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For decades, America’s water infrastructure has rusted under the negligent eye of politicians who have put politics and dollar signs above their constituents. The water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi reminds us of how racism and capitalist greed can threaten the supply of even the most basic human necessity.

Central New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America calls upon the Biden administration, the state of Mississippi, and state and local governments both in NJ and nationwide to put their money where their mouth is by funding safe and robust water infrastructure as a public utility. Access to water, necessary to sustain human life, should not depend on the profit margins available to private companies for delivering it, nor on emergency funding that is only available once a crisis point is reached. Given the vast wealth of our nation we can easily provide safe and reliable water to everyone as a public utility. This should not be in question, either in Mississippi nor in New Jersey.

The crisis of Jackson Mississippi’s water system is not merely a crisis of underfunding but is also a direct result of the profound ecological crisis wrought on humanity by climate change. Although decades of underfunding from both the federal government and the state government of Mississippi precipitated the failure of the Jackson Water System, notably the need for an additional $4.8 billion to maintain safe drinking water, two events in particular caused the system to fail as catastrophically as it did this september. While the media was largely focused on the failure of the Texas power grid that resulted from the February 2021 cold snap, the lower than usual temperatures also froze the pipes that supplied the water to Jackson Mississippi and damaged them irreparably. The situation was made worse this summer as the system endured damage from the massive floods that swept through Mississippi this summer.

At this point in the climate crisis there can be no debate between adapting to climate change or preventing it; we need to do both. An eco-socialist transition away from carbon intensive production and extraction needs to occur simultaneously with a reworking of our infrastructure to withstand the stress that will be put on it as a result of climate catastrophe or else we will see more cities struggle with the issues that Jackson Mississippi is currently facing.

In addition, the recent water main break in the Belleville area shows alarming parallels to what has happened in Jackson. In August of 2022, more than 100,000 households were affected with reduced water access after a 142-year-old water main ruptured. Like in Jackson, neglected infrastructure was the immediate cause. Contrary to what many would like to believe, New Jersey isn’t immune to images of bottled water packages and closed schools. New Jersey as of this year still has 186,830 discovered lead lines, and potentially up to 350000 from some estimates. Even outside of more momentous events like ruptures, many are forced to choose between risking unsafe water or paying for bottled water. Organizations like Newark Water Coalition still organize to bring to light continued concerns of poor infrastructure and insufficient fixes, especially in Newark where two years ago there was still estimated 24% lead piping.

Further, water privatization is rampant in New Jersey, increasing the cost of water as well as the risk of disasters like what happened in Jackson. For-profit water companies make no sense in a rational world- When a water system is given over to a for-profit company, as is currently planned to happen next year in Somerville here in Central Jersey, that company can make money (its sole objective) from that water system compared to a cost-neutral government-run system in one of two ways: Increasing the price of water for residents, or decreasing the amount spent maintaining the system (risking a Jackson-like disaster). Yet sadly some see it as the only way to fund necessary expansions to supply new houses and rising populations due to the lack of funding available to local governments for water projects.

The defunding of municipal water projects has not only occurred on the state level but was precipitated by cuts in funding on the federal level that occurred during the Reagan Administration as a result of the 1987 Water Quality Act. Republican lead efforts to “shrink government” and “lower the deficit” are not merely philosophical statements on the role of the state in private life or simple adjustments to the accounting on the federal ledger. The “Reagan Revolution” and the ideological justifications for austerity that came with it have had an immensely negative impact on the lives of the most vulnerable members of the working class who often have to shoulder the cost of republican tax cuts for the rich and the decimation of public services that result from them.

We must work within our communities and then expand outwards to recognize how much more needs to be done to repair the situation we are dealing with. Addressing poor piping in general, lead piping especially, fighting back against privatization and the usage of these crises to further increase exploitation are all incredibly necessary. As with many concerns, the solution is to build the power and organization of the working class, so we can address our social interests and concerns in ways capitalists will not. Groups like Newark Water Coalition, Food and Water Watch, and ecosocialist caucuses within DSA are working to build a movement for a more sustainable and environmentally sound world and organizing for water justice is an essential part of making the urban areas where most working class people live safer and healthier.

