DSA

Kent Wong died on October 8, 2025. He was sixty-nine years old. The director of the influential UCLA Labor Center for thirty years, he oversaw its expansion from four to forty staff and a corresponding growth in influence in Los Angeles and statewide politics. He was the fierce and effective advocate for expansion of the UC labor centers from two campuses to all of them. His memorial service at L.A. Trade Tech College on November 15 was attended by more than a thousand mourners. —Editor

DSA-LA is deeply saddened by the loss of Kent Wong, a longtime activist and powerful leader in the labor and immigrant rights movements. Kent was a tremendous force for justice, and he leaves behind a strong foundation for us to continue the struggle and apply all that he taught us. Kent was an uncompromising and tireless fighter for workers, immigrants, students, and others of the most vulnerable in our community.

In the months leading up to the New York City mayoral election, there had been some unease in leftist online spaces about the possible results. Polling consistently showed for months that Cuomo was running behind Mamdani, and it may not have even mattered if the race narrowed to the two men. No, the anxiety over the election results was not whether Zohran Mamdani was going to win, but how Mamdani would govern. Every statement was scrutinized for possible concessions; every compromise seemed to portend even more.

Before the primary election, the dream of a leftist mayor could bathe in the promise of his most ambitious proposals without having to dwell on the realities of politics. Now that the general election is over, these very real concerns will need to be confronted, and those who decry electoral work (or of running DSA candidates on the Democratic party line) seem ready to call out any betrayal of the DSA by Mamdani. But it’s important to first understand what a ‘betrayal of DSA’ would look like, or even mean.

Zohran Mamdani was just elected Mayor of New York City. He’s not the first Democratic Socialist to win a prominent office, and arguably other office-holders wield more power—Bernie Sanders as a U.S. Senator, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez as a Representative—but what makes Zohran different is how he got there. As he himself put it at DSA’s national convention in 2023, he has been able to stand against the immense power of capital because he has DSA at his back. Our members raised him into office originally, we catalyzed his mayoral run, and we could not be prouder of how he exemplifies our theory of change.

In the U.S., nobody needs to get a political party’s permission to declare themselves a candidate of that party. In theory, members of the party would quickly filter out candidates that had never been active or politically aligned, favoring more known quantities. But in the 1970s and 80s, political parties put increasing emphasis on the mass communications tactics that frankly plague us today—starting with mailhouses, now taking the form of text message epistles buzzing your phone hourly from your “friends” in high places. As Robert D. Putnam chronicled in his landmark thesis Bowling Alone in 2000, political engagement subsided alongside social engagement, generally. Political differences person to person are now rarely about policy, they’re more about identity as a prefabricated product (‘Take this quizlet to see what political character you are!’).

United States labor history is mostly a history of defeats. If that were not true our country would more closely resemble Sweden, with its high union density, social democratic culture and cradle to grave free health care. I used to soften the blow of this information to my community college labor studies students with the proviso that nonetheless the U.S. working class has won some important, lasting victories along the way; and if that were not true the United States would more closely resemble Germany and Italy in the 1930s, with their crushed working class organizations and repressive surveillance state.

Unfortunately. since my retirement from teaching a couple years ago the impact of our continued and accelerating defeats has eroded what remained of those victories to the point we are now rapidly losing their democratic legacy and headed downhill on fast skis toward a fascist America. And since similar forces are at work elsewhere in the global capitalist economy, Sweden no longer provides quite the exemplary utopian example it once did (it now has small co-pays for office visits and drugs), and Germany seems to be forgetting its own historical lessons.

Be heartened

But as we are have learned in recent weeks, with the largest single day demonstration in US history (No Kings), and the people-powered victory of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani over billionaire cash and fear-mongering in the New York mayoral race (and its echo in Seattle), a growing number of people understand the dangers we are facing and are committing themselves to fighting back with effective forms of action. I am heartened by this; we all should be. We will need this scale of continued participation and many more wins in the contests with fascist billionaires on all fronts before we can restore the democratic institutions that are being destroyed before our eyes and build a better society in place of the one we’re saddled with.

Of all the democratic socialists who piled into a Manhattan church on Wednesday evening, none had the cachet of the man handed a microphone toward the meeting’s close.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani offered some pleasantries — “Hello friends, Zohran, he/him, Queens D.S.A.” — before launching into his mission: torpedoing the candidacy of a left-leaning ally, Councilman Chi Ossé, who is attempting to unseat Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat.

The remarkable scene was both a reflection of the tricky political calculuses Mr. Mamdani confronts as he prepares to take office next year and the egalitarian nature of a group that served as the grass-roots organizing machine of his political success.

Madison, right now

Across Dane County, our campaigns against jail expansion, corporate developers, and layoffs at TruStage all run into the same brick wall: a system that divides and disciplines labor along racial lines. Anti-Black racism isn’t an add-on to class struggle—it’s a core method by which exploitation keeps reproducing itself. This piece offers a framework for connecting those dots in our local work.

1) Capitalism’s birth in racial slavery

Modern capitalism was built through dispossession and enslavement—the twin thefts of land and labor. Plantations were early financial instruments linking human bondage to credit, insurance, and global trade.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction showed that enslaved labor was integral to world capitalism, and that the Civil War’s “general strike of the slaves” was the first mass withdrawal of labor in U.S. history. He also named the wages of whiteness: the social privileges that kept white workers tied to their own exploitation.

