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

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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/

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 

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.