DSA San Francisco has released a statement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and attendant economic recession that we believe to be on the horizon. Read our full platform of policy demands and organizational initiatives here.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not just the defining crisis of the Trump administration, but a thundering condemnation of the miserable state of American institutions of health, welfare, and politics.

DSA SF recognizes the need for a militant response to this crisis, not just in the near term as our economic system teeters on the brink of collapse but in the long term as we struggle to rebuild a society that is more just, equitable, and conducive to human survival. We are concerned not only with the near-term health risks for a great number of people who live and work in San Francisco, but the ways in which an impending recession threatens our livelihoods and stability. This is a critical inflection point in the trajectory of American history, and the direction we go from here is uncertain. However, we see the potential for several grave outcomes which are not mutually exclusive: the rise of hard-borders ecofascism, the retrenchment of capitalism and corporate consolidation via the imposition of new forms of social order, and a hasty return to the status quo which will endanger millions.

We propose an alternative path. This crisis shows the necessity of a total social transformation, not merely a return to business as usual under capitalism. The system that brought us to this point has no remedy for the problems it has created. Indeed, we see proposals at the local, state, and national levels that fail to directly address the primary public health crisis that precipitates the rest. Instead these time-limited, means-tested half-measures are designed to smooth over and prop up the inadequacy of capitalism with the underlying goal of ever-continuing economic growth: bailouts of big business, temporary extensions of unemployment benefits, temporary freezes on evictions, temporary housing for the homeless, and so on.

Many of these proposals exclude large portions of the population — contractors and freelancers, migrant and undocumented workers, workers at the margins in informal cash economies such as sex workers — or are coupled with giveaways to landlords, corporations, and banks. This is not enough. These proposals must be redesigned to provide comprehensive, immediate relief, and we must set a path towards a longer-term reshaping of our economy and society into one that is rooted in solidarity and the common good. To that end, we offer a platform for immediate Relief for All, coupled with an organizing approach that focuses on delivering these short- and long-term goals.

The shocks to the capitalist system that we have witnessed these past few weeks have shown us where its critical centers of power lie; we must organize around these centers with the intent of bringing them under the control of democratic, working-class institutions. At some point — likely sooner than is prudent — the machinery of capitalism will be forced back into high gear, and we must be ready to act. These long-term organizing projects will be centered around the various ways that capital structures society. We will need to organize in workplaces, in our neighborhoods, among the unemployed, and across international borders, for a people’s recovery from this crisis. And we will need to fight for long-term public investment in the future, applying the green new deal principle of “decommodifying survival” to our entire economic framework.

DSA SF has announced a platform that aims to protect the health and welfare of our fellow San Franciscans in our homes, communities, workplaces, and the world. This includes safe selves: we demand Medicare for All, widespread COVID-19 testing and the expedient development of a vaccine, the production and procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE), and a massive public investment in our frail, overburdened healthcare system.

It includes safe homes: all rent and mortgage payments must be suspended, not merely put on hold, all unhoused San Franciscans must be offered housing in vacant hotel rooms, and city resources must be devoted to helping people experiencing domestic violence during the shelter in place order. Additionally, DSA SF supports tenants on rent strike and people taking up residence in vacant properties.

This platform includes safety at work: essential workers must be given hazard pay, and the state of California should enforce AB5, ensuring that gig economy workers are treated and protected like other employees. We demand that Muni be operated safely for riders and drivers alike by making backdoor boarding standard and halting all fare collection and enforcement. DSA SF also stands in solidarity with workers taking strike actions at their workplaces who fail to adequately protect them from COVID-19, and we will promote and participate in strikes and boycotts to help workers win their demands.

We also need safe communities: We need a moratorium on all ICE raids and deportation proceedings, and demand the release of all detainees in ICE custody and the closure of immigrant detention centers. We also demand alternatives to police enforcement during the shelter in place and the closure of 850 Bryant, as well as a drastic reduction of California’s prison population, and an end to prison labor. And we demand the city build more handwashing stations and public restroom facilities to promote hygiene in public.

Lastly, we need to ensure that we have a safe world. COVID-19 is a worldwide pandemic that demands an international response. Therefore, we specifically call on our representatives in congress–Representative Jackie Speier, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris–to end US sanctions on all foreign nations, and to denounce the belligerent saber-rattling campaign against Venezuela.

In addition to these demands, DSA SF recognizes the need for long-term organizing work that will build working-class power during the upcoming economic downturn. We will need new areas of focus in our labor organizing work: we need to prepare all workers for other peculiarities of the current moment, including “shock doctrine” tactics that are already being used to undermine public education. We should continue to organize unions, but we also need to assist workers in organizing independently around immediate demands in the very near term, especially if quarantines are lifted before it is truly safe to start working again. In light of mounting calls to “reopen” state economies from President Trump and his supporters, this seems likely. DSA National’s Democractic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) has announced an effort to that effect which we encourage all essential workers to join. In addition to the threat of COVID-19, we must prepare for the reality of historic unemployment, and organize councils of the unemployed to support, educate, and organize unemployed workers.