2) The logic of racial capitalism

Cedric Robinson and Oliver Cromwell Cox argued that capitalism didn’t create racism—it modernized it. Racial hierarchy became a tool for managing labor, marking some workers disposable and others “deserving.” Whiteness functioned as property and as discipline: a counterfeit privilege that fragments the class.

Each transition—from slavery to sharecropping, from industry to mass incarceration—reshaped rather than removed racial rule.

3) Ruling-class strategies of division

From Bacon’s Rebellion to Reaganomics, elites have used racial politics to stabilize profit. After Reconstruction, terror and “Black Codes” rebuilt cheap, coerced labor.

In the industrial North, corporate leaders hired across color lines to break strikes and then incited mob violence to keep unions weak.

The New Deal’s exclusions of agricultural and domestic workers preserved segregation inside the welfare state. Later, Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and Reagan’s “welfare-queen” myth converted white resentment into a new austerity consensus.

4) Anti-Black racism in the contemporary economy

• Labor: Black and brown workers dominate low-wage logistics and care work; white workers are overrepresented in management and tech.
• Policing and prisons: Incarceration functions as labor discipline under the 13th Amendment exception.
• Finance: Redlined credit and predatory loans siphon wealth from Black communities; the 2008 crash transferred billions to banks.
• Environment & health: Toxic exposure, food deserts, and hospital closures show how profit literally costs lives. Corporate “diversity” rhetoric and right-wing culture wars both mask this structure.

Resistance—from teachers’ strikes to warehouse walkouts—shows multiracial solidarity can still rupture it.

“Anti-racism isn’t a distraction from class politics—it’s how we build working-class power that can actually govern.”

5) What this means for organizers

• Integrate racial analysis into every campaign. Whether the issue is housing, healthcare, or wages, trace how racial inequality shapes the field of struggle.
• Center Black working-class leadership. Leadership development and cadre training should deliberately cultivate Black and marginalized organizers—not tokenism, but strategy.
• Reject false binaries. Universal demands (like Medicare for All) only transform society if implemented through racial justice.
• Challenge whiteness as a relation. Build reflection and accountability—not guilt—into your organizing culture.
• Connect local fights to systemic critique. Show how each campaign teaches lessons about racial capitalism and how collective action can dismantle it.

The goal is not moral reconciliation but power: a unified multiracial working class capable of governing society in its own interest.

6) Political education & collective memory

• Pair readings of Black Reconstruction, Black Marxism, and Hammer and Hoe with local labor history.
• Map your shop or neighborhood: who gets which jobs, services, protections—and why?
• Debrief campaigns not only on tactics but on leadership and racial dynamics. Document lessons so they become chapter memory.

Political education isn’t a classroom—it’s the loop between struggle and understanding.

In late 2021, Dr. Fauci stated that we would need to get below 10,000 COVID infections per day in order to reach some “degree of normality.” At the peak of the most recent wave in September 2025, more than two years after the Public Health Emergency was ended because the pandemic was “over,” there were an estimated 1.24 million new cases per day in the US based on wastewater surveillance. Using the CDC’s own estimate of Long COVID risk at one in five, that’s 248,000 Americans disabled by COVID per day.

This is not the “normal” we were promised. We’re experiencing a mass disabling event.

The CDC, a government agency which claims to “control disease,” has a long history of harm that includes withholding treatment from Black men with syphilis in the infamous Tuskegee experiment and mishandling and downplaying the AIDS crisis. Their current policies are causing even more preventable disability and death, because the CDC’s actual function is not to protect public health but to uphold capitalism. Right now, that means sending people to work and school while sick and infectious with COVID. The rich and powerful have access to high-end ventilation and filtration systems, nasal photodisinfection, sterilizing Far UV-C lights, AI-powered wearables that predict illness, COVID-sniffing dogs, routine PCR tests, and personal servants to limit their contact with the public. The rest of us don’t have any of that. Vaccines are one layer of defense, but post-Omicron COVID vaccines only provide about 50% protection against infection for four to six months, and the updated 2024 vaccine was only received by about 20% of the US population (data for 2025 is not yet available). For the working class, masks are simply the best tools we have.

MASKING IS WORKER SOLIDARITY

During the first year of the pandemic, labor, retail, and service workers died from COVID at a rate five times higher than those in higher socioeconomic positions. We’ve known since 2020 that those deaths are disproportionately Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and disabled people. Even when the acute phase of the illness isn’t deadly, consider the consequences of a COVID infection for the average worker: one hospital stay can result in thousands of dollars of medical debt. Even if not hospitalized, missing a few days of work to recover can result in a loss of income, or the loss of a job. That can be catastrophic for people living paycheck to paycheck. Even a mild or asymptomatic case can trigger a chronic illness which takes away their ability to work entirely, potentially permanently. The same is true when a child is infected and a parent has to miss work to care for them. This isn’t hypothetical, it’s still evident at the population level in 2025. Every broken chain of transmission prevents a loss of income that would push working class people closer to eviction, homelessness, and death.

