Three hundred thirty one days since George Floyd was murdered by officer Derek Chauvin. On April 20th, we received a small victory of Derek Chauvin’s arrest and charges on three counts of murder totaling to 40 years in prison. But what would justice look like? A system that serves one guilty verdict to one killer cop is not justice. There are still adults and children dying by the hands of police brutality. Since the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, 184 African Americans have been killed by the hands of police. Of those murders, 55 were in just the 110 days so far in 2021. Since at least 2013, about 1,100 people have been killed each year by law enforcement officers. These numbers are representative of the larger problem in our law enforcement and carceral systems, which have their roots in racism. These numbers do not reflect community safety or servitude. These numbers need to stop. Our country must divest funding from our punitive policing structures and truly invest in meeting the needs of our communities. Justice will officially be served once the system isn’t the oppressor.  

 #JusticeForAll

DSA wants to get the PRO (Protect the Right to Organize) Act passed, and we need your help!

The PRO Act is the most comprehensive update to labor law since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act nearly a century ago. The PRO Act closes the contractor loophole created by Prop 22, ends right-to-work laws across the country, and makes it easier to organize unions and get to a first contract. An organized labor movement was essential in obtaining the New Deal and will be equally as important in making the Green New Deal a reality.

Silicon Valley DSA has teamed up with East Bay DSA, DSA SF, and Peninsula DSA to host a Bay Area PRO Act Town Hall. We’ll hear from worker organizers that are part of active campaigns, including SEIU 1021, ILWU Local 6, and the Alphabet Workers Union, followed by a moderated panel discussion with Jovanka Beckles, James Tracy, and Andres Soto.

Learn about the PRO Act, the importance of organized labor, and how to get involved in the ongoing campaign. Be PRO-Active and join our town hall tomorrow, Tuesday, April 27th at 7pm.

The post Newsletter – 2021-04-25 appeared first on Silicon Valley DSA.

Much of conventional labor organizing is centered around a shared physical location for workers, like a shop floor or a break room. But what about those who work in cars, on bikes, or in others' homes? Our labor movement stands in solidarity with all workers because an injury to one is an injury to all. On tonight's show, we'll talk to NYC-DSA endorsed candidate for City Council Jaslin Kaur about organizing for justice for taxi workers and why her home district in Eastern Queens is ready for democratic socialism. We also speak to Margaret of the Ain't I A Woman? campaign of home health care workers organizing for control over their time. Finally, we hear an update from our Defund NYPD campaign, which has launched a new pledge for City Council candidates to affirm their commitment to defunding NYPD and investing in social services. 

To learn more and get involved with Jaslin Kaur’s campaign for City Council, please visit jaslinkaur.nyc.

The Ain’t I A Woman? campaign is calling for community support at a picket outside Chinese-American Planning Council in Manhattan Chinatown on April 28th. Learn more and RSVP at tinyurl.com/APR28CPC or visit aintiawoman.org.

To learn more about the Defund NYPD campaign and its pledge for City Council candidates, go to defundnypd.com

This episode of Heart of a Heartless World features Travis Donoho and Jeremy McMahan. Travis is a professional labor union organizer and member of Thich Nhat Hahn's Order of Interbeing Sangha. Jeremy is the producer of this podcast and a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and scholar. They discuss the relationship between socialism and Buddhism, how self care is essential for labor organizing, and why a lot of American Buddhists don't identify as socialists.

In case you haven’t heard, the tuition strike just won a massive victory last week: Columbia announced that they will take action on our demand for increased financial aid, to the amount of $1.4 billion. No matter what Bollinger says, we know this wouldn’t have happened without thousands of students’ collective action.

This additional $1.4 billion represents nearly three times the amount of financial aid allocated at Columbia this past year, exceeding our demand to increase financial aid by at least 10%. However, Columbia’s response to the demands of our tuition strike still remains utterly inadequate.

Considering the university’s refusal to lower tuition costs, even this increased aid will by no means ensure that tuition for all programs across Columbia institutions will become affordable for low-income students. Instead of cutting their own multi-million dollar salaries or pulling funds from their $7 billion in unrestricted assets, the administration resorts to alumni donations in order to address our demand for better financial aid.

