although there are many elements to this complex organizing effort that has culminated after years of change within the Teamsters and within UPS from before the pandemic until now, let’s highlight two things in particular that made this successful:

1. Meaningful demands and unwavering commitment to them. UPS creates a list of demands that improves the workplace for everyone, from rookie part-timers to full-time veterans. This sort of contract is appealing to all workers and shows that they are looking out for everyone. As organizers, we should always be seeking buy-in from the entire working class and responding to their individual circumstances as best we can. Additionally, once we agree upon our demands, we should not be willing to abandon them for the sake of expediency. UPS Teamsters were willing to go on strike until their demands are met and we should always keep our ambitions as high.
2. Practice pickets show the capitalists our power. UPS Teamsters mobilized their workers to perform a dress rehearsal for the strike and held practice pickets nationwide, including here in Wilmington. Not only does this help workers improve logistics for a real strike, but the attendance for these practice pickets seems to have shown the bosses that workers were serious about their strike threat. By doing acts that demonstrate our power, we can make the capitalists more willing to concede to our demands because there is a credible threat to their power and wealth. If a practice strike is enough to get a full concession, imagine what more could be won.

Congratulations to the UPS Teamsters on this historic victory!

Steering Committee member Michael M contributes to the ongoing discussion on Metro DC DSA's recent delegate election.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Emil McDonald

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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