First let me say that I have great respect for the work that the authors of this resolution do for this chapter. They are my valued comrades and I don’t advance these arguments to disparage them in any way, but in a spirit of comradely debate.
I believe this resolution does not provide a sharp enough or focused enough approach to the work we must do.
The resolution says – “Our current electoral and labor strategies and structures have proven successful and well invested in.”
I don’t believe this is accurate. While the original Truth North resolution provided the framework for us to begin recruiting worker leaders from UAW, Delta, Amazon and UPS and other work sites, we still don’t have a real base in the unions or in key workplaces. We can build that out in the next year if we have a focused approach, as is laid out in True Noth 2.0. Attracting, recruiting and retaining these working class leaders will take an enormous amount of work, but work that is well worth it for our organization. Resolution #2 says nothing about this.
In contrast, at the top of the action items in True North 2.0 we find this in bold type.
We must increase the number of workers, especially workers of color, who are members of TCDSA. Central to our long term success is daily contact and political work with workers on the job. There is no more important task than this for our chapter.
And further on, we find this.
All of our other good work will mean nothing if we do not have a strong base in the rank and file of the unions and working class in general. We will lose our political bearings over time without this connection.
Without a laser focus on this task, we will go off politically and won’t be able to withstand the coming political firestorm of 2024.
Resolution # 2 goes on to say, “dedicating resources to other key campaign opportunities”. For me this is simply too broad. What other key campaigns? The members of TCDSA don’t get a chance to name which campaign opportunities they want to invest in. One of the reasons we have been successful this past year is because we voted on and then acted on what our key priorities were. A weakness of TCDSA in the past has been lack of focus. I want to see us continue to stay focused and vote on what our key campaigns will be.
Lastly, I want to point to this sentence in Resolution #2.
Our chapter will prioritize the ongoing work of the Environmental Justice Working Group, centered around shutting down the HERC, and the Twin Cities Boulevard (Re-Imagining I-94)
I don’t believe we should place I-94 as a campaign on the same footing as the fight around the HERC. The HERC is far more developed and many more forces are involved. It is already a sharp conflict point with the ruling class of Minnesota. It’s winnable. It also quickly brings us into contact with working class fighters of color, exactly who we want to be fighting alongside. I believe it is worth planting seeds with the I-94 fight. It will clearly be a major fight between working class communities and the developer class down the road. But it would be a mistake at this point to prioritize it.
This chapter convention will debate two resolutions that attempt to give overall direction to our work. I believe Truth North 2.0 is far more concrete and provides the chapter with the opportunity to decide where it wants to spend our time and resources. This is not to say that other fights will not erupt- UBER/LYFT, a fight around the 3rd precinct, for example. We will plant seeds and adjust priorities. But focus on building multi-racial working class power is key to our success.
There are a number of things in this resolution that I agree with and I look forward to acting on at future chapter meetings.
From Kip H