YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: A Labor Revolution Arrives In The South

Southern Service Workers Get Organized

On November 17, hundreds of service workers from across the South launched the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW) during a three-day labor summit in Columbia, South Carolina. The new organization grew out of the Southern branch of the Fight for $15, a  movement to raise minimum wage laws that brought together workers at hotels, gas stations, retail, home care, and restaurants during the pandemic to fight for better working conditions.

Seven of the 10 states with the lowest union membership are located in the South, where fewer than two percent of wage and salary workers are union members. USSW founding members Naomi Harris, 21, and Brandon Beachum, 35, told Capital & Main that antiracism is vital to their movement, since a large portion of Southern workers of color have been historically denied the protections of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) because they are farm workers, tipped workers, or domestic workers. Because of such exclusions by the NLRA, the USSW is not waiting to be sanctioned by the National Labor Relations Board to establish themselves as a union.

Through strikes, outreach and door knocking, cross-sector organizing, and an antiracist historical analysis, USSW organizers have promised to win fair pay and better working conditions by “any means necessary” for the hundreds of thousands of workers in the service industry in the South.

D.C. Councilmember Pitches “Green New Deal For Housing”

Janeese Lewis George — the only democratic socialist on the Washington, D.C. Council — is finding support for turning the district into a public housing developer, a groundbreaking plan that would cut the private market out of a portion of the city’s housing developments.

At a hearing last week, Lewis George said, “Housing is too essential to leave solely to the private market,” adding that housing should be treated more like roadways that are paid for by taxpayers with universal access.

George’s proposal to authorize the D.C.’s local government to buy property and convert them into social housing has gained the support of seven of the Council’s 13 members. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm for transforming the way our government interacts with the housing market,” councilmember Brianne Nadeau said at the hearing.

While the proposal may not pass before the council period ends in December, all seven supporters will remain in the council in the next term, and they will be joined by recently elected Democrat Zachary Parker, who has pledged to support the housing proposal.

A Historic Rent Reduction

On November 9, the rent guidelines board in the city of Kingston, New York, voted for a 15-percent rent reduction, which will apply to more than 1,200 apartments in the community. After months of organizing by grassroots groups, tenants say that it’s the first rent reduction in New York State history. In the middle of a housing emergency, tenants face deteriorating living conditions even as landlords increase rents. The rent reduction is a step towards helping tenants stop profit gouging and preserve affordability.

In an interview for Jacobin, leading organizer Brahvan Ranga said, “This rent reduction was won by dozens of Kingston tenants that turned out and spoke to their councilmembers and demanded change. These folks are getting more and more politically activated.”

A Rare Win Against Fracking

This Tuesday, a fracking company accepted responsibility for poisoning the drinking water supply of Dimock, Pennsylvania, pleading no contest to 15 criminal charges. In addition to taking full responsibility after a 14-year legal saga, the driller — Cabot Oil & Gas — will pay 16.3 million to build new public water infrastructure and cover the costs of delivering clean water to harmed residents for the next 75 years.

“Dimock residents have known for 14 years that Cabot Oil & Gas is guilty of contaminating our water,” Dimock resident Ray Kemble said in a statement. “Finally, some justice.”

Soon after Cabot started drilling in the region 2008, the company’s negligent practices contaminated Dimock’s water supply with high concentrations of methane and chemicals used in fracking. The much-anticipated settlement was set in motion by charges that Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed in June 2020, based on the conclusion of a two-year grand jury investigation into the effects of fracking. Shapiro was elected Pennsylvania governor last month.

L.A. County Decriminalizes Street Vending

Last week, in a major win against aggressive policing, Los Angeles street food vendors celebrated the passage of SB 972, a bill that will help vendors obtain public health permits and protect them from unfair arrests and deportations for the first time in years.

The criminalization of street vending in Los Angeles dates back to at least 1892, when city officials first tried to ban “tamale wagons.” An estimated 10,000 vendors sell food in Los Angeles, but between 2010 and 2019, the L.A. police department arrested more than 4,300 people for sidewalk vending because of permitting regulations. In 2013 alone, nearly 1,100 people were arrested for “illegal sidewalk sales.”

“Not that long ago, I was almost arrested for selling ice cream,” one vendor told L.A. TACO. “A police officer even pulled a gun on me. This puts a stop to that type of treatment. This treatment will hopefully just be a thing of the past now.”

In Other Good News…

• Building Resilient Organizations (The Forge)

• Merkley Introduces Bill To Ban Hedge Fund Ownership Of U.S. Homes (KTVZ)

Finally:

After all the news this week, take a moment to read an excerpt from Linda Pastan’s poem, “Notes To My Mother”:

Everywhere
the stream
of life goes on,
and I try to
go with it,
non-swimmer,
paddler in a leaky
canoe.

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