Similarly, we will need to show solidarity with tenants as the various programs preventing evictions come to an end. States and cities have announced eviction moratoriums, but even the most generous of these only prevent eviction during the crisis; at some point those moratoriums will end. We must promote and support all tenants’ efforts to stay in their homes, even after the state of emergency has ended. This means facilitating the formation of tenants associations in buildings, as well as among tenants of particular corporate landlords, and fighting for rent freezes, rent reductions, and rent suspensions.

This crisis is shaping up to be a truly historic moment, and socialists must rise to the challenges it brings. DSA SF will fight to protect and empower the working class through this crisis and whatever comes after. To find out more and get involved, join DSA and signup for one of our active organizing projects during COVID19. If you have any questions, please reach out to our COVID-19 Provisional Working Group at covid19@dsasf.org.

Please also click here to sign our Action Network petition.

On Saturday, March 28, members of DSA SF’s Justice Committee dropped off 900 bottles of hand sanitizer for people being held in San Francisco’s jails in an effort to address the city’s failure to release more people amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The Justice Committee released the following statement:

San Francisco jails are on the brink of a crisis — a public health emergency that is threatening to undermine our efforts to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19 and exposing the problems inherent to our criminal system. Five employees within the Sheriff’s office have tested positive for COVID-19. Nearly 830 people are incarcerated in San Francisco jails, all of whom are denied the opportunity to adhere to meaningful social distancing requirements that our city leaders and healthcare professionals demand. They are unable to isolate, unable to quarantine, and are exposed to jail employees who are expected to come to work as long as they’re asymptomatic, regardless of whether they’ve been knowingly exposed to someone infected with COVID-19. 

To slow the spread of COVID-19, the Democratic Socialists of America SF, in collaboration with The Science Policy Group at UCSF (SPG), distributed 900 individual bottles of hand sanitizer to incarcerated people in San Francisco jails this week.

The first batch of sanitizer was provided by UC Berkeley scientists Abrar Abidi and Yvonne Hao. The subsequent batches have been produced by The Science Policy Group at UCSF. This mutual aid effort aims to give people on the inside a tool to help slow the spread of the virus in our community and to survive in inhumane conditions. 

We have distributed hand sanitizer because the city has failed to protect our vulnerable populations and to protect us all. 

Although hand sanitizer will serve to reduce the public health risk, it does not address the root problem: incarceration and dehumanization. The City’s Director of Jail Health Services, Dr. Pratt, has called for “a rapid reduction” in the jail population. That is our minimum demand. We demand that the City recognizes the humanity of our incarcerated community members. We demand justice.

We demand decarceration. 

Today, we join the voices that call on Mayor London Breed, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, Police Chief Scott, and District Attorney Chesa Boudin to follow the guidance of healthcare professionals and immediately release, at minimum, the following people:

– All people age 50 years and older.
– All people detained on bail.
– All children incarcerated in Juvenile Hall.
– All people with 3 months or fewer remaining in their sentence.
– All people with medical conditions that are risk factors for severe illness, including, but not limited to: Respiratory conditions, obesity, HIV-positive, & mental illness.

To be clear, “All people” described above includes individuals incarcerated for misdemeanors and all felonies, especially those that did not result in serious physical harm to a person and especially property crime.

We demand that District Attorney Chesa Boudin:
– Codify this policy and issue it as a directive to his staff no later than April 7th, 2020.  

We demand that Sheriff Paul Miyamoto:
– Release all people fitting the above criteria in accordance with his power under California Government Code 8658.

We demand that Police Chief Scott instruct his officers to:
– Cite and release all justice-involved individuals that do not pose a certain danger to cause immediate and severe bodily harm to another individual.

Ultimately, County Jail 4 at 850 Bryant must be closed. We, as part of the No New SF Jail Coalition, have been demanding this for months. Supervisors, the Sheriff, and the Mayor have all agreed CJ4 is decrepit, seismically unsafe, and a health hazard– even before the pandemic.

Funding for incarceration must be redirected to rehabilitation and restorative justice programs that succeed in bringing our neighbors back into our communities.

COVID-19 only highlights an ongoing public health & humanitarian crisis that existed before this pandemic, and will exist after it has passed.

We will continue to do true public safety work moving forward, including continuing to provide hand sanitizer manufactured by SPG at UCSF to people locked in cages in the Bay Area. Solidarity, decarceration, rehabilitation, transformative justice and mutual aid is the way forward, toward true public safety for all.

Democratic Socialists of America is an abolitionist organization that believes true public safety comes from building a just and equitable world where everyone is able to pursue comfortable and meaningful lives, where housing and healthcare are human rights guaranteed to all. Public safety comes from healthy, fulfilled communities that address harms with compassion and  accountability, not by criminalizing and caging the poor, desperate, and sick.

Press contact: Yuhe Faye Wang, Co-chair of DSA Justice Committee, justice@dsasf.org