Authors
Shuvu Bhattarai (NYC DSA), Austin Ray Losinger-Eggiman (Boise DSA), Hwa Huang (Triangle DSA), Alex Reuter-Gameon (Boise DSA)
Preamble
The 2024 Election cycle is here. While the working class in the US are the most destitute and desperate that they/we’ve been in all of the 21st century, there is no candidate in either the Democratic or Republican party that represents our interests. A clear example of this was the bi-partisan crushing of the rail workers’ attempted strike. This prompted Railroad Workers United (RWU), a cross-union democratic organization of working railroaders, to publish their statement “The Democrat/Republican One-Two Punch to Rail”. They have recently reached out to worker organizations who signed their open letter to start the process of collectively organizing a General Assembly to launch a political campaign independent of the two capitalist parties.
There is no serious opposition to the Biden Presidency in the Democratic Party with progressives like Bernie Sanders and AOC having consolidated their support behind him. In his close to four years in office, Biden has betrayed almost all of his promises and ruthlessly spearheaded the interests of the capitalist class. Here are just a few examples:
- Build Back Better was cut and transformed into the concessionary Inflation Reduction Act, which opened up millions of acres of land for use by corporations.
- He approved the massive Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, which will fuel a level of climate change that will have disastrous effects for the working class, and disproportionately harm Black and Brown people around the world.
- Biden has expanded Trump’s war on migrant workers, doubling the number of migrant workers held in concentration camps and is now considering holding migrant families in “detention”.
- He has expanded the military budget to record highs, close to $1 Trillion, and unveiled the “Safer America Plan” which will expand the police budget by over $37 billion.
- Under his watch the Federal Reserve is pursuing a class war policy of raising interest rates in order to deliberately cause mass layoffs and lower wages.
- Under his disastrous COVID policy and his inability and unwillingness to support the working class, life expectancy has declined for two years in a row.
- He has broken the strike of rail workers and denied them paid sick leave.
On the other hand, the as of now main opposition to Biden, has come from the Republican Party which is profiting greatly from his low approval rating. The Republicans are rapidly transforming into a fascist party, with Donald Trump and its most militant wing led by the Freedom Caucus embracing the Great Replacement Theory, demonizing trans people and other oppressed groups while posturing as the party of peace and economic prosperity. The Republicans have also stacked the courts with their allies, gerrymandered districts and passed voter suppression laws to lay the groundwork for a victory come 2024. The Democrats are responding to the threat of a Republican Presidency not by appeals to the working class but by using state power to arrest their opposition which may have the contradictory effect of boosting Donald Trump’s chances of victory.
The capitalist class uses the Presidential elections alongside their control of the two parties to periodically launch mass political organizing campaigns based on lies and deceit in order to channel the anger and despair of the working class into spheres of controlled opposition. Despite whatever promises by either party or whoever wins, it is the dictates of Wall Street and the capitalist class that will determine the direction of the US government, unless the working class is able to intervene independently.
Decades of deceit alongside prolonged austerity has created a working class that is jaded. Rightfully so, faith in the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court are at an all time low. Both parties are hated by the working class, with 61 percent disliking the Republican Party, and 57 percent disliking the Democratic Party. Furthermore, over 56 percent would like to see an alternative to the two-party system, believing a new party representing their interest is needed. The working class is demanding an independent bottom-up movement, and at this moment it is up to the vanguard of the working class, the socialist and labor movement to live up to this demand.
While electeds who represent the working class are essential allies in our goal for emancipation and political power, the fundamental power of the working class lies outside of the State through Solidarity and Strike. Therefore every tactic must be geared towards developing the power of the working class, the power to organize, strike, and force the capitalist class to bend to its will and every tactic which reduces this power must be wholly rejected.
We must reject all attempts to push DSA, the largest socialist organization in the country, an organization with the ability to change the course of history, into blanket support of the Biden regime and the Democratic Party leadership. Instead, we must use our organization, the countless DSA members organizing in unions and other worker organizations, the members with incredible technical, artistic, and organizing expertise, and all of our members willing to put in work towards the cause of socialism to spark an independent mass movement of the working class during the 2024 Election.
The historical experience of the US working class, from the millions of undocumented workers who organized a mass protest wave in 2006, to the Wisconsin Capitol Occupation and the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, and the mass protest of tens of millions alongside insurrections in key cities through the George Floyd Protests, has proven the will of working class to engage in mass strike and protest for their interests. Conditions are even worse now! We must meet the needs of the moment!
What can we do? The ongoing labor and tenant organizing wave alongside an uptick in strike activity shows the re-emergence of mass action on a much smaller scale. The worker and socialist movement is also engaging in numerous single issue campaigns to fight austerity and police brutality, roll back climate change, empower immigrant workers, etc. These efforts must be united and amplified on the basis of an independent political platform to be used as a mass political organizing campaign with the goal of building for national mass protests and potential general strikes, especially with workers in critical industries.
