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.

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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.

To get involved with the campaign for Public Power: http://ecosocialists.nyc/  and https://www.nypublicpower.com/

To get involved with the Internet for All campaign: internetforall.nyc/join

 

Based on the results of our recent vote, we are not continuing the tuition strike past April 5. Although you are free to continue withholding tuition if you choose, there is no longer any guarantee that you will be joined by 1,000 other students. We understand that many people have to pay tuition in order to maintain their visa status, register for Fall classes, and graduate. We will start disbursing money from the strike fund for anyone whose late fees are not waived by Columbia—you can request funds here if you need them or get in touch with Townes (townesend@gmail.com).

We want to emphasize that the end of the tuition strike for this semester does NOT mean the end of our campaign! We always knew that it would take a long struggle to win our demands and the tuition strike was only one (particularly powerful) tactic within that struggle. 

For that reason, we are currently strategizing about how we can best carry our campaign forward into future semesters—and we need your feedback!

As a first step, we are asking all our supporters (regardless of whether you could participate in the tuition strike or not) to participate in a non-binding  vote on whether to organize another tuition strike in the Fall semester in support of our demands. We are also asking everyone to share their ideas on additional or alternative tactics and any other feedback you have about how to make the campaign even stronger next semester. Please fill out this form to vote and share your feedback. 

We are also asking everyone to join us at our Tuition Strike Debrief / Strategy Session for Next Semester, next Thursday, 4/15, 7 pm ET, in order to discuss the strengths of our movement and what we need to improve going forward, as well as to discuss the question of whether we should organize another, larger tuition strike in the Fall, or whether we should try an alternative tactic.

There are many reasons why a campaign next semester could be successful in winning even more of our demands. We started out last semester with an almost unprecedented tactic and no pre-existing organization, and in the course of just a few months we organized a movement involving 4,700 students, including over a thousand students who withheld their tuition payments in support of our demands, many of them continuing on almost to the end of the semester. Through this struggle, we won fossil fuel divestment, increased financial aid for summer classes, and emergency grants for students.

This was despite the fact that students were spread out across the country and there was almost no possibility of in-person organizing or actions. In future semesters, we will be able to host more disruptive in-person actions like pickets and to organize a much larger number of students. We are also looking into the possibility of developing a longer-term organization with greater resources that we could draw on to organize future campaigns. Most importantly, we now have a more organized student body that is ready and able to take collective action on issues that affect us. And finally, we will be part of a nationwide movement—students at fifteen other universities have already confirmed that they are interested in or committed to organizing a tuition strike at their campus next semester.

That being said, if we are going to have any chance of success, we are going to need your help! This current vote on whether or not to organize a tuition strike for the Fall semester is non-binding partly because we want to involve a greater number of people in our strategic discussions before committing to any approach going forward, and also because we will need a lot more people who can commit to organizing a future campaign. That’s why we’re asking everyone to fill out on this form if you can commit to helping us organize!

We have accomplished something truly unprecedented this semester, but we have a lot of work left to do. We hope that you’ll join us in that continued struggle.

Solidarity,

Columbia YDSA

With a surge in anti-AAPI violence making news and the Derek Chauvin murder trial ripping open wounds, it's time to keep up the pressure and defund NYPD. On tonight’s show, we’re joined live by Cheryl Rivera, an organizer with NYC-DSA’s Defund NYPD and Abolition Action campaigns. We’ll discuss common myths and misconceptions about defunding the police and organizing for community safety in a non-carceral framework. We also hear from Lizzy of Queens DSA and our Immigrant Justice Working Group and Yves from the grassroots collective Red Canary Song on violence against Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities and why increased policing is not the answer. To learn more about the Defund NYPD campaign, please visit www.defundnypd.com. To learn more about Red Canary Song and its work with Asian and migrant sex workers, visit https://www.redcanarysong.net/. To donate or request funds from the NYC-DSA Mutual Aid fund, visit bit.ly/covid19aid.

Starting April 1, we are conducting another round of voting to democratically decide whether the strike should continue after the first Fall registration date of April 5. If you’re currently striking, please fill out this form to cast your vote before midnight on April 2nd so we can announce the results on April 3.

We have been doing our best to understand what potential advantages and consequences may come with continuing to withhold past the Fall registration date, starting April 5 (for some Columbia schools). 