11/3/22
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Curt Ries, Marin DSA Co-Chair
marindemsoc@gmail.com | curtries@gmail.com 

FAIRFAX ADOPTS RENT CONTROL

First Town in Marin County and Smallest in California to Cap Rents

FAIRFAX, CA — On Wednesday, November 2nd, the Fairfax Town Council voted 5-0 in favor of adopting an ordinance to establish rent stabilization and 4-1 in favor of adopting an ordinance to strengthen just cause eviction protections. Fairfax is the first town in Marin County and the smallest jurisdiction in California to pass rent control. Fairfax has about 7,500 residents and 37% of Fairfax households rent their homes. 

The votes followed nearly two hours of heated public comments, with tenants and supportive homeowners speaking in favor of the policies and landlords and realtors speaking in opposition. The town council has been considering rent stabilization and just cause eviction policies for the last eight months, since March 2022. It has held eight public agendized meetings on the topic.

The rent stabilization ordinance will cap annual rent increases at 60% of the Consumer Price Index or 5%, whichever is lower, making it one of the strongest rent control provisions in the state. The just cause eviction ordinance will strengthen existing protections by establishing a right of return and relocation payments for displaced tenants, closing Ellis Act eviction loopholes, and providing additional protections against eviction for tenants who are elderly, disabled, or terminally-ill and for teachers and students during the school year. Both ordinances will go into effect on December 3rd, 2022.

The landmark ordinances were passed after a year of grassroots campaigning led by local residents and by the Marin Democratic Socialists of America (Marin DSA), who launched a campaign to establish rent control in Marin County during the fall of 2021. Marin DSA has gathered over 3,000 petition signatures from Marin County residents in support of rent control and just cause eviction protections, including over 650 petition signatures from Fairfax residents, about 9% of the town’s population. They are also working to pass rent control in nearby San Anselmo and Larkspur, where they are partnering with the Skylark Tenants Association.

Other organizations who support the campaign include: Sierra Club Marin Group, Legal Aid of Marin, North Bay Labor Council, North Bay Jobs with Justice, California Alliance for Retired Americans Marin CAT, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5, Teamsters Local 665, Unite Here 2850, National Union of Healthcare Workers, Showing up for Racial Justice Marin, Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative, Disability Justice Marin, and Tenants Together.

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It’s election season again! That means that citizens will soon exercise their right to vote for their political leaders, but for workers in a union, or for those trying to organize one themselves, democracy does not end on election day. It is in the everyday struggle for a democracy worthy of the name not only in our politics, but in our workplaces and our unions. Tonight, we hear from Brandon Mancilla, a candidate for Regional Director of the UAW’s Region 9A, about what’s at stake in the UAW leadership elections this November and about how he and the other endorsed candidates of the UAW United Members United slate will transform the near century-old union. We also hear from our own Amy Wilson, host and producer here at RPM and a worker-organizer at the Trader Joe’s in Williamsburg, on organizing an independent union with Trader Joe’s United and what it means to lose an election.

Brandon Mancilla on Twitter: @Brandonfor9A

On October 2nd, 2022, the membership passed a Labor Strategy Resolution developed by the Labor Working Group at our General Body Meeting. Below is the body of the resolution in full:

Miami DSA Labor Strategy Resolution

Why Miami DSA Needs a Labor Strategy

Miami DSA must adopt a labor strategy. It is not enough to do labor work simply on an ad hoc basis with no greater plan. There must be a way for us to collectively work toward a clearly defined goal that is sure to bring us closer to socialism. This will provide motivation and purpose not only to our labor work, but to our chapter as a whole. A chapter-wide strategy would guarantee buy-in from all members, ensuring that there is cohesion to our work and coordination between the various working groups on the basis of this labor strategy. This would resolve the issue of working groups not collaborating in a way that takes full advantage of their status and capacity within the same organization. The chapter-wide labor strategy would also help our chapter’s work reflect the necessity of labor work to the revolution. If labor is not prioritized, we will not be able to imbue the labor movement with a socialist character, and both the socialist and labor movements will stagnate and remain separate, prolonging the suffering of our class under the capitalist system. By adopting a comprehensive labor strategy, we are charting a course to the quickest and most resolute end to the bourgeois dictatorship.

