The dust has finally settled on the 2020 Election even as Trump continues to pursue litigation federally. Weeks ago, we demonstrated our power at the ballot box and DSA-SF would like to thank all the workers and volunteers who expended time and effort to help further Leftist politics, both locally and around the world! We surely could not do this without each other.

In local elections, we swept the board on our endorsements. Prop E’s passage removes one legal obstacle to finally reducing the number of police officers in this city and using those resources to help the people of San Francisco instead of killing them. Props I and K will finally tax the rich to build real affordable and social housing in this city. All of our hard work put our only socialist supervisor, Dean Preston, back into office despite the millions poured into disgusting anti-homeless messaging to unseat him.

On the state level, we have a lot left to fight for. Jackie Fielder’s campaign fell short of removing Scott Weiner from office, but helped push our vision into the spotlight and put it into contrast with California Democratic politics. Unfortunately, our endorsed Props 15 and 16 failed to pass as well. And Uber and Lyft managed to buy Prop 22, enshrining their exploitative labor model into law and blocking unionization for their workers – something many more companies will try to emulate. We will need to strategize to defeat this effort and their future campaigns. We also recognize how nationally Joe Biden has won the presidential election, although he is a ruthless capitalist who will continue the oppression that we fight every day in this organization.

We want to thank everyone who’s been working so hard over the last weeks and months for DSA San Francisco, the socialist movement, and our city. We have gone through and are still going through turbulent times in our society, but thanks to all of us and socialists across the country, our movement has demonstrated and used its power to win concrete victories.

It’s our work on the streets, the day-to-day organizing, that builds coalitions of support that make us stronger when we next head to the ballot box. You can make a difference in those efforts – join us! Whether it’s in the streets or in the background, there is work to be done.

DSA SF recently voted to endorse California State Proposition 15 and San Francisco Municipal Proposition E, and to oppose California State Proposition 22, in advance of the November 2020 election. 

Prop 15 aims to raise billions in new taxes to specifically fund schools, community colleges and local government services. The covid crisis and failure of state and federal leadership has made school and municipal budgeting all the more dire. DSA SF believes rolling back Prop 13 and the steps proposed in Prop 15 are critical steps to radically changing our system for the better. DSA SF Labor committee is working to support the proposition within a broader DSA California Statewide labor formation along with DSA LA, Sacramento and San Jose. Visit here for more information on the Yes on 15 campaign.

Further, DSA SF voted to oppose Prop 22 this November. Defeating this proposition is a priority for millions of workers in California and it’s adoption could usher a new wage and worker suppression in California.  State adoption of this proposition could be dangerous precedent for corporations in California and the world. Prop 22 would become a model for the Ubers and Lyfts of the world to engage in anti-worker and union busting tactics. Along with Gig Workers Rising and We Drive Progress,

Finally, with sponsorship from the AfroSocialists & Socialists of Color Caucus SF, DSA SF Justice Committee, and DSA SF Electoral Committee, DSA SF voted to endorse Prop E and its goal of removing the San Francisco Police Department’s minimum staffing requirement, which was added to the San Francisco city charter in the 1970s. The charter-mandated minimum set for full-time SFPD officers is currently set at 1,971. Prop. E proponents hope that eliminating the minimum staffing requirement will help them start the process to drastically reduce the number of officers in San Francisco.

At our July general meeting, DSA SF voted to endorse Dean Preston for District 5 Supervisor, along with two potential ballot measures Dean has introduced. An active member of DSA SF, Dean was elected as supervisor last year in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Mayor London Breed, making him the first democratic socialist elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors since the late Harry Britt in 1979. This year, Dean is running for his first full term on the Board of Supervisors, and he’s doing so with the full support of DSA SF!

As District 5 supervisor, Dean has already been a force for change on the Board, fighting to fully fund San Francisco’s tenant right to counsel through Prop F, a 2018 ballot initiative he championed. Dean has also fought to provide housing to our unhoused neighbors, oppose the citywide curfew imposed at the outset of the protests in response to the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and help stop evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. DSA SF will work with Dean’s reelection campaign to make sure his work on the Board of Supervisors can continue for the next four years.

DSA SF also voted to endorse the Transfer Tax and Social Housing ballot initiatives Dean has introduced. The Transfer Tax initiative would double the tax on real estate transactions of over $10 million, unless properties are sold to the city or to non-profit housing developers to create more affordable housing in San Francisco. With the additional revenue from the tax increase on the city’s most expensive real estate deals, the city can also better fund housing security programs for our neighbors most in need of assistance.