MASKING IS GLOBAL SOLIDARITY

Because of capitalist greed resulting in vaccine apartheid, the majority of Africans are still not vaccinated against COVID. Vaccination rates are also abysmally low for Palestinians living under occupation due to Israel restricting access; as of August 2022, “more Israelis had received a third dose of the vaccine than Palestinians who had received a first dose.” Since October 7th, 2023, millions of displaced Palestinians have been forced to shelter in crowded conditions, causing rapid spread of infectious diseases. COVID has become one of many instruments of colonization and genocide. Those of us living in the US have the incredible privilege of access to high quality masks such as KN95, KF94, and N95 respirators, life saving tools which are simple, easy to use, far more effective than cloth or surgical masks (even more so when worn by everyone), and relatively inexpensive. I believe we also have a responsibility to use them. Every broken chain of transmission is one less chance for the virus to evolve into the next variant that spreads around the world.

MASKING IS SOLIDARITY WITH DISABLED PEOPLE

People who are immunocompromised or high risk, or who already have Long COVID, haven’t been able to safely access any public space since widespread masking was largely dropped after vaccines became available. Advice from the CDC has been for those people to take on the entire burden of protecting themselves, with perfect precautions at all times without any help from their communities, leading to profound isolation. When we gather in large numbers, we’re responsible for mitigating the risk that spreads to the broader community when our members leave a meeting and go to work, school, grocery stores and doctors’ offices. With 1 in 35 people in New York State actively infectious as of September 29th, 2025, statistically the risk of someone having COVID in a room of 50 people is 76%. Just staying home when sick isn’t enough: more than half of COVID transmission comes from people who don’t have symptoms.

Additionally, if we want disabled people to be able to participate in our organization, as well as get the benefits of in person socialization over strictly online meetings, our meeting spaces must be accessible to them. Disabled people are not a monolith, and accessibility needs vary and often conflict. In the case of people who can’t mask for medical reasons, that’s all the more reason for everyone else to mask to protect them. In the case of people who would need others to unmask in order to hear better or lip read, there are other accommodations that could be made, such as interpreters, captionists, amplification, or communicating by text or in written form. If the goal is accessibility for all disabled people, the solution is not to unmask and put people at risk when alternatives are available.

EVERYONE IS VULNERABLE TO LONG COVID

At this point, we have five years’ worth of evidence that COVID damages the vascular system as well as almost every organ in the body, including the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidney, and eyes. COVID can cause microclots, immune system dysregulation, erectile dysfunction, mitochondrial damage, autonomic dysfunction, and disruption of the blood-brain barrier. Messaging from public health institutions, government, and media makes it seem like “the vulnerable” are a small and insignificant minority, but the reality is that people with one or more conditions listed by the CDC as high risk for COVID make up 75% of the population. If you have veins, a heart, and a brain, you are at risk. A COVID infection can be disabling even if you’re vaccinated, even if you have a mild or asymptomatic case, even if you’ve been infected before. The risk of Long COVID is cumulative, meaning reinfections are just as likely to cause persistent symptoms as the initial infection, and anecdotally, most people I know are getting infected about once a year. There are currently no FDA approved treatments, and most people with the condition don’t receive disability benefits. According to the authors of an article on the immunology of Long COVID, “the oncoming burden of Long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable.” Every broken chain of transmission prevents chronic illnesses which diminish our capacity for organizing and surviving under capitalism.

If there’s anything we should have learned from the pandemic, it’s that we’re all connected. When it comes to infectious disease, individual health is dependent on the health of the community; our personal decisions affect other people, and our struggles are linked. The act of masking is solidarity, accessibility, self preservation, and community care. When we say “we keep us safe,” we should mean it.

Visit maskbloc.org to find free masks near you.

On Wednesday, November 12th, Hogsett’s ILEA board presented several models that do not solve the real problems that threaten quality public education in Indianapolis. ILEA members, parents, teachers, advocates for traditional public schools and charters alike agree on the value of a unified school system. But there is no need to reinvent the wheel. The best unified school district would be ultimately accountable to the public via a democratically elected board. The ILEA’s other proposed options add needless complexity and create further opportunities for wealthy, private actors to personally profit rather than address the real issues: underfunding, systemic racism, and lack of public accountability.

A governance model that unifies charter schools, innovation schools, and traditional public schools under the democratically elected public school board will provide all families and community members with a voice and a choice. It will create a stable, effective, innovative, and high-quality education system for all students. Under this plan, charter students and parents will finally have an accountable board that represents them democratically without sacrificing their school choice. Similarly, IPS and innovation school parents will have the flexibility to exercise school choice without exiting their stable public school system.

Such a model would incorporate the following key elements.