An effective labor strategy for Miami DSA would outline the pivotal role socialists have historically played within the labor movement and help our chapter fulfill that role. This would entail developing close ties between the labor movement and our organization to provide political leadership, effectively uniting the socialist and labor movement, and by doing so giving the labor movement a socialist character. The way to do this is through agitation among the working masses from the basis of their immediate economic and political issues. This agitation will explain the root causes of these issues and show that they are inherent features of capitalism and reveal that capitalism is a rotten system that must be replaced with socialism.

Why is this kind of leadership necessary? Put simply, the issue is that if we do not politically guide our fellow workers, the capitalist class will. This may seem strange at first, since the capitalist class is the labor movement’s greatest enemy. However, within the capitalist class, there are competing theories about capitalist management or, put more honestly, managing the capitalist crisis. Of these theories, a few converge on a cynical toleration of trade unions as a means to ease the suffering of the workers to continuously put off unrest and revolution. In their minds, labor unions can serve as insurance against strikes and provide a “more secure investment environment.” However, for this arrangement to work, the socialist trade union leaders, who have existed since the beginning of the trade union movement, and played the leading role in its formation, had to be eradicated. This turned revolutionary unions working for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie (i.e. red unions) into organizations merely seeking concessions from the capitalists for the amelioration of the workers’ suffering, leaving them defenseless to the assault on labor unions that occurred post-WWII and intensified in the 70s and 80s. Unless we are able to politically lead our fellow workers, the labor movement will not look further than immediate demands nor set its sights resolutely on revolution.

How do we gain this leadership in the labor movement? By earning it. By becoming recognized as the most energetic and fearless fighters of the working class. By embedding ourselves closely with the working masses and genuinely caring about their well being and emancipation. Socialists must make themselves known in their workplaces and their unions as people who are the first to stick their neck out for the well being of their co-workers, the first to take the task of organizing their workplace, the first to take on difficult and thankless assignments for their union, and the first to earnestly share a vision for a better world with their co-workers and invite them to help build it. The selfless devotion to the cause of socialism and the working class presents an insurmountable challenge for the trade union aristocracy paid to exert a stifling effect on the workers’ struggles. Our struggle for leadership in the trade unions will depend on developing ourselves on one hand, gaining the trust of the working masses on the other, all while fighting the trade union bureaucracy that stands to lose if unions were to take on a policy of class struggle.

Given the great difficulty of this task, it is important that we organize our activity around workplaces. They are where our class is most powerful and most highly concentrated. Workers’ greatest power in the workplace is the ability to stop working, and hence directly disrupting capitalists’ accumulation of capital. The concentration of workers also makes it perfect grounds for recruiting the most solidly proletarian strata of the working class into the chapter.  As the number of members in a single worksite grows, they should form a strategy together on how to more effectively fight in the workplace while agitating among the rest of the workers. Their connections in the workplaces can enrich the work of the rest of the chapter since our strategies, tactics, and political lines can all be informed by the thoughts, concerns, and feedback of the workers. It also means that strategies from the chapter can be implemented directly in the workplaces with relative ease since a body of the chapter is already present in the workplace and can implement the strategy in a way that is grounded in, and connected to, the daily issues workers face in that workplace.

One of the first steps we must take to realize this is creating a curriculum for political education and skills training of militant labor cadres. These educational initiatives will not only help our worker members organize their workplaces, but can educate labor militants not in the chapter while bringing them closer to the chapter. This provides a wide base for recruitment and builds the chapter’s mass following. For political education, it is important we educate everyone on theory, history, strategy, and tactics of militant labor organizing. When it comes to organizing skills, we must teach our labor cadres basic skills such as strategy planning, one-on-one organizing conversations, workplace mapping, following up, holding effective meetings, leader identification, and so on. This will provide us with the people we need to take the fight directly into the workplaces and exponentially grow the influence of the chapter in the labor movement for the benefit of the whole working class.

