Features
City Council Campaigns Are Underway, Get Involved!
Election Day is October 11 and New Orleans DSA has three endorsed members running for City Council. Danyelle Christmas, Jackson Kimbrell, and Bob Murrell are making calls, knocking on doors, and attending candidate forums. At Step Up’s District E forum on Wednesday, Danyelle talked to voters about the need for a new council to make good on neglect and broken promises in her neighborhood. Bob did an r/NewOrleans AMA on Wednesday, focusing on candidate responsiveness, surveillance, short term rentals, public transit, and more. Jackson will be at the District C forum on August 6, and Bob will attend District A’s forum on August 11.
All DSA candidates are championing our People’s Platform to make this city work for the people who live here.
- Dismantling white supremacy & racism
- Opposing fascism, neoliberalism, privatization, and austerity
- Abolishing the criminal punishment system
- Climate justice and sustainability
- Abortion rights and access for all
- LGBTQ+ liberation
- Free quality public schools for all
- Supporting unionized labor & all unorganized workers
- Supporting immigrants, undocumented people, and oppressed and colonized nations
- Affordable quality housing and utilities
- Living wage work for all who want it
- Healthcare for all
- Safe routes for all mobilities and robust and reliable mass transit
- No tax breaks for billion dollar companies
Volunteer, donate, and follow these campaigns at our Endorsement HQ.
Come to Our Brake Light Clinic and Health Fair AND School Supply Drive Next Week
Your favorite DSA comrades will be in City Council District A on August 9, changing brake lights and handing out hot meals, cold drinks, and doing health checks. We’re also welcoming our friends from Trystereo to provide Narcan kits and educate us on how to use them, and we’ll be distributing back-to-school supply kits our members have put together this past month. It’s always a good time with good people, so come hang out and do some community organizing!
The address is 2932 S Carrollton Av, from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. Get your hat, get your sunscreen, and get a friend or make one at the clinic.
Support UNO Workers Against Austerity
United Campus Workers at UNO are requesting community support to resist impending cuts to the University including termination of long time workers and valuable programs.
These cuts come from decades of austerity, forcing working class people to shoulder immense costs for education with student loans, and leading departments to rely on adjunct faculty rather than investing in sustainable, full-time positions.
UNO stands as a beacon of higher ed accessible to New Orleanians. But as austerity takes hold, these cuts represent lost hope and lost futures. We know that major systemic change is needed to correct this. In the meantime, it is important to let UNO administrators know that the community stands with our students and our educators.
Back to Basics – Andy L
A recent conversation with smart, well-grounded, business-savvy workers illustrated the work that we have ahead of us. They could not grasp the way in which they are being robbed by their bosses. Almost every relation with economic characteristics has some sort of exploitation built into it, and our task is to show people how to identify what’s happening. The first step in recovery is admitting there’s a problem, right? For workers, we see it as theft of the value that they create with their own labor. A business owner who pays a worker $100 a day must get at least $100 worth of value out of the worker or else risk going out of business. The key question is, “how much MORE value is created by the worker than they are paid?”
Maybe you’ve heard of the Ohio pizza shop owner who had an employee appreciation day, where he gave his workers all the sales and tips from the day’s orders. Every worker made $78 AN HOUR. The news stories wrote about how the owner was a great guy, yet no one pointed out the massive gap between the value that the employees create and the amount they are normally paid.
People aren’t struggling because they’re lazy or because they eat out too much. They struggle because they are systematically robbed of the value that they create. They are swindled by business owners and corporate overlords who trick workers into thinking that they are paid well enough. It’s all a con.
This is why we say that capitalism must go, torn out root and branch. The system only functions if there are people so desperate for work that they’ll put up with exploitative conditions. It needs a reserve force of unemployed people to discipline workers with the threat that they could be replaced if they fight for what’s theirs. Capitalism can’t survive in a robust, healthy society – it can only function where there are weak points to exploit.
Bulletins
Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: EWOC Training Series on How to Unite and Win
Come join Worker Power Louisiana for the final session in a four-part training on fundamental principles of effective shop-floor organizing. The series wraps up tomorrow with Inoculation and the Boss Campaign, from 3:00-4:30p. Sign up here.
Join the Voter Guide Team
Early voting for fall local elections begins September 27, which means it’s time for another round of the New Orleans DSA Voter Guide. We’re looking for members to join the research and writing team. See our previous Voter Guide editions here, and look for training and meeting announcements on the Voter Guide Working Group Discord channel.
Community Calendar
Friday, August 1
Free Palestine! Abolish ICE! Weekly Lunch Hour Rally
12:00 pm – 12:45 pm (every Friday) – Immigration Court, 365 Canal St
Saturday, August 2
Canvass for Bob Murrell, District A
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Get involved
Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: Inoculation and the Boss Campaign
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm – Rosa F Keller Library, 4300 S Broad St – Sign Up
Sunday, August 3
Coffee with Comrades
11:00 am – 12:00 pm – Coffee Science, 410 Broad St
Canvass for Bob Murrell, District A
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Get involved
Chapter Orientation
8:00 pm – 9:00 pm (first and last Sunday) – Meet
Tuesday, August 5
Rank & File Project Meeting
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm (first Tuesday) – REACH Center, 2022 St Bernard Av, Bldg C, 3rd Fl
Wednesday, August 6
Indivisible Wednesday ICE Protest
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm (every Wednesday) – ICE Field Office, 1250 Poydras St
Health Justice and Direct Service Meeting
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm (first Wednesday) – Meet
Step Up Candidate Forum ft Jackson Kimbrell
5:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Thursday, August 7
Poli-Ed Planning Meeting
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm (first Thursday) – Oak St Brewery, 8201 Oak St – Reading List
Friday, August 8
DSA National Convention
Chicago, Illinois
Free Palestine! Abolish ICE! Weekly Lunch Hour Rally
12:00 pm – 12:45 pm (every Friday) – Immigration Court, 365 Canal St
Saturday, August 9
DSA National Convention
Chicago, Illinois
Brake Light Clinic & Health Fair & School Supply Drive
11:00 am – 2:00 pm – 2932 S Carrollton Av
Canvass for Bob Murrell, District A
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Get involved
Sunday, August 10
DSA National Convention
Chicago, Illinois
Canvass for Bob Murrell, District A
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm – Get involved
Down the Road
August 11 Step Up Candidate Forum ft Bob Murrell
August 14 Local Council Meeting
August 19 Sports Drink Community Night: Local Politics
August 21 Poli-Ed Reading Group
August 27 Municipal Action Committee Meeting
October 11 Municipal Open Primary Election DayNovember 15 Municipal Runoff Election Day