The resolution For a more Robust, Democratic, and Powerful Twin Cities DSA was co-authored by myself (Brooke B), Shane M, and Sean M (full disclosure – Sean is my husband, although involved in different areas of the chapter in different ways than I am), with input from other comrades in the areas of organizing we touch on in the resolution.
Internal Organizing
Internal Organizing was the first area of interest to all three of us. I believe that no matter which external campaigns we choose to focus on, or how much we hone in on our strategy, we will not be as successful as we could be until we dedicate more attention to our chapter-wide Internal Organizing. Imagine how powerful we could be if we retained a higher percentage of our members who joined last year or five years ago, helped more of our leaders avoid burnout because we share the load, and actually grew our active membership every month. Our capacity would be through the roof!
In the past year, I have been involved in many areas of the chapter to varying degrees – Soc Fems, the Roof Depot fight and EJ work, Street Corps, Pol Ed, Labor, and Steering Committee. I have not participated in Electoral or Rent Control, but some of my organizing has had overlap with those groups. So many of the issues our comrades bring up in those groups relate to capacity and burnout. I have a bit of prior experience with that – not in a leftist organization, but in my previous workplaces as a nurse. In a profession where the work is incredibly important and most nurses come to it with passion for the job, not unlike our socialist organizing, burnout is so likely it’s talked about as inevitable, and turnover is high, leading to “capacity” issues. While capitalism and corporate healthcare keep workers from always being able to make meaningful changes to resolve those issues, we in TCDSA have the ability and the opportunity to invest what we need to in order to improve our capacity, reduce our burnout, and increase our effectiveness as a mass socialist org.
I have not been personally involved in the Internal Organizing Committee, but I know my comrades there have been working hard to reach out to new members to get them plugged in, and to members whose dues have recently lapsed, and their work makes a difference. With more resources and attention dedicated to IO, I believe they will be even more successful, and also be able to expand their efforts. That might look like offering more robust new member resources, creating systems that other groups (WGs, Committees, Branches) can use to help them with their onboarding and retention, or partnering with groups like Pol Ed to provide more education and skills-sharing to help our comrades feel like they are prepared to participate in the org to the fullest. Those are just examples of possibilities, but I trust my comrades in Internal Organizing and the rest of the chapter to use their judgment on what strategies will be most effective if their work is prioritized. To this end, the three At-Large Steering Committee members should also be prepared to engage with the Internal Organizing Committee and be available to members for representation on the Steering Committee or to receive feedback per the bylaws.
Steering Committee Transparency
Democracy and transparency are not easy. This is part of what we tell new folks in our monthly TCDSA 101s. It’s not easy, and it’s not always fast, but it’s important. As a current member of the Steering Committee, I believe there are some simple ways we can improve the Committee’s transparency practices. One of them is related to our communications platforms, Slack and Signal. There have been many discussions about the benefits or drawbacks of Slack, but for now it is the chapter’s official platform, and addresses some of the transparency issues the Steering Committee faces right now. This current Steering Committee first discussed this question of democracy, engagement, and transparency related to our platforms almost exactly a year ago. I know my comrades on SC are just as dedicated to all of those values as I am. However, in the last year, the practices have been difficult to change, which is why this resolution addresses them. Regular members have the ability and authority to engage with the Steering Committee, to request agenda items for discussion or vote, and to be informed of decisions that are made in between meetings. That cannot be done if those discussions, agendas, and votes take place on a private Signal chat.
The same principles apply to other organizing efforts within the chapter. When I first joined the chapter last year, I opened Slack (as I was instructed to) and was disappointed because I thought TCDSA was doing basically nothing. It wasn’t until I met folks in person at a rally, handed out my phone number, and asked (and waited) to be added to a specific Signal group that I realized how much organizing was happening. Those extra hoops to get onto Signal might just be enough to stop new members from becoming active at all. Modifying our habits around how we communicate digitally can be a simple way to help with our Internal Organizing and capacity-building. Today, the Slack channels are much more active, which is great, although I share folks’ concerns about potential overload. However, those problems are not limited to Slack – just the other day I had 50 unread messages from one Signal chat in a little over two hours, and that’s not uncommon nowadays. The next steps are to make sure everyone feels comfortable using Slack (how to navigate, compress discussions into threads, customize notifications, join channels, use DMs, search for comrades, etc.), and coming up with strategies for moderating (keeping out bots/trolls, cleaning up unused channels, keeping announcements to relevant channels, etc.). As part of helping the Steering Committee and the rest of the chapter engage with one another on Slack, I personally plan to help create and implement education and training around Slack via the Pol Ed Committee, with the help of guides that were already made by comrades in Tech Ops.