Resolution

Resolved, That the Miami chapter of DSA will use every committee, branch, and working group at the chapter’s disposal to further the ideological, organizational, and political advancement of the labor movement as a year-round priority. This development of the labor movement will be on the basis of a direct confrontation with the capitalist class and those that do their bidding, such as strikebreakers, spies, agent provocateurs, and the class collaborationists and conciliators in the labor movement that advocate for “labor-management partnerships” and business unionism in general.

And, That an annual report on the progress on our labor strategy will be given at every General Body Meeting by the Labor Working Group. Every Working Group should include its progress on furthering the labor strategy in its monthly reports to the Coordinating Committee.

And, That Miami DSA will develop a standardized training for DSA members in the Labor Work Group that involves both political education and organizing training, to build a cadre of  worker organizers that can help educate fellow workers on class struggle unionism and organize the unorganized masses of workers, all while effectively dealing with all the forms of repression used against socialists in the labor movement.

And, That these cadres will actively lead or advance organizing efforts to develop labor unions, whether by organizing unions in their own workplaces, providing support to fellow workers looking for assistance  in their own organizing campaigns, or advancing campaigns for the adoption of a class struggle policy within existing unions.

And, That Miami DSA will strive to form workplace committees of chapter members  wherever there are three or more members in the same workplace. The purpose of these committees would be to:  more effectively coordinate workplace organizing, organize their union to adopt a class struggle position, conduct agitprop among the members’  coworkers, and educate their co-workers politically and bring them closer to the position of socialism.

And, That Miami DSA will work to coordinate the various unions and other organizations of the labor movement to achieve the economic and political aims of the working class, with the ultimate aim of the working class seizure of power and the abolition of private property. This objective should be achieved through independent coordination of organizations of labor militants , as well as engaging meaningfully  in the local Central Labor Council (CLC) to coordinate among the  broader working class.

For immediate release 
Oct. 31, 2022

Milwaukee County residents to stage bake sale outside of county budget hearing to protest conditions in the County Jail 

MILWAUKEE, WI – Members of the Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will host a bake sale outside the public budget hearing on Tuesday to raise money to be deposited into commissary accounts in the Milwaukee County Jail to address conditions they have called “unacceptable.”

While Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley has touted the 2023 county budget as a step forward for health and safety, not everyone agrees. Milwaukee DSA, along with four other community groups, released a statement Thursday demanding that the county divert funds from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) patrol and correctional officer staffing budget to improve conditions in the county jail and fund programs cut in the 2023 budget. The sheriff’s budget has risen by 44 percent since 2020. 

DSA members are hosting the bake sale in response to lack of action on their demands for improved conditions in the county jail. In a September meeting of the Judiciary, Law Enforcement and General Services committee, County Supervisor Patti Logsdon thanked constituents who spoke in favor of eliminating charges for phone calls at the county jail for their passion and suggested that they start their own fund to cover those costs before moving to table the motion. This drew a fiery response from Bay View resident Ron Jansen. In response, DSA decided to host a bake sale to lampoon the idea that constituents should be responsible for raising money for the county jail. The County Board of Supervisors ultimately opted to reduce the cost of phone calls at the jail but did not commit to making them free. 

In addition to raising funds for people in the jail, DSA hopes this action will draw attention to conditions there. They also hope to increase pressure on the county board of supervisors to adopt some of County Supervisor Ryan Clancy’s budget amendments to move money away from the MCSO patrol budget into other areas such as public transit, lifeguard salaries, and free visitation at the jail. Supervisor Clancy hosted a press conference on these amendments last Thursday along with County Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez. “The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office does not keep us safe,” Clancy said. “These [amendments] do.” 

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For more information, contact defundpolicemkedsa@gmail.com