Columbia does not need charitable donations in order to make its education affordable; it simply needs to put its financial resources toward its own students rather than gentrifying real estate projects and executives’ wealth. Columbia’s announcement shows us the power that we have when we stand together, but it’s also a reminder of how much work we have left to do.

That’s why we’re asking all supporters of our movement to contribute their thoughts on how we can strengthen the movement into the future by joining us Thursday night at 7 pm ET at our Tuition Strike Debrief / Strategy Session to assess the strengths and weaknesses of our campaign this semester and to strategize about how we can build a stronger campaign next semester. (RSVP here for Zoom info)

Even if you can’t make it tomorrow, please vote in this non-binding poll on the question of whether we should try to organize an even larger tuition strike next semester and to share your feedback on what alternative or additional tactics we should use, as well as to indicate if you can help organize a campaign next semester. (Vote here!)

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Solidarity,

Columbia-Barnard YDSA

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) is Federal legislation that would remove the many barriers that have driven down union membership.  This bill has already passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and President Biden says he supports it.  Now we must pressure the Senate to pass it.

With the power of the working class organized we can demand a Green New Deal and a just transition to a clean economy that works for all.

https://www.dsausa.org/proact/

Voting for our officer election has concluded. Results are in, and we’re pleased to announce nine new officers for the Silicon Valley chapter of DSA! Join our first chapter meeting with them this Sunday, April 18th at 2pm. All are welcome to come meet the officers and ask questions!

Now is a great time to get more involved with DSA. Our committees could use a hand! Do you have interest in any of these areas?

• Communications: From social media to newsletters (hi!), our Comms Committee helps make sure our membership is aware of upcoming events, actions, and internal decisions. From writing to design, we’d love your help spreading the word.
• Outreach: Help bring DSA to local communities with the Outreach Committee. Seek out other organizations to partner with, share flyers in your area, and more.
• Agendas & Meeting Planning: Our AMP Committee is responsible for keeping things running smoothly — making sure all of the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed for upcoming meetings. Help keep our meetings as accessible as possible.
• Tech and Data: Want to build software to facilitate activism? Develop the chapter website? Ensure safe use of membership data? Join our Tech and Data Committee to help with the chapter’s technical structure.
• : Our goal is to make sure all comrades feel welcome in DSA spaces, whether they’re new to the movement, recently moved to the area, have been busy with other obligations, or are fully involved members. MDC helps to make sure you’re oriented, you get your questions answered, and you know where you can dive in.
• Finance and Inventory: This committee is responsible for confirming that our books are kept up-to-date and making sure we know what funds and resources are available — both critical aspects to enabling our work (from mutual aid to swag and beyond!).
• : Our newly-formed Social Committee is responsible for planning (virtual) events to bring our community together. If you have a fun idea, join the first meeting on Wednesday!

No experience required. Come to an upcoming meeting or to learn more!

In solidarity,
Your SV DSA Newsletter Team

The post Newsletter – 2021-04-12 appeared first on Silicon Valley DSA.

On Sunday, April 11th, the members of Charlotte Metro DSA voted to endorse the National DSA Pass the PRO Act Campaign. The full text of the resolution is available below.

---

As a top national priority, DSA is embarking on a national campaign to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act). This transformative legislation gives power to unions to organize workers and overturns many anti-labor rulings handed down by the Supreme Court. Most importantly, it roots out racist and unjust labor practices, like right-to-work laws, and guarantees that immigrant workers have the same rights afforded to their fellow workers. DSA is joining a national coalition led by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), a union that is majority people of color, who has been leading the push. DSA’s National Political Committee is preparing to support DSA chapters in every state as we fight side by side with workers everywhere from now until May Day (Biden's 100th day in office) to force the president and federal elected officials to make this legislation a reality.

President Biden has made climate one of his key priorities in office. In his first week in office, he’s already re-entered the Paris Agreement and cancelled the Keystone pipeline. These steps re-establish the status quo of Obama’s presidency. But more importantly, the new administration's emphasis on climate, along with more socialists in Congress, creates openings for DSA to push for key legislative priorities. There is also a common desire among both labor and the left to not repeat 2008, when Obama was allowed to back down on his promises, leading to the Republican wave in 2010. 