Movements like this have been done before, sparked by a militant minority of the worker and socialist movement. Let us take inspiration from the great Chartist movement of 1838, which organized mass rallies and petition drives in city centers for 5 basic working class demands, united millions of workers, and built the first workers party in history. Let us take inspiration from the Occupy Movement, sparked by a handful of socialists who used the tactic of occupation to build general assemblies around the country and inserted socialist consciousness to the masses. Let us take inspiration from the Enough is Enough campaign, which despite its severe limitations and undemocratic structure, was able to use basic demands and the tactics of mass rallies and petition to rapidly build membership and build cross-union solidarity among the working class in the UK. Let us take inspiration from the George Floyd uprising, which proves that there is a strong will among the masses for radical change, and from the workers in France who are on strike and in the streets to protest austerity, which is also being imposed on the working class here.
Thereby Be It Resolved:
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- DSA will officially support the effort to organize a General Assembly of worker organizations, composed of unions, local unions, union caucuses, socialist groups, single issue groups, and other worker groups before November 1st 2023.
- The General Assembly will be open to worker organizations (an organization with a worker base) which support the points of unity contained in the Working Peoples Bill of Rights. The points are as follows:
- The Right to Fair Representation and Elections: All US taxpayers are eligible for citizenship. Outlaw gerrymandering and voter suppression laws, corporate donations, and make election day a federal holiday.
- The Right to Organize: End TAFT Hartley, Pass the PRO Act.
- The Right to Fair Wages and Time Off: Raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation, 4-day work week, and guaranteed sick time, vacation time, and parental leave for all.
- The Right to Fair Taxation: Institute a progressive income and wealth tax which raises taxes on the wealthy and lowers taxes for the working class.
- The Right to Fair Housing: Institute Rent Caps and Invest in Public Housing.
- The Right to Free Healthcare: Abolish private health insurance companies and create Free Public Health Insurance.
- The Right to Gender and Sexual Freedom: Guarantee LBGTQ+ Rights, including the right to gender-affirming healthcare, bodily autonomy, and reproductive healthcare for all.
- The Right to Climate Justice and Safe Infrastructure: Develop a 5 year plan to restructure the economy, phase out fossil fuels with a just transition for impacted workers, bring critical infrastructure such as railroads and utilities into public ownership, and execute the necessary investments to effectively combat climate change and transform our collapsing infrastructure.
- The Right to a Democratic and Public Banking System: Democratize the Federal Reserve and pass financial reform to protect the assets of working people.
- The Right to an Accountable Justice System and Safe Communities: Demilitarize and defund the police departments and establish democratic community control of policing.
- The Right to Peace: Revoking the power of the President to wage war without Congressional approval, negotiate peace with all countries and areas with which we are at war. Audit and defund the Pentagon, CIA, and the whole military-intelligence apparatus.
- The General Assembly’s purpose will be to gather the necessary forces to launch the Working People’s Bill of Rights Campaign and create the structures and values alignment necessary to organize mass strikes and protests around shared goals that would benefit the entire working class.
- Attendees to the General Assembly will be able to push forward amendments and add points to the Working People’s Bill of Rights, will vote for a central committee to lead the campaign, and another General Assembly in one year to decide on the campaign’s future, including the potential to build and establish a third party and a new form of unionism.
- Attendees will commit to convene regular organizing meetings within local organizing teams that will be created at the General Assembly. These local teams will be responsible for organizing and supporting sustained strikes and protests. The buckets of work different organizing teams take on may include organizing strikes within their own unions, providing support to strikers including mutual aid, fundraising, and picket line support, outreach and communications work to build the movement, political platform development, and protest organizing.
- The Working People’s Bill of Rights will serve as a mass political organizing tool, with rallies and mass petition drives being organized in cities and towns to build local general assemblies of the working class, with elected leadership, organizing rank and file workers across unions and the vast majority who are unorganized, developing general strike and strike support capacity in critical city and town centers.
- The General Assembly will be organized by a democratic central planning committee open to all participants who accept the points of unity outlined in the Working People’s Bill of Rights, alongside the following organizing teams to hash out the Assembly’s details:
- Graphics and Communications Team: To design and create a website for the Working People’s Bill of Rights General Assembly, create graphics, social media pages, and spread the news about the assembly online.
- Outreach Team: To create lists of and recruit worker organizations to the General Assembly.
- Logistics Team: To plan and execute the technical details of the General Assembly, vetting the organizations that apply to be part of the assembly, location and time, securing an area, agenda of the assembly, etc.
