Building Up Blog October 2023 - Groundwork DSA — Groundwork: Towards a Socialist Future

Welcome to Building Up!

Welcome to Groundwork’s Inaugural Monthly Newsletter, Building Up. Here we’ll share our perspective about National DSA internal politics and the NPC, as well as highlight efforts Groundwork supporters are doing across the country and ways that you can get involved in our campaigns! Make sure to read to the end for a fun surprise!

September NPC Meeting Recap

Every month, DSA’s highest decision making body, the National Political Committee, meets to make decisions about organizational matters, voting on various resolutions that function as national DSA policies. In September, the newly elected 2023-2025 NPC met for the first time.

The Good:

Successful measures Groundwork supported included approving grants to DSA chapters to support local Green New Deal campaigns, a national program to phonebank DSA members for income-based solidarity dues through the end of this year, and a timeline for the NPC co-chair election.

Rose and Frances brought forward amendments to ensure the success of the new Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Campaign Committee (TRBACC) and the For Our Rights Committee (FORC). This included ensuring the TRBACC leadership included trans people and women; as unamended, it had put forward only cis men.

The Bad:

DSA’s budget was the most prominent theme of the September NPC meeting. With a deficit of $1.6 million and an additional $2.2 million in spending authorized by convention, building DSA into a fully funded organization will be a key task of the NPC’s next term.

While this will require initiatives to solve, one easy step would be to end the $120,000 a year NPC Steering Committee stipends. These stipends were intended to enable Steering Committee members to cut down on time at work in order to focus more on DSA tasks, but as most SC members do not have jobs whose hours they can control, it was mostly considered ineffective.

To help DSA prioritize more vital funding needs like staff salaries, and grants enabling chapter work, Rose put forward a motion to suspend these stipends.

9 NPC members voted it down, 8-9.

Similarly, we supported a resolution that would prioritize protecting staff from any potential layoffs—a standard concern for any organization in which budget issues are being discussed in public. Staff fulfill critical administrative and organizing functions that keep the organization afloat, and deserve to know that DSA leadership will work to protect their livelihoods and engage in good faith.

9 NPC members voted it down, 9-6.5

Coming out of convention, members felt a widespread mood of gratitude for a major DSA deliberation (mostly) free of the kind of public infighting that has damaged DSA over the years. To help build structures that would continue this, Cara authored a resolution which would have set forth a collective communications policy for NPC members, ensuring coordination on public facing press.

This would give much-needed foundations to move beyond the NPC’s current lassiez faire policy towards our communications with the general public, into one more fitting of the kind of party infrastructure members voted to build at convention.

10.5 NPC members voted it down, 10.5-6.5

As our term continues, Groundwork NPC members are continuing to highlight the need for clear and consistent policy in order to best serve DSA’s goals as a mass organization, from external comms and publications to how supporters engage internally. Let’s build a DSA we can all be proud of!

Looking Ahead to Next NPC Meeting

This Sunday’s full NPC meeting will yet again be full of debate and decision making. One of the most consequential of which will be voting on the job descriptions for both the NPC Co-Chairs and the NLC Co-Chairs. Also of note, Frances has put forward a resolution to have a holistic process for determining liaisons and chairs for national committees and working groups. We’ll also be debating and voting on an “Open Budgeting” process put forward by Laura W. of Bread and Roses, and election procedures for the Editorial Board and the Democracy Commission. Be sure to tune in!

Building Out

Hot Labor summer continues into the fall! For the first time ever, the United Auto Workers has targeted the big three US automakers—GM, Ford, and Stellantis—with strikes. DSA members across the country have mobilized to show solidarity with workers on picket lines. You love to see it.

Meanwhile, another historic strike is coming to a close. For the first time since the 60s, both the Writers and Actors unions went on strike and the Writers Guild recently announced that they had a tentative agreement. From streaming residuals to protection against AI, the agreement shows that strikes work! The Actors are still on strike and will hopefully win an equally strong TA.

Starting immediately with the strike announcement, DSA-LA launched THE SNACKLIST, which has since raised over $80,000 from thousands of donations across the globe. Looking to engage our local membership, DSA-LA launched THE SNACKPACK, which recruited DSA members to make deliveries and drop off of funds at the ten picket lines across the city. Since SAG-AFTRA joined the picket lines in July, DSA members have made over 400 deliveries of snacks, supplies and solidarity. Crucially, this program allowed members who worked 9-5 jobs, and couldn't join the picket lines, an opportunity to get involved before work or during their lunch break. The program has been a massive success, and done an incredible job connecting DSA members to workers on strike, specifically strike captains who are excited to get more involved with DSA work. While WGA members are considering a tentative agreement, SAG-AFTRA's strike continues and our work continues!

Local Groundworks

Recent DSA Chapter Accomplishments Groundwork supporters are leading, or heavily involved in

Atlanta: Our comrades in Atlanta DSA are hard at work on the Vote to Stop Cop City referendum campaign, which just collected 116,000 petition signatures to put Cop City on the ballot. Now they're struggling against anti-democratic maneuvering from Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who wants to invalidate the campaign petition and deny the people of Atlanta their right to a referendum. They are continuing to canvass and organize to build public support for putting Cop City on the ballot!

DC: Metro DC DSA’s Janeese Lewis George announced her campaign for a second term as DC Council member. Janeese played a major role in victories for DC’s working class, from last year’s landslide vote to eliminate tipped minimum wage, to last week’s $60 million increase to SNAP benefits for 100,000 people, including $20 million for excluded workers who had been denied them.

LA: Rocio Rivas One of DSA LA’s Socialists in Office passed a resolution that will begin to form policies for transparency and oversight over co-located charter schools in the school district she represents. Check out her awesome speech.

Ohio: In a huge victory, DSA chapters across Ohio helped defeat an anti-abortion ballot measure that would have made it harder to protect abortion rights. All seven of Ohio’s DSA chapters participated in this campaign. According to organizers on the ground, early support from the NEC and staff was critical in building engagement and excitement!

New York: In These Times published a deep dive into the history and strategy of DSA’s statewide campaign to pass the Build Public Renewables Act, which won earlier this year. If you want to see how our strategy fares in practice, this is a great example.

New Mexico: Santa Fe DSA and its endorsed candidate Alma Castro combined union organizing, electoral campaigning, and direct action to help workers at La Familia Medical Clinic not only win a union election, but oust the CEO trying to bust it. This is a great model of how small chapters can use the same kind of multifaceted strategy to win big!

Princeton YDSA: The Princeton YDSA chapter held a town hall with over 100 attendees in support of the service workers on campus bargaining for a better wage in their contract.