Blog
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Post-Convention Reflections and Invitations from the Labor Branch
The Labor Branch Organizing Committee wants to share some reflections and opinions about the TCDSA Convention, and also invite you to an important labor event. On one hand, DSA union activists were understandably disappointed that our labor priority proposal did not make it in the top three priorities of the TCDSA Convention. On the other…
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Steering Committee Reflection from an Outgoing At-large Member
It has been an honor to have been able to serve this past year on the 2023-2024 Steering Committee of our chapter. It was a successful convention season, with a new chapter priorities process bearing a renewed focus for our chapter and elected leadership containing both incumbents and a slate of new chapter leadership. Furthermore,…
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Two Chapter Ex-parliamentarians Review the Convention
Deb K R Hi, comrades. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Debra Keefer Ramage or Debs (she/her pronouns.) I was one of the first co-chairs elected in 2016 under our then-new constitution and bylaws (which I also had a major hand in writing, so please forgive me if some of them…
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No Reform, No Ideas, Just Spending
On July 18th, 2024 the Minneapolis City Council voted 8 to 4 in favor of a massive 21% pay increase for the Minneapolis Police Department. Council Member Jamal Osman missed the vote but said he would have also voted in favor. Despite calls by critics, the contract does not reform the police except to grant…
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The Value of Trees and Labor
A version of this article was originally published in the Nokomis Messenger. MPRB Arborists maintain 600,000 trees that cover 29.8% of Minneapolis with an urban canopy. Recent rain, hail, and wind gusts, as well as the LiUNA 363 labor union strike, has highlighted the precarity of our tree canopy, as well as how much work…
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We Get What We Organize For: Smith Foundry Update
Background Smith Foundry is an iron foundry that manufactures iron castings in the East Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Smith began operations in 1923 but was purchased by Canadian private equity firm “Zynik Capital” in 2022. Holding the dubious distinction of being the largest emitter of lead in Hennepin County, little has changed inside the…
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Solidarity Culture
There’s been a lot of discussion in the steering committee and the chapter as a whole about solidarity culture. That’s because there is a great desire on the part of many chapter members to have useful, comradely debate and discussion about the very serious issues facing the working class and TCDSA. We want to be…
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OpenSliding into Democracy
Hello Comrades! As you all know, at our last general meeting, the chapter debuted a new online meeting organizing tool: OpenSlides. This was our first run with OpenSlides, and we did have some important success with it. We were able to successfully reach a quorum of people logged into the OpenSlides and capture a record…
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Labor Notes 2024 – Watching History Be Made
One of the best moments of the Labor Notes weekend was what didn’t happen: Sean Fain couldn’t give his talk at the Friday night panel because he was busy overseeing the UAW victory at the Volkswagen facility in Tennessee, bringing 4,000 more workers into the union (though he did knock it out of the park…
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Tenant Unionism is the remedy to the Ills of our Cities and our Organization: A Prescription for TCDSA
1. The Diagnosis We’re at a terrifying and tumultuous crossroads in history. The contradictions in capitalism have become more visible and harmful to us all in recent years. Between 36%-56% of American families have trouble meeting their basic needs each month (depending how you split the data, from US Census Household Pulse Survey Data 2024).…
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Challenges for TCDSA and Endorsees
Written by Josh K More Wins, More Problems When I began attending Twin Cities DSA electoral committee meetings in 2018, we met in a vacant commercial space with unfinished floors, unadorned with furniture except folding tables and chairs. Ginger Jentzen had lost to Steve Fletcher a few months earlier; there were no elected officials with…
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23,000 UMN Workers Collective Bargaining Rights Hinge On PELRA Reform
A version of this article was originally published in the Nokomis Messenger. As an undergraduate student on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in 2011 I, like many Wisconsin emigres, experienced significant upheaval around Wisconsin Act 10. Under the guise of a “Budget Repair Bill”, Act 10 is primarily known for removing collective bargaining rights of…
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