• Fully Elected Public School Board
  • This board is democratically elected, voted in and held accountable by all district constituents, and representative of all families regardless of school type.
  • This board would be the highest level governing body for all the schools in the district boundaries. Neither the OEI nor any mayorally-appointed board can be allowed to overrule the decisions of those who directly represent school families.
• One Charter Authorizer
  • Shifting charter authorization to a single authorizer–the fully elected school board–would make real accountability possible.
  • This ensures that schools’ first priorities are serving the needs of students and filling gaps even when those needs come into conflict with the desires of wealthy political actors.
• Transportation and Facilities: Elected School Board Stewards Operations
  • Continuing to operate facilities under IPS ensures minimal disruption to parents, families, and educators, while preserving expertise and continuity of IPS services.
  • It also would avoid further outsourcing, which is inefficient and allows taxpayer dollars to exit the community.
  • Finally, such a model would provide intentional, equitable distribution of resources, facilities, and transportation across school types–a key legislative mandate of the ILEA.
• Equitable Standards: Elected School Board Creates Policy
  • Situating policymaking authority under a single elected board creates fair, equitable, and consistent standards for all school types, while preserving what makes each school unique.
  • Policymaking authority would include the ability to transparently track real student population needs with a consistent data methodology and attend to on-the-ground needs that may vary from school to school.
• True Collaboration: Elected School Board Facilitates School Choices
  • Unifying district managed schools, innovation schools, and independent charter schools under one governance structure would end the power struggles caused by a fractured public school system.
  • Making charters, innovation schools, and district managed schools alike eligible for funding from one pot of money will end the competition for resources between IPS and charters once and for all.
• Equity in Right-Sizing
  • In the unfortunate circumstances when schools must close, an accountable school board, acting with community input and applying universal criteria that promote racial, economic, and geographic equity, is the best actor to make these tough decisions.
  • A unified public system minimizes disruption to families, teachers, staff, and the local economy, because students and staff could easily transfer to other schools within the same system.

Public education is a public good. Full stop. It belongs to the people of Indianapolis and its families and communities; not to out of state billionaires, out of city ideologues, or city elites and private contractors. This is the model that parents, educators, and constituents have called for: one that preserves democratic elections and accountability, maximizes the efficient use of tax dollars putting more money directly into classrooms, prevents unnecessary disruption to students and their families, and allows for school choice, innovation, and universal, fair, and equitable standards. We call on the ILEA to adopt the principles stated here: a fully realizable vision for ending competition over resources in the most oppressed district of Indianapolis and building a unified, cooperative, and just fully public school system.

ALLSTON, MA – On Monday, November 17, sixty people crossed Allston to assemble at Marsh Plaza on Commonwealth Avenue in response to a flurry of rapid-response organizing by Boston Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Community members rallied after ICE’s abduction of nine Allston Car Wash employees on November 4. The raid disappeared people from families across the community as the Car Wash itself closed its doors. Exhaling into frigid night air, angry community members held up signs that read “Bring Them Home,” “ICE Out of Boston Now,” and “Keep Families Together.”

Days after the raid, Boston University (BU) student Zac Segal took credit on social media for calling in ICE. Segal claims to have been calling ICE for months in an attempt to ensure workers were abducted.

Segal, president of Boston University’s College Republicans, has faced immense backlash from the local Allston community.

“This abduction in my neighborhood, in our neighborhood, is personal,” shouted Destiney McGrann, who graduated from Boston University and organizes with Allston-Brighton DSA. “How dare a member of BU – my school – participate in this act of terror?”

Another Phase in the Sanctuary Campus Movement

Members of the Back Bay Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) mobilized students to the rally. Among them were many students who were themselves vulnerable to abduction abetted by Boston University.

The institution still refuses to declare itself a sanctuary campus to protect its own immigrant students amidst abductions in its backyard.

“We demand that BU enact policies that they are legally able to enact, to safeguard its community from federal overreach,” said one student organizer. They also noted that, “on the BU campus, over 2000 students have signed the YDSA petition to make BU a sanctuary campus.”

For Boston University students, the organizing campaign to compel the institution harboring Zac Segal a sanctuary campus stretches back to the beginning of the year – when federal attacks began.

YDSA launched the campaign immediately after Trump took power, echoing back to the 2016-2017 Sanctuary Campus movement, before escalating in April 2025.

The Sanctuary Campus campaign reached an end-of-winter high point on Marsh Plaza, in the same spot where DSA would rally students and community members in the cold November night several months of federal attacks later. On April 3, hundreds of Boston University students and faculty walked out of classes to assemble at Marsh Plaza to demand a sanctuary campus. Some students conducted a sit-in, which Boston University used to crack down on YDSA, before forty autonomous actors staged a direct action to escalate even further and with greater risk against Boston University in response to the university’s repression on April 16.

After suspending YDSA on April 7, which later regrouped during the summer in the wider Back Bay, Boston University went back to doing nothing: refusing to make any change to make the campus a sanctuary.

People continued to be abducted – including, devastatingly, nine workers at the Allston Car Wash just ten minutes from campus.

“ICE is a machine that is shrinking people’s lives,” said Bonnie Jin, co-chair of Boston DSA, “We’re making a parent into a case number, a neighbor into a risk. It’s designed to silence, but we were not built, Boston, for silence.”

Towards Community Defense

Back Bay YDSA already planned and organized a walkout for the end of the week: November 20, moving forward even as three workers detained were released a few days following the rally.

No one stands under any assumption that the moment constitutes anything but a new phase of pressure on Boston University.

“If you’re mad, you should feel the full weight of your anger,” said Hank, a pseudonym to protect one student vulnerable to ICE who stayed home from the rally for their own safety. “Use that anger to lead you to take you to the next step, to organize your neighborhood, your workplace and your campus. Work hard for a better tomorrow.”

The Allston community is gripped with the rage that Hank calls for – at Boston University, and at the federal government. Rally organizers listed off the organizations to become involved with: DSA, for organizing; Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN), for mutual aid; and LUCE, for ICE Watch. McGrann roused the crowd to shout together:

“When we refuse to bow down, we win. Together, we keep us safe… so today, I beg you to make this commitment to protecting your neighborhood.”

The rally descended into a moment of silence, for the people stolen, before the crowd dispersed into smaller conversations. Jin put the crowd’s sentiment simply:

“Our coworkers are not collateral and our city is not a hunting ground.”