The administration has so far been utterly silent in response to our demands since their decision to divest from fossil fuels on January 22nd. This is similar to the administration’s intransigence on the grad workers’ strike and further proof of how unresponsive the administration is to student and worker demands. The advantage of continuing to strike is that, in doing so, we would convey our determination to continue in face of the university’s egregious refusal to address our demands. The administration has a history of “waiting out” student protests—we have the opportunity to show them that this is not a possibility in our case. 

On the other hand, we understand that the risks of striking past this point may be too great to incur for many of our strikers to continue. Understanding that many may need to end their strike to register for classes or to graduate, voting to end the strike collectively now would allow us to end this semester’s campaign as a unified movement, rather than people having to drop out individually. Ending the strike would not mean ending the campaign or giving up on our demands, as we will continue to strategize about ways to win our demands through direct pressure in following semesters.

Keeping those advantages and disadvantages in mind, these are the risks of continuing the strike past April 5:

If you are planning to register for Summer or Fall 2021 semesters (and if your unpaid balance is $1,000 or greater): your account will be placed on a financial hold, and you will not be able to register until the balance is paid. Summer registration began on March 8th, and the earliest date listed for Fall registration is April 5th. (except for TC, which began both Summer and Fall registration on March 29). 

If you are graduating Spring 2021: graduation holds are placed 30 days prior to the graduation date (i.e. sometime this week), and you will not be able to receive a diploma or transcript until the balance is paid. 

These holds are not irreversible, but rather are lifted automatically when tuition is paid. If your unpaid balance is less than $1,000, you will not face these holds. 

Please note that if you are an international student and your visa status depends on registering immediately for next semester, we are not asking you to stay on strike if it means risking your visa status! Regardless of the vote result, we understand if you have to drop out of the strike because the risks of not registering are greater than for the average student. 

Except in the case of TC, there will no late fees until April 16 at the earliest, but as stated above, Columbia has not been charging the usual monthly fees, likely a direct victory for the strike. At TC, fees have been inconsistent, varying by the amount you’re withholding after the initial $50 fee in January. If you’ve been charged any fees, try to get in touch with Columbia offices to waive these fees if you haven’t yet. If Columbia offices refuse to waive your fees, then request money from our strike fund here. These funds will be disbursed when the strike ends but you can contact columbia.ydsa@gmail.com if you need them earlier. 

Finally, we want to invite you to the following upcoming actions and events:

• Labor Struggles at Columbia: Thursday, April 1 at 6:30 PM ET 
  • A general meeting to discuss the history labor organizing on campus, including an overview of Barnard contingent faculty organizing by the co-chair of BCF-UAW, and to hear an update on the ongoing strike from a GWC-UAW bargaining committee member. Suggested readings are this history of graduate worker organizing at Columbia, and this piece on the broader implications of the current strike. 
  • Our meeting next Thursday, April 8 (on the same zoom link) will be a discussion of the Bessemer, Alabama Amazon workers’ struggle for unionization and the results of the vote. 
  • Register for the meeting!
• Schumer Owes New York: Student Debt Cancellation Rally: Saturday, April 3, 3:00 PM ET at 9 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NY 11215
  • Our tuition strike campaign is part of a much larger struggle against austerity and inequality in education. Join us to demand that Senator Schumer supports full student debt cancellation and tuition-free college for all legislation!
  • RSVP! and visit the Facebook event page!

March 31, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Columbia-Barnard Young Democratic Socialists of America support and stand in solidarity with the plaintiffs in Chandra Cates, et al., v. The Trustees of Columbia University. The University has proven time and time again that it would rather line administrators’ pockets than serve the students, faculty, rank-and-file staff, and surrounding community members that comprise this institution. 

The plaintiffs’ struggle is tied to that of striking students—both are about holding the university accountable to the popular interest of its community. Currently, the administration, at best, neglects these interests, and, at worst, is actively antagonistic to them. Columbia workers have been deprived of their full retirement benefits because of the university’s negligence, just as the University neglects students’ demands. To create a truly democratic university, workers and students must stand together and fight against Columbia’s administrative glut, manifest neglect, and misplaced priorities. YDSA supports tens of thousands of Columbia employees and retirees in their fight to recover their retirement savings that they rightfully deserve and that Columbia University has taken away from them.

States in the US have often been lauded as the “laboratories of democracy”. Georgia, on the other hand, has once again made a name for itself as an experiment in authoritarianism.