Labor and Electoral
This section on Labor and Electoral has appeared to confuse some of our comrades, or even be off-putting. I hope to provide some clarity here. My thoughts behind this part of the resolution are simple – Labor and Electoral organizing are clear priorities of TCDSA, and seem to have been for quite some time. I want to empower those groups to continue organizing, without imposing a particular strategy, beyond what was passed at the National Convention this year. I also want the rest of the chapter to know that Labor and Electoral are doing great work already, and those groups are fully capable of improving upon and developing their strategies internally to be in line with TCDSA’s goals. I am one of the current co-chairs of the Labor Branch, and am surrounded by experienced labor organizers, union enthusiasts, and longtime dedicated socialists. My comrades there give me advice, history lessons, strategic guidance, and personal anecdotes regularly – all of that is taken into account in how I have navigated being co-chair this year, and I wanted to approach this resolution in the same spirit. I applaud the work they are doing, and trust them to continue with the knowledge that their efforts will be prioritized and recognized by the chapter. Regarding the Electoral Committee, I am not active there so I have no experience with the internal workings of the Committee. But I see DSA-endorsed socialists winning elections, filling up city council candidate slots, and putting themselves out there to help us achieve organizing victories. So to me, the Electoral Committee is doing something right over there. And I would love for them to continue with that great work, also knowing that their efforts are prioritized and recognized.
“Success” is apparently a charged word within this resolution as well. Yes, we could always be more “successful” with our labor and electoral organizing – all the way up until the point we achieve true socialism. There will always be things to improve upon, even when we get to that point. The Labor Branch, for instance, has been on an internal journey to improve its strategies, its meetings, its engagement, its impacts, and so on, for months now. My aim with this small part of the resolution is to let Labor and Electoral continue to do that internal work to figure out where they can improve, knowing they always have the support of the chapter more broadly.
Environmental Justice Organizing
For more disclosures, I originally joined TCDSA with the hope of organizing around climate change (that’s what I devote most of my waking hours to in my occupation as an artist). At the time there was not an active Eco Socialist Working Group, and seemingly no active EJ campaigns. At the end of last year, the Roof Depot fight emerged as a chapter priority campaign. One thing that fight showed us, along with other fights centered around climate change, is how much EJ organizing overlaps with other socialist priorities, and how it can pull people together from across the entire spectrum of the working class. On that merit alone, the work of the Environmental Justice Working Group (aka EPNI WG) should be prioritized. Add to that the critical and urgent nature of the climate crisis, and it seems all the more reasonable to make EJ organizing a feature of our chapter, similar to Labor and Electoral. At the time of writing the resolution, the EJ Working Group had decided internally to prioritize the HERC campaign (shutting down the hugely problematic Hennepin County trash incinerator), because it is an important worthwhile fight with urgent timelines, affecting folks in North Minneapolis. Meanwhile, it was also decided that a small group (currently three people) would simultaneously work on building up the campaign around the Twin Cities Boulevard (Re-Imagining I-94) in coalition with Our Streets and other organizations – a big-infrastructure campaign with longer term timelines and some more groundwork to do, and also important due to the implications on largely BIPOC, marginalized communities along the I-94 corridor. This section of the resolution does not change what the EJ Working Group has already decided in terms of its priorities, it merely reflects them. Nor does it spread the group out too thin – the EJ Working Group agreed internally on what its own capacity looks like, and will continue to monitor that as time goes on. This resolution simply aims to elevate the crisis of climate change and its related organizing via the EJ Working Group to the level that it deserves – a priority, and a strategic one at that.
Please support this resolution
Overall, our goal is to help uplift the work that our comrades are already doing in key areas, giving them more support to help them and the chapter be more successful. Alongside that, we provided suggestions on practices that aim to improve transparency within the chapter, especially around leadership, in order to increase the engagement of our members and therefore live up to our democratic values. I hope this has helped to clarify any of the confusions or concerns around certain points in this resolution and the intentions behind them. Please support this resolution!
Solidarity,
From Brooke B