Kelly Regan is a member of the Allston-Brighton branch of Boston DSA.

Travis Wayne is the managing editor of Working Mass and a member of the Somerville branch of Boston DSA.

Yesterday Portland became the 12th city in the nation to pass a ban on software used by corporate landlords to coordinate rent spikes. We showed up, and our collective effort helped push the council to a loud and clear approval of this crucial policy!

DSA City Councilors Angelita Morillo, Mitch Green, and Council Vice President Tiffany Koyama-Lane introduced the ordinance to end the use of this price collusion software. On the same day, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced a landmark settlement of over $7 million with Greystar Real Estate Partners for using RealPage’s rent-price ripoff software. This significant penalty sends a clear message about what will happen to greedy landlords when they try to use A.I. to raise our rent!

Portland’s action also reflects a broader movement happening at the state and federal levels. Senator Ron Wyden’s proposed End Rent Fixing Act mirrors the city’s ban and goes further by empowering tenants to challenge landlords in court. Local leaders like DSA-endorsed candidate Dr. Tammy Carpenter, running for House District 27, are leading the charge for stronger statewide rent control and protections for renters that actually give us power to fight back against the landlords that want to rip us off.

Landlords are on notice: tenants are getting organized, and we’re coming for what’s ours!

With record member turnout, and 96 percent of voters in favor, Buffalo DSA has voted to endorse Adam Bojak for New York State Assembly in District 149. The Buffalo DSA Steering Committee looks forward to working with Adam and his campaign toward a socialist future for Western New York.

Adam has been a dedicated, dues-paying member of Buffalo DSA since 2017. A leader in the chapter’s early years, and previously endorsed for Assembly in 2020, he has organized primarily with our Infrastructure (formerly Housing) and Electoral Committees. Adam’s commitment to DSA and its principles is also evident across a decade of fighting for the working class. In addition to serving as assigned counsel in Family Court, he takes on tenant legal cases pro bono. Over the past decade, he has never charged a housing justice client for services.

Through a robust endorsement process, the chapter determined that Adam’s campaign shares our goals for housing justice, universal healthcare, labor rights, and social equity. Additionally, despite New York’s undemocratic closed primaries and ballot access hurdles hindering Buffalo DSA’s political independence, the campaign nonetheless shows potential to build toward a true workers’ party. For too long, Republicans and Democrats alike have exploited our class and ignored our needs; Adam’s proud, socialist campaign offers us new ways to fight the capitalist status quo and agitate the masses.

Last, but not least, the incredible turnout we saw in this vote shows the strength of the American socialist movement, and of our organization. We urge all members and inspired supporters to help Buffalo DSA sustain our organizing–not just for Adam, but for our entire political project. This is our chance to build on our momentum for Good Cause Eviction and the New York Health Act, and continue to support workplace organizing and the labor movement.

We need you. Join DSA today and get involved in our committee work, to learn the same skills and principles that brought Adam’s campaign to life.

On Halloween, the Illinois General Assembly voted on a $1.5 billion funding package for public transit in Chicago. This budget funds the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and PACE, in addition to replacing the Regional Transportation Authority with a new board, the Northern Illinois Transit Authority.

This legislation comes after the Illinois General Assembly failed to fund public transit during its regular session. CTA leadership, workers, and local leaders spent months raising the alarm. The CTA initially projected service cuts of 40%, including cutting more than half of its bus lines and ending or limiting service on most train lines. This apocalyptic estimate was revised down only after the CTA pledged to increase fares and received an infusion of cash from the Regional Transportation Authority.

As socialists, it shouldn’t be surprising that a state government led not by working people, but by an “actual billionaire”, didn’t bring this crisis to a just conclusion.

Instead of rushing to fund the city’s transit, a system nearly a million riders rely on every day, the state government – led by Governor J.B. Pritzker – played a game of chicken with leaders of the city and the CTA by hammering out agreements in private up until the last moment, leaving the fate of workers in Chicago uncertain.

After passing legislation in the eleventh hour, the governor expects us to applaud his benevolence in not firing the gun he pointed at the heads of the city’s workers. He deserves no credit for averting a catastrophe he helped engineer.

While the increase in the CTA’s budget has been lauded by political leaders in the Democratic Party, it comes at a cost to working people. The methods of revenue raising – sales taxes, toll roads, and increased fares – all come directly from the pocket of workers in Illinois. These regressive taxes place yet more of the state’s tax burden on working class people while the wealthiest people in our state escape paying their fair share, including a proposed tax on the investments of billionaires that was killed by Pritzker himself.

As the leading socialist organization in Chicago, CDSA has fought for full funding of the CTA and democratic control of our transit. We cannot be satisfied with any budget that forces workers who are given less and less to pay more and more. Until we win a democratic economy controlled by the working class, our minimum demand remains the same no matter what budget crisis threatens our communities: Tax the rich.

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are calling on the Milwaukee Common Council to overrule Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s veto of a 4% raise for city workers.