On March 25th, while confronting Brian Kemp for once again restricting basic democratic processes in Georgia, State Representative Park Cannon was arrested. Since it is illegal to arrest Georgia legislators by misdemeanor during session, Capitol Police charged her with trumped-up felony charges. The bill that Kemp signed into law, SB202, is indefensible; it restricts voting methods, adds complicated and inaccessible hoops, allows the state to intervene in county elections processes, and bans voters taking care of each other while waiting for hours in lines. Instead of allowing criticism, police closed ranks around Kemp and the state Republicans, deflecting the heat by throwing accusations at a Black woman trying to represent her district’s residents.

Let us be clear: racist police and judicial violence has a long and horrible history in this state. For generations, state law enforcement, business interests, and officials have fabricated charges and defended or deflected violence against unionists, Jewish, Black, Asian, and Latino people, and political opponents of a regime of white supremacist capitalism. If Georgia were not a part of the United States empire, it would be painted as an authoritarian oligarchy; instead, our ruling class is given license to consolidate power by violence in the name of “civil political debate”.

As socialists, we of Atlanta DSA recognize that Georgia’s multi-front assault on the rights of its residents is part of a larger project of capitalist domination. ICE imprisons and demonizes immigrants, law enforcement arrests Black State Representatives while tacitly approving racist mass-murder, and unionization rates, worker protections, and wages all remain at rock bottom. The exploitation of the working class has always been racialized; the most exploited workers are those forced to the bottom of a racial caste system. We see this assault on voting rights as only the most recent in a long line of rollbacks of the rights of working people.

Georgia’s ruling class is trying and has always tried to make solidarity illegal. But, as CWA-AFA President Sara Nelson once said, “solidarity is a force stronger than gravity.”

In the past year, working people have expressed tremendous power and won real victories. Unions, especially the predominantly Black Unite Here local 23, delivered a historic defeat to Republicans last November. Latino organizations like Mijente worked tirelessly to defeat the 287(g) program in Cobb and Gwinnett county, ending local law enforcement’s formal collaboration with ICE. In the past few days, national unions like IUPAT and CWA have worked alongside DSA chapters across the country to deliver over half a million phone calls to working people, asking them to flood the voicemails and mailboxes of US Senators and flipping votes to end the filibuster, pass the PRO Act, and pass HB1, the “For the People Act”. Victory is possible, but we must organize and fight together to achieve it.

We, the Steering Committee of Atlanta DSA, call on all working people in the state of Georgia to get organized. This fight did not start with SB202, and it will not end with SB202. As a class, our strength is in our numbers and our coordination. We must overcome racial, gendered, sexual, and caste divisions by fighting alongside one another.

Solidarity is a verb, and we practice it by organizing together, committing together, and moving into struggle together. We ask you to join DSA, to join a local organization, and to join a union if you can.

The Atlanta chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (Atlanta DSA) is proud to announce our endorsement of member and fellow Democratic Socialist, Rogelio Arcila for the Atlanta City Council District 4.

Rogelio, born and raised here in Atlanta, is the child of Mexican immigrants and the first Latino to run for Atlanta City Council. After witnessing many years of neglect of the city’s working people by Atlanta’s so-called public servants in favor of tax breaks for developers and ever-increasing budgets for the city police, Rogelio was driven to run for City Council seat for District 4. For too long, our city council has ignored the desires, demands, and needs of the everyday people who keep Atlanta running. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our residents are facing a housing crisis as predatory developers load costs and taxes onto residents, pushing residents out of their long-time homes and making Atlanta too expensive for working people. Even as more corporate wealth sets up shop in Atlanta and taxes rise, there are fewer and fewer resources available for the community’s real needs.

Rogelio believes that our city’s wealth should fulfill the needs of the people, not corporations and developers. This is why Atlanta DSA is enthusiastic in our support for Rogelio as a candidate in a district overlooked by its own public servants. With Rogelio in office, we will have a councilperson who will be accountable to and fight for Atlanta’s working people, not its 1%.

“I am so humbled to receive the support of a group of hardworking and dedicated people whose values align with mine,” said Rogelio. “I know that true power lies with the people, and when we decide to mobilize and act, together we can protect our rights against the encroachment of corporate interests and corruption.”

“We are thrilled to see one of our own fighting for a voice in our city’s future,” said Atlanta DSA co-chair Shafeka Hashash. “Rogelio has already accomplished so much for our chapter’s mission here in Atlanta by serving the city’s everyday people faithfully. I look forward to seeing what more he can accomplish in office.”

If you would like to join in the effort to support Rogelio’s campaign and elect him to office this coming November, you can donate and/or volunteer at voterogelio.com, or you can get involved with Atlanta DSA by joining today at atldsa.org/join.

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