On November 30, DSA Congress members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman voted in favor of the Democratic Party leadership’s attempt to ban a looming railroad strike, which was planned to start on December 9, and to impose a tentative agreement that a majority of the members of the railroad unions had rejected. The only DSA Congress member who voted against this attack on the right to strike was Rashida Tlaib.
DSA’s National Political Committee, the NPC, did not take any action against these congress members to send a strong message that this was an unacceptable vote for socialists in office.
Last Sunday, February 5, the DSA National Political Committee and the DSA National Labor Commission organized a Zoom panel with railway workers and DSA leaders to discuss the vote and our organization’s response to it. The panel was titled “Off the Rails”.
Rosemary Dodd, member of DSA in Ashville, was joined by two DSA and Reform & Revolution members who were on the “Off the Rails” call and spoke during the open discussion portion of the meeting, Jesse Dreyer (co-chair of Portland DSA and a member of the Teamsters) and Ramy Khalil (member of the Local Council of Seattle DSA and a member of the Seattle Education Association) to review that call.