The mayor’s veto comes days after the Milwaukee Common Council—with the vocal support of DSA-endorsed Alderman Alex Brower—voted 13-1 to increase the raises in Mayor Johnson’s proposed budget, which initially only included a 2% pay increase for general city employees. Despite this overwhelming support for the 4% raise, the mayor used his veto pen Tuesday to drop the raises to 3%.

by Donald Martell

Everyone who showed up to the No Kings protests on October 18, 2025, realizes that on some level there is something very wrong with where this country is headed and how it is operating right now. But I want to emphasize that while something IS deeply wrong with this country, this cannot come as a surprise. Political, social, and economic repression have always been a part of the social fabric of this country. We are a nation founded on the removal and genocide of Native Americans, governed by laws written by men who kept slaves while hypocritically boasting the creation of a state where “All men are created equal.”

What we are seeing today—political opponents being unfairly targeted, talk of rigging the 2026 and 2028 elections, our Black and brown neighbors being snatched up off the streets by masked thugs regardless of their immigration status, and a GENOCIDE happening in Gaza—all of it is connected. That is what our “democracy” has delivered us. It’s time we all wake up and realize this country has never been a true democracy and has always been a country by the rich and for the rich. This is why I declare myself a democratic socialist. I believe in everyone having a voice and being lifted up so they can use that voice, and I believe in every single human’s right to healthcare, housing, education, food, water, and democracy both in and out of the workplace.

Imagine that in the poorest neighborhoods of Detroit, Atlanta, and Chicago, you could find a public park with glistening swimming pools, world-class sports and recreation facilities, and spectacular landscape architecture rather than vacant lots. If you are a single mother, rather than being forced to lug your clothes blocks away to pay to wash your clothes, you can come to a public, well-maintained, space to do your laundry for free while you eat delicious food grown at the agroecological garden nearby. Meanwhile, your children can learn how to swim, attend workshops on how to grow food in the city, hit up the planetarium to learn how Mayan Cosmology relates to the Big Bang, hang out at the skate park, or take a guitar lesson.

As you eat your lunch and do your laundry, there is a staffer whose job it is to talk to you and be on the lookout for any whiff of domestic violence in your life. If you are dealing with domestic violence, right next door is a counselor who can help you. Imagine in this scenario, somewhere in the most gutted sections of U.S. cities, you can have access to an expert lawyer should you need one. Regardless of what you’re dealing with at home, you are welcome to see the massage therapist and acupuncturist in this same public building, a space for women known as Casa Siemprevivas. She doesn’t just provide you with bodywork, but will teach these practices to fifteen of your neighbors and friends so that you can use this space for peer-support bodywork circles. These are spaces where emotional release through laughter and crying are encouraged. All of this is free and funded by the government.

Robert Blatchford (1851 – 1943) was an English socialist and editor of The Clarion, which sprang up a number of socialist cultural organizations including the National Clarion Cycling Club, hiking clubs, and theater groups.

In Merrie England, first published in The Clarion, Blatchford writes to the “practical working man,” John Smith of Oldham, making the case for socialism. The book is written in an accessible and humorous style. It was said that “for every convert made by ‘Das Kapital,’ there were a hundred made by ‘Merrie England.’”

I’ve paid my $5 a month to DSA since about 2020, attending one General Meeting but always ending up finding one reason or another not to really get involved. After moving to Detroit this summer, I pulled up the Detroit DSA Events page and told myself it was time to stop sitting on the sidelines. I’d spent years agreeing with the principles, nodding along online, but I wanted to actually meet people and be part of the work.

Organizing 101 felt like a good first step — a way to connect what I believe with what I do.

At its heart, Organizing 101, based on the Labor Notes book Secrets of a Successful Organizer, is about connection. The series introduced the foundations of union organizing — how to move from appreciating the idea of a union to the practical, everyday skills we need to bring people together and build solidarity in our workplaces. Before Zoom calls and printing stickers, organizing begins with talking to your coworkers.

Standing on Woodward Avenue, trying to hold a poster that read “Solidarity with Starbucks Workers” in just the right way so the wind wouldn’t take it out of my hand, I smiled and waved along with my comrade, KC, as the first car turned in. As the car started to get into the line for the drive-through, the driver stopped and rolled her window down and asked what was going on.

“There’s a strike happening!” I answered, as KC stepped forward, handing the woman a small flier. We explained that Starbucks stores across the country were striking for a better contract, and that we were asking people to consider getting their coffee elsewhere for the duration of the strike.

“Hell yeah. I can absolutely go somewhere else today,” the woman responded, looking up from the flier. She exited the drive-through line, drove around the building, and honked and cheered as she turned back into the main road.

Although not every interaction for the rest of the day was as positive as the first, the community responded resoundingly positively. Some people in the drive-through line refused to roll their windows down, and others walking into the store took longer paths around the parking lot to avoid walking by us, but a truly surprising number of people were interested in hearing about the union.

Although many of the people that we spoke to had already paid for a mobile order and did not want to go through the process of cancelling, they enthusiastically said that they would not come back until after the strike was over. Those that had yet to put in an order were excited to chat through options for local coffee shops nearby after hearing about the strike.

In general, people seemed curious and willing to engage. Many had not heard about the strike and wanted to hear about the demands of the workers. One woman we spoke to told us that she was part of a union, and that her union had just won a new contract, so she was happy to help others do the same.

Cars driving by honked and waved when they saw us standing outside the shop. Over a dozen people decided to go somewhere else for the day, and even more pledged not to come back. We ran out of fliers in about an hour, and I headed home feeling more connected to my community, hopeful about the future, and confident that Starbucks workers would get the contract that they deserved.

