Socialism

Hey everyone. I was the Director of Video Production for the Gravel Institute until it folded back in 2022.

Several Gravel Institute colleagues and I have been hard at work developing a new series of videos with Jacobin Magazine, and our first new video has released today, featuring OG Gravel presenter and brilliant historian Matt Karp.

Things are pretty terrible in America (and the world at large), but they don’t have to be.

Of course Biden was infinitely better for unions and workers than the alternative scenario of Trump winning in 2020. That is common sense, a question not even worth dwelling on. The question is not, “Should unions support Republicans or Democrats?” The real question is: Has achieving electoral political power translated into the growth of union power? Have the dollars spent on politics rather than on union organizing paid off? Does organized labor have its priorities in order?

Today, we can definitively say the answer is “no.” That’s because, this morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual measurement of union membership in America, the best statistical measure of the total strength and size of unions. In 2024, union density in America fell to 9.9% of the work force. In 1983, union density was 20.1%, meaning that organized labor is now less than half as powerful as it was during the Reagan presidency. This is the first time in generations that less than ten percent of workers have been union members. In 2020, union density was 10.8%. That means that over the course of the most pro-union presidency in my lifetime, not only did union density not rise—it declined into single digits.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist with an impressive campaign cash haul, is promising to make New York City buses free. The proposal continues his work on the issue in the state Legislature, where he and state Sen. Michael Gianaris were the architects of a free bus pilot program. It is also a part of a suite of campaign proposals related to affordability, the overarching theme dominating the race so far.

“To the extent that elected officials want to do things that are easily understood and popular, there are few things that match free bus service in that,” said Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director at the transit advocacy group Riders Alliance.

But there are snags: It would be an additional expense – possibly more than $700 million – for an already cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The mayor of New York City also doesn’t have direct control over the MTA, a state agency. Mamdani has not yet put forth a specific proposal on where the funding would come from, but has said that the city would have a role in paying for it, and has pointed to unpaid landlord fines as one potential source of revenue.

Mamdani’s bus proposal sets him apart from his opponents, some of whom have suggested tackling transit affordability by expanding Fair Fares, the existing program that provides discounted fares to low-income New Yorkers. In pitching his proposal, Mamdani has highlighted the results of the one-year pilot of free buses, which saw fares removed from one bus route in each borough. Among other takeaways, a report by the MTA found that the pilot led to average ridership increases of 30% on weekdays and 38% on weekends. Roughly 12% of riders were new to the routes, and they were more likely to ride for leisure and errands than for trips to school or work.

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18185844

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• Analysis of two nationally representative surveys in China from 1995 to 2017 reveals that wealth (assets minus liabilities) of households with at least one CCP member is 21–24% higher than similar households without CCP [Chinese Communist Party] members.
• The CCP wealth premium is explained in part by preferential access for CCP households to more valuable housing at lower prices compared to similar non-CCP households during the early years of housing privatization.
• The most recent survey (2013–2017) reveals the wealth of CCP households grew faster than similar non-CCP households, especially among the wealthiest 5%, driven primarily by higher levels of capital gains.
• For all wealth levels, CCP membership was a stronger predictor of wealth growth than level of education.

[...]

Privately owned real estate today accounts for 84% of the gross total wealth across urban households — by far the largest component of private wealth. In the 1970s, however, virtually all urban housing stock in China was publicly owned.

[...]

CCP households were less likely to self-build houses and more likely to either inherit or purchase homes through preferential policies, while non-CCP households invested more in self-built housing — typically the least profitable form of housing investment, especially for those at the lower end of the wealth spectrum. As a result, CCP households were better positioned to acquire high-value homes at lower prices, amplifying wealth disparities over time.

[...]

The findings underscore the enduring wealth advantages CCP households enjoy compared to similar non-CCP households up and down the wealth distribution. The mechanisms identified in this research include preferential access to housing in the early phases of urban real estate privatization and faster wealth accumulation through capital gains in recent years.

The following language was compiled from a series of unions and labor activists. It is intended as a resource for workers looking to include pro-immigrant provisions in their collective bargaining agreements.

It’s a tale as old as time: underfund social institutions until they can barely function; gut the social institutions tasked with our care and well-being such as health care, housing and education; and then while the public is reeling and looking for someone to blame for their suffering, privatize. These highly strategic political choices designed to sow fear, hatred, and confusion have a body count in the hallways of our hospitals and in city encampments. The compounding crises we face have far surpassed their tipping point.

Historically, unions have fought for the strength of our social institutions and public services in tandem with bettering working conditions for their members. With the climate crisis and living affordability crisis, labour unions more than ever need to intervene in the current trends of privatization and the unchecked billions lining the pockets of billionaires.

One solution being tabled by tax fairness organizations and social movements alike is an excess profits and wealth tax, which would bring billions in private profits back into the public purse. A second concurrent solution is federally regulating Canadian banks which would clamp down on the continued funding of destructive industries (like fossil fuels) and incentivize investments in climate safe and socially supportive industries.

In Fall 2024, Boston University’s Resident Assistants (RAs) pulled off a rare, week-long strike in this new corner of the labor movement. Over seven days, Residence Life (ResLife) workers held their weight amid frazzled union staffers, hostile supervisors, and internal fracturing to strike during Fall move-in – a high-leverage period during which tens of thousands of students rely on RAs to move and settle into campus housing, with parents in tow. This was our second strike to win higher stipends, better protections against harassment, and paid health insurance for those not on family plans, in the context of negotiations for our first contract. On September 5, BU threatened to withhold RAs’ compensation, which comes in the form of housing and meals. Workers voted to end the strike shortly after this threat. To the surprise of some of us, BU increased their semesterly stipend offer from $1,000 to $1,700 a few days after the strike ended.

In recent time, the “upsurge” of labor organizing in higher education has drawn much attention, along with the university’s exploitation of student debt through tuition and rent.1 Yet the organizing potential for many thousands of residential assistants around the country, who stand uniquely at the nexus of these trends, has been comparatively overlooked. We hope our experience can be instructive for RAs elsewhere.

The complex’s residents went on a rent strike during the pandemic, withholding their rent until their landlord, Jason Korn, fixed the significant issues aggravating residents. They knew the road ahead was difficult. They were going against Korn, who had been named New York City’s worst landlord in 2019 and 2020 by the public advocate’s office. Korn’s 55 apartment buildings were cited by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development with thousands of building code violations each year, accumulating fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At the end of 2024, after more than four years of the rent strike, residents defeated eviction efforts by their new landlords, Gillman Management, who took over the building in 2022. Members of the tenant association and their legal representation used a defense of “rent-impairing violations” to ask for rent deferment for as long as the building continues to have severe breaches of the building conservation code.

A judge on Dec. 13 sided with the renters, finding that repairs in the building were necessary and waiving rental arrears from January 2020 to May 2022, which added up to $250,000. The period coincided with Korn’s tenure as the owner of the building.