Socialism

DSA has many important points to make about democracy and the Constitution. In 2021, we published a political platform that included demands to abolish the Senate and Electoral College through a second constitutional convention. Two years later, YDSA passed the Winning the Battle For Democracy resolution at its national convention, arguing, “The United States is run by and for the capitalist class, and this class rule takes the specific form of the liberal-constitutional regime outlined in the Constitution.” The resolution asks DSA to “take up a stance of opposition to the Constitution” by “openly indicting it as anti-democratic and oppressive.” Importantly, DSA electeds were encouraged to take “concrete actions to advance the struggle for a democratic republic” and a democratic constitution.

Earlier this year, Cleveland DSA passed the “Winning the Battle for Democracy” resolution at its annual convention. Soon after, San Diego DSA passed the “For a Democratic Constitution” resolution, explaining that the Constitution stands in the way of achieving any of the goals in the 2021 platform. Finally, the preamble for DSA’s 2024 Program reads, “Our goal is to put workers in charge of the government through a new democratic constitution that establishes civil, political, and democratic rights for all, is based on proportional representation in a single federal legislature, and ends the role of money in politics.”

In the face of Trump’s return to office, DSA must meet the moment and synthesize our existing democratic demands into one coherent six-point plan in addition to our Workers Deserve More program. This People’s Petition would demand that all legislative powers be vested in a unicameral legislature elected by universal and equal suffrage of all adult residents and citizens of the U.S. through a proportional representation system. It would demand the abolition of the presidential veto and the Electoral College, the election of the president by popular vote, public financing for all elections, lowering the minimum voting age to sixteen, and forming a democratically-elected constituent assembly to draft a democratic constitution.

In the face of a $125 million campaign by the landlords and their politician allies, statewide ballot measure Proposition 33 received about 40% of the vote, with Proposition 5, the other ARCH campaign-supported initiative, garnering a slightly larger share of the vote.

This disappointing result in the third attempt since 2018 to strengthen local rent control in a state ballot reflected a negative environment for progressive issues, as initiatives raising the minimum wage and eliminating prison inmate slavery also failed.

Significant achievements

Yet, the California DSA campaign had some significant achievements, activating canvassing operations in San Diego, Long Beach and North Central Valley; coordinating with DSA-endorsed candidates in the East Bay, San Francisco and Los Angeles; and engaging DSA members and others through effective social media. CA DSA organized a state Digital Day of Action and sponsored a well-attended virtual kick-off event that brought 100 activists together to plot out local organizing. Taking advantage of national DSA resources, many chapters were able to conduct their own canvasses and phonebanks that raised the profile of DSA in those areas.

Scaling up democratic ownership: Adapting the employee ownership model to build truly democratic businesses

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-11-05/scaling-up-democratic-ownership-adapting-the-employee-ownership-model-to-build-truly-democratic-businesses/

@socialism

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/5104125

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Two trade unionists in Hong Kong - Carol Ng, Chair of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), and Winnie Yu, President of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance (HAEA) - were given prison terms of four years, five months, and six years, nine months, respectively.

The trade unionists are among 47 pro-democracy defenders who were arrested for participating in elections in 2020 to select candidates for the Legislative Council elections. Sixteen of them who had pleaded not guilty, including Winnie Yu, were convicted in May.

ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle said: “Firstly, we must never forget that trade unionists are not criminals. Secondly, the United Nations as part of its human rights mandate protects trade unions and their right to freedom of association, including defending and fighting for democracy.

“We denounce the criminalisation of trade unionists for standing for democracy. These severe prison sentences given to Carol Ng and Winnie Yu for taking part in elections as part of their trade union work are inexcusable.

“Their persecution through the courts under the guise of national security is a gross violation of international labour standards.”

“We urge the Chinese and Hong Kong government to repeal the National Security Law in compliance with the findings of the ILO supervisory bodies and the UN Human Rights Committee, and release all imprisoned trade unionists.”

At the local level, we proved that socialism isn’t just popular in Los Angeles, it’s an unstoppable force. As it became clear that Harris had lost, the polls closed on the West Coast and we saw the first numbers in Los Angeles. Never was the divide so apparent than when we announced the landslide victories of DSA-LA endorsed Karla Griego for LAUSD School Board (BD5) and Ysabel Jurado for LA City Council (CD14), while on the NBC screen behind us Harris supporters abandoned the campaign HQ.

This puts us in a unique position electorally in Los Angeles, with an exciting path opening up for DSA-LA. We’ve now won more than a quarter of the seats in both LA City Council and LAUSD School Board—4 out of 15 and 2 out of 7 respectively—the strongest hold of any DSA chapter in the country percentage wise. At the same time, our candidates remain a growing yet minority block that cannot pass transformative policy without appealing to the broader progressive and centrist members of their legislative body. But still, our candidates finish first in their primaries and then go on to double digit victories in the general, if they don’t win outright in the first round like Eunisses Hernandez or Nithya Raman. Or they get the most votes in their city’s history like Konstantine Anthony in Burbank.

First, as noted above, most U.S. workers report some form of electronic monitoring on the job, with more than two-thirds (68 percent) of U.S. workers reporting at least one form of electronic monitoring. Overall rates of electronic worker surveillance cut across occupational and industry lines, and were just as common among blue collar workers as among white collar workers—though the specific types of surveillance varied by the kind of work. One of the strongest predictors of the adoption of electronic surveillance was employer size: workers in larger organizations were substantially more likely to report all forms of surveillance than were workers in small organizations.

Second, I found very strong relationships between certain forms of electronic monitoring and worker health and safety. In particular, I found that workers who reported more intensive electronic productivity monitoring at their jobs were substantially more likely to report anxiety at work; needing to work at unsafe speeds; and experiencing work-related injuries in the past year, especially serious injuries. These differences persist even after accounting for a range of workers’ own demographic characteristics, as well as characteristics of their jobs and workplaces. The association between electronic monitoring and negative health and safety outcomes for workers across all sectors of the economy—not just those receiving attention in the past, such as warehousing—strongly calls for policy attention and action.