In the past few years, labor unions have reached a level of popular support that they hadn’t seen since the 1960s, but many people still have a stereotypical view of labor unions as being only possible for certain types of jobs. As fewer Americans are employed in things like manufacturing, the image of what a union job can be also needs to change. The current strike action by Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) is not only an opportunity for workers to fight for their own dignity and a fair contract, but also a great opportunity to demonstrate to a receptive public that workers in different sectors can successfully organize and improve their material conditions.

If my experience is any indication, many people that are headed to Starbucks are people that would have little opportunity to engage with the labor movement otherwise. Many people simply didn’t know that Starbucks workers had a union, much less that Starbucks Workers United was on strike. By standing in solidarity with SBWU during this strike, socialists can engage more working class Americans who are already sympathetic and help convert popular support to tangible wins.

As someone who is newer to the chapter, getting involved was very easy. Simply join the Labor Working Group Slack to get updates from the DSA Starbucks solidarity committee and find an action that you are able to attend. As noted, the community has been largely receptive, so don’t be scared to come out and speak with your neighbors about how they can help!

To support Starbucks workers, commit to boycotting Starbucks for the duration of the strike by signing their No Contract, No Coffee pledge, or donate to the strike fund.

Last week, congressional candidate George Hornedo attended an event organized by local organizations The Big Homie and Allies for Humanity and hosted at the Central IN DSA office. Afterwards, he made an Instagram post giving a shout-out to CINDSA and the event organizers. We would like to clarify that this was not a DSA event and that Central IN DSA has absolutely no relationship with Mr. Hornedo. George Hornedo, who would not commit to rejecting AIPAC money, is a staunch Zionist, a belief counter to the core values of DSA. In fact, on his website, Mr. Hornedo has accused DSA of being antisemitic terrorists due to our anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine principles. Given this strong perspective on DSA, we find his praise of our chapter surprising. If anything, it seemed his main goal in attending the event was an attempt to access our voter access network (VAN) records for his campaign, which the democratic party has denied him access to. Mr. Hornedo also proposes deregulation for crypto and the expansion of the data centers driving up the energy bills of ordinary people, benefiting corporations to the detriment of working and impoverished people. If George Hornedo truly wished to help hungry Hoosiers, he would advocate for policies that give money to working people, not corporations and genocidal regimes.

If you want to build a word that serves working people, not corporations JOIN DSA! dsausa.org/join

At the 2025 DSA National Convention, Democratic Left hosted a writing workshop for members which focused on writing chapter reports. We will be publishing reports from over a dozen states over the coming weeks. You can find the first collection, focusing on immigrant-rights campaigns here.

Twin Cities DSA by Aaron Wagner

MAPE, the largest union of Minnesota state workers, has endorsed Twin Cities DSA-endorsed state senator Omar Fateh for Mayor of Minneapolis. Typically the union stays out of municipal elections, but makes an exception for members and former members. After the TC-DSA Labor branch learned that Fateh was a former member they pushed the union’s PAC to endorse. The large number of DSA members in MAPE ensured that the endorsement was debated. This work bolstered the reform efforts inside the union that DSA members are spearheading. This shows that electoral and labor work inform and help one another.

Columbus DSA by Catherine Pearce

Columbus DSA is rebuilding its political momentum by forming its first campaign since early last year. Our campaign, Democracy in Columbus, will be supporting this momentum by building the skills of our members to regularly participate in organizing actions as well as creating an amendment to our city’s charter to create real districts in our city. This amendment will make it so that our city council members will actually be representative of the districts they elected for. This will make it easier for the future of not only electoral work in our area, but also the long term development of our members.

NYC-DSA by Josh Youngerman

NYC DSA is running Zohran Mamdani for mayor. The reason for running him is that there is a chance to elect a democratic socialist. After winning the democratic nomination, we are beginning the process of knocking on doors for the General Election. This furthers the socialist movement because by electing Zohran mayor, we can gain traction to elect more Socialist mayors around the country.

Tampa DSA by Magalys Oro-Fernandez

Tampa DSA is a medium-sized chapter that has been growing in response to our country’s current political landscape. We are organizing around public transit because just as our chapter has been growing, so has our city, and our total car-dependency has never been more apparent. Our fare-free campaign is quite ambitious, a lesson in and of itself, teaching us how to slow down in order to accelerate our socialism. The transit campaign helps further the socialist movement because there’s few symbols as democratic as the bus: a vehicle for the people, child or elder or in between, funded by the people’s taxpayer money to benefit their community and natural environment.

Delaware DSA by Philip Bannowsky

A divided chapter struggles to unite around a cultural commemoration of the Nakba. Members promoted this event to give representation to Palestinian voices and to engage diverse organizations around a key issue. They organized by asking various state organizations to cosponsor and recruited artists to perform their own and Palestinian work. Some learned that we needed more control over participants while others learned to avoid bureaucratic quibbling. Some believed the project advanced militancy while others learned to build broader coalitions independently.

Indiana DSA by Jackie H.

Northwest Indiana DSA stands as an attempted oasis within a heavily dispersed & alienated population. NWI is a group of small rust belt cities with no central metropolitan area- a challenge that strains the limited capacity of our small chapter. At NWI DSA we work to effectively mobilize our capacity by joining with other grassroots struggles like with our local Palestine actions, and leading smaller activities where able to grow our chapter and build a community presence. The latter strategy is embodied by our upcoming medical debt buy-back campaign, where our chapter will raise a relatively small amount of money to relieve a large multiple of debt for the struggling indebted healthcare receivers. We also strongly value political education, and have seen great success in developing members with our chapter reading group and interactive presentations.