The Social Housing ballot initiative confronts Article 34 of the California Constitution, racist legislation from the 1950s that prohibits local governments from building public housing without voter approval. So, Dean is asking for just that voter approval – if this measure passes, San Francisco will have the authority to build 10,000 units of public, affordable housing. The city is in dire need of affordable housing to guarantee a San Francisco for all, not just for those who have the money to pay exorbitant rent prices. We’re looking forward to fighting alongside Dean to realize that vision!

Want to help? Follow Dean on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for campaign updates, and check out his campaign website. There will also be opportunities to participate in phone banks, lit drops, and campaign events – and opportunities to help organize those events! To get involved, reach out to the Electoral Committee at electoral@dsasf.org or head to https://www.votedean.com/get-involved.

DSA SF’s Labor Organizing Committee is organizing chapter support for the black leaders of Locals 10, 34, 75, and 91 of the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) and the Movement 4 Black Lives, and their action to shut down the port of Oakland in defense of black lives.

Join us Friday, June 19th, at 9am to take place in this historic action: the first time an international union is staging a strike on Juneteenth.

The demands are for an end to systemic racism, police terror, and exploitation by the wealthy. This means not only an end to police terror and the state-sanctioned murder of black and brown people, it means putting a stop to privatization of the port of Oakland and other public services such as schools, the postal service, and hospitals.

DSA SF is asking every one of our members and supporters who are able to attend this black-led work stoppage, caravan, and march, which will deeply impact corporations where it hurts them the most: right in the profits.

For more information contact labor[at]dev.dsasf.org/

George Floyd’s death at the hands of police is yet another in a long series of extrajudicial killings of black people by American law enforcement. Predictably, the justified outrage of the black community is being painted by reactionary media and government voices as some kind of overreaction, while 1960s language about “outside agitators” is spreading throughout the national media. Bill Barr took to the airwaves to claim that the Trump Justice Department has an interest in disciplining racist police departments, as though policing in this country can be divorced from its birth as slave patrols, and from its long history as the enforcement arm of capital and white supremacy.

Coming on the heels of heavily armed white people showing up at state capitals to demand that low-wage workers be forced back to work during a global pandemic without incident, the double standard of American policing is laid bare. If you’re white you can strap on a rocket launcher or assault rifle and make implicit threats against state government over public health regulations, but if you’re black and protest the latest in a long line of racist state murders, you’re met with police in riot gear, armed with rubber bullets, pepper spray, and teargas — even if you’re a sitting congressperson. There is even talk of deploying the American military to suppress our own citizenry in response to this latest round of protests.

The uprising that started in Minneapolis last week has inspired massive protests across the country and around the world. These demonstrations, as well as the appalling violence committed by police at them, show that the problem of police violence waged against black and brown people is pervasive in American society. Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons observed almost a century and a half ago that “this capitalistic system that we have today would not exist twenty four hours if it were not held together by the bayonets and the clubs of the militia and police,” and so it remains.

Police violence upholds capitalism, as well as the systemic racism on which American class society rests. It is the state’s most brutal and reliable weapon in upholding class society, and now that the ferocity with which it is dispensed is being exposed, it can be proclaimed, unequivocally, that the police are the enemies of freedom for the oppressed, exploited, and marginalized. It is right and just to rebel against this system and these atrocities. Our collective liberation and the task of building socialism require us to take the boot of state repression off the necks of all oppressed people. There is no room to waver on this question – we know which side we’re on.

Looking at the broader context, it has become clear that attempts at police reform and accountability have failed to seriously address the problem of racist police violence writ large. Indeed, the San Francisco Police Department has implemented just fifteen percent of the prescribed reforms following a 2016 U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the department following multiple police murders and a shameful racism scandal. It is time for socialists to take up efforts to defund, disarm, and abolish police, consistent with DSA’s commitment to abolition decided at the 2017 convention as well as the statement recently put out by the NPC regarding the murder of George Floyd.

We have endorsed a student-led protest this Wednesday at 4pm at Mission High School. We encourage all members who are able to attend. Please remember to maintain a safe distance from others, wear a mask, and take all measures possible to ensure the safety of yourself and others. Additionally, the DSA SF Justice committee has put out a call to oppose Mayor London Breed’s upcoming appointments to the police commission. Please sign our petition and sign up to call in during public comment Monday morning at 9:45 to speak out against these appointments. And finally, the Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee has a local bail fund – please contribute if you’re able.

We will stand up and demand justice for George Floyd and all victims of police murder, in San Francisco and across the country. Without justice, there will be no peace.

Solidarity forever,

DSA SF Steering Committee

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.