We can only win transformative reforms like the Green New Deal with a much stronger, radicalized, and organized working class. To that end, DSA’s national Green New Deal (GND) campaign and Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) are convening a central push for the First 100 Days of the new administration to pass the PRO Act (Protect the Right to Organize), which would strengthen unions and the power of the working class to organize on the job, helping to build labor power as strong as it needs to be in the months and years ahead to win a just transition to a green economy for all workers, especially in building power toward GND demands like a federal jobs guarantee that can function as socialist “non-reformist reforms.” The original New Deal was won through militant labor organizing — rebuilding this capacity is crucial to the theory of power DSA’s national GND campaign has developed for a radical Green New Deal.

Towards that end, Charlotte Metro DSA proposes to work within our chapter to mobilize members around the PRO Act, which would begin with emphasizing that passing this legislation is a first key demand within a larger campaign strategy to win a Green New Deal. We will coordinate our chapter with the broader DSA national initiative, laying the groundwork for future efforts strengthening connections between labor and climate justice. 

Goals:

• Align DSA members around a labor-oriented strategy for climate organizing;

• Advance a pro-labor narrative for DSA’s climate organizing, internally and externally;

• Connect with and activate DSA union members to participate in a strategic and federally-targeted DSA campaign;

• Activate non-union worker members within DSA around the demand of the PRO Act;

• Increase DSA members’ capacity/skills to carry out strategic organizing work with  federal targets in a strategic nationwide campaigns;

• Work with Labor WG to ID union members and non-union members in key sectors that would be affected by PRO for mobilization, laying the groundwork for possible future GND-related organizing with local labor unions;

• Support chapter targeting of local unions who could be brought into coalition around the PRO Act and facilitate longer-term relationship building with labor. 

To this end, we are proposing these chapter efforts for the first 100 days of the Biden administration:

• Plan public-facing political education events around the role of organized labor and the PRO Act in winning a Green New Deal;

• Mobilize members for national webinars around PRO Act and the role of organized labor in a just transition;

• Participate in DSA national phone banks with auto-dialer campaign to pressure key Reps in Congress, especially in strategic states and districts with Reps and Senators to be moved in key states like Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Colorado, and Arizona;

• The National GND campaign is developing a congressional tracking sheet with IUPAT to identify priority targets. We will work across our chapter to determine interest and capacity to organize against any priority targets in our jurisdiction;

• Adapt national social media campaign materials for targets in our region;

• Plan public action(s) locally around PRO Act, along with the national campaign and local labor allies (including a possible May Day action). These can include rallies, sit-ins, escalating nonviolent direct action, etc. based on capacity and risk factors for participating members and allies.

Interested members can sign up for the national campaign in this form! 

http://bit.ly/dsaproact 

The Madison Area chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America applauds the students at Altoona High School who organized a walkout in response to a return to in-person learning in the middle of a global pandemic. We stand with them in their fight for a safe learning environment.

Students at Altoona describe close confines that prevent adequate social distancing and a lack of trust in an administration that failed to consult with students about the plan to return. Many high school students are under sixteen and are therefore still ineligible for COVID-19 vaccination, putting them at a heightened risk of contracting the virus. That risk is greater than ever as new, more contagious variants become dominant in the United States and as new COVID-19 cases are climbing again throughout Wisconsin. 

Altoona High School administrators should listen to their students whose concerns about school reopenings are shared by leading epidemiologists, including those who once supported school reopening but have changed their minds due to the severity of the new COVID-19 variants. Our country and our state is on the cusp of a new wave of COVID-19 cases and unvaccinated students in crowded classrooms are directly in the line of fire. 

Throughout the pandemic, Madison Area DSA has stood with people fighting to reject unsafe conditions, mainly workers in our region. We recognize the Altoona Student walkout as a part of this same struggle. No one should be forced to risk their health and safety or the health and safety of vulnerable family members for a paycheck – or for a grade. As socialists, we believe that people should have the right to collectively determine the conditions in which they work and learn.