Rochester DSA by Gregory Lebens-Higgins

Rochester DSA is a healthy and growing chapter. One of our ongoing priority campaigns, run by our City Vitality Working Group in coalition with allies, is called Grant’s Pass Resistance, premised on opposition to the Supreme Court ruling legalizing the criminalization of homelessness. The campaign is built around awareness and outreach. Speak to Council sessions are used to voice support for public housing and social welfare policies, while outreach bridges the gap with the community we aim to serve. An important lesson has been the formation of coalitions—when working in coalition, it is important to maintain an organized democratic space (a la Robert’s Rules), just as within chapter deliberations. Often, this requires DSA representatives stepping up, as other groups may lack structure. In Rochester, this coordination introduces allied organizations to DSA’s democratic principles of organizing, and organizing with the homeless population expands our definition of the working class.

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Este fin de semana, la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza, fuerza policiaca personal de Trump, empezará a ocupar nuestra ciudad y secuestrar a nuestros vecinos para terrorizar a la comunidad inmigrante e intimidarnos a quienes nos oponemos. Charlotte Metro DSA condena esta invasión. Nos mantenemos en solidaridad con la clase trabajadora de todas las naciones . Lucharemos contra esta invasión con toda la gente de consciencia.

Estos ataques son parte de una historia larga del estado fomentando la división entre personas de la clase trabajadora para debilitar y amenazar a nuestras comunidades con agentes armados cuando parecemos demasiado fuertes.

Previamente en este año, iniciamos nuestra campaña para boicotear a Avelo. La aerolínea Avelo es una aerolínea de bajo costo que está bajo contrato con ICE para llevar a cabo vuelos de deportaciones. Estamos pidiendo a la gente que participe en el boicot para generar presión a la empresa y la Ciudad de Concord, ciudad de donde despegan los vuelos, para que cesen el contrato. Con este fin llevaremos a cabo una protesta el día 29 alrededor del aeropuerto Concord-Padgett, les invitamos a que se nos unan.

Otros grupos de la comunidad están trabajando activamente para luchar contra este fenómeno.

Por favor revisen y utilicen la red de migrantes de las Carolinas y su línea directa para reportar secuestros (704) 740-7737

Y también visiten Siembra NC para obtener detalles sobre el entrenamiento en vigilancia de ICE el 17 de noviembre.

Nuestro objetivo es organizar y unir a la ciudad para resistir estos secuestros. Por favor acérquese a nosotros para colaborar o involucrarse.

En Solidaridad,

El Comité Directivo de Charlotte Metro DSA

English

Today, Customs & Border Patrol, Trump’s personal police force, will begin occupying our city and abducting our neighbors to terrorize the immigrant community and cow domestic opposition. Charlotte Metro DSA condemns this invasion. We stand in solidarity with the working class of all nations. We will fight this invasion with all people of conscience.

These attacks are a part of the long history of capital & its state fomenting divisions among the working class to keep us weak and siccing armed agents on us and our communities when we appear too strong.

Earlier this year we began our Boycott Avelo campaign. Avelo airlines is a budget airline that has a contract with ICE for deportation flights. We are asking people to boycott the company and help us put pressure on the company and the City of Concord where they fly out of to get them to drop the contract. To that end, we’ll be having a protest on the 29th by the Concord-Padgett airport. We invite you to join us.

Other groups in the community have also been actively fighting back. Please check out the Carolina Migrant Network and use their hotline to report abductions: (704) 740-7737.

See Siembra NC for details about their upcoming ICE Watch trainings.

We aim to organize and unite the city to resist these abductions. Please reach out to collaborate or get involved.

In Solidarity,

The Charlotte Metro DSA Steering Committee

The following remarks were made at the No Reawaken America Tour (“RAT”) Teach-In, held August 13, 2022 at Austin Park in Batavia, NY. The RAT was a christian nationalist propaganda tour featuring Michael Flynn, Eric Trump, and other reactionaries and conspiracists. After public pressure from groups like ROC DSA, the event moved from Rochester to the Cornerstone Church in Batavia, where it was met by the continued resistance of the newly-formed Genesee County DSA and allies.

These were my first public remarks as a socialist (a “coming out,” if you will)—acting upon my beliefs as part of an organized mass working-class movement. It was an empowering experience, and one that we try to recreate for others in the pages of Rochester Red Star. Although much has changed over the intervening three years, the themes expressed here continue to ring true. A recording of these remarks is available here: bit.ly/norat-wny.

On Monday, September 22, 2025, grassroots unions and student organizations throughout Italy successfully organized a general strike in just a few days. The strike coincided with the passage of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The Flotilla constituted a group of boats with activists from all over the world, from Brazil to the United Kingdom and beyond, intending to reach Gaza with aid to break the Israeli government’s blockade.

The bold actions of Italian grassroots unions pushed overwhelming pressure on the Italian government and other political institutions. The Italian government eventually sent two warships alongside the Flotilla. The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), the biggest confederated labor union in Italy, would join militant organizers in a general strike on October 3rd. The results were staggering – hundreds of thousands flooded the streets.