by a comrade

This article is written by a DSA member and does not formally represent the views of MADSA as a whole or its subgroups.

I am excited to present a new format of content on Red Madison – a recurring summary of what kind of work we’re doing in our chapter each month! My goal as a contributing author is to inform people about MADSA’s everyday efforts in a convenient and easily accessible place.

The content in this publication overlaps significantly with our DSA newsletter and monthly General Membership Meetings. To sign up for the newsletter or check out an upcoming General Membership Meeting, visit: https://madison-dsa.org/events/

Celebrating a Local Win

We saw a win this summer after our Abolitionist Working Group, in collaboration with other groups in Madison, spoke up at a county board meeting in late July against an alarming contract with the county jail. The contract would implement a for-profit digital “mail scanning” system, robbing inmates’ rights to receive and hold their own physical mail. The “mail scanning” would entail forwarding all mail to a privately owned facility in Florida, scanning mail items into an online system, and making mail accessible only via digital tablets in the jail which inmates would not have round-the-clock access to. Mail scanning is billed as a inmate safety measure to prevent overdoses, but evidence from other jurisdictions that have implemented such systems show that mail scanning at best does not prevent the majority of drugs from entering prisons and at worst it can make the problem worse. The ability to receive and hold physical mail – like a letter of encouragement from a parent or a drawing from one’s child – is vitally important to inmates on their rehabilitation journeys. Protecting the rights of incarcerated individuals and promoting humane criminal justice policies with the goal of decreasing recidivism is a chief concern for the Abolitionist Working Group, who rallied MADSA and other community members show up in opposition to this unnecessary and dehumanizing contract being proposed. Around a dozen people provided in-person testimony against the contract, others shared comments via Zoom, and still others registered their formal opposition online ahead of the county board subcommittee hearing, adding up to around 50 people in total! After this overwhelming response from the community, two county board subcommittees have recommended the contract be denied. The contract will appear in front of the entire county board at its upcoming September 4th meeting for a final determination. DSA members and non-members alike are encouraged to check the board agenda the Friday before the meeting and attend in person or register your opposition ahead of time to continue this important battle!

Keep an eye out for the board meeting agenda around Friday, August 29th, and check out this article in Tone Madison for more about the contract and the fight against it.

Topic Highlight: Act 10 Series

As the days steadily shorten and summer comes to its end, so too ends a recent education and organizing series within MADSA: the Act 10 Series by our Labor Working Group. Wisconsin Act 10, passed in 2011, severely gutted union power by ending most collective bargaining rights for a majority of government employees. A court case challenging Act 10 has been working its way through the Wisconsin appellate court system and may appear before the Wisconsin Supreme Court within the next year. Learning about Act 10 is a powerful piece in understanding levers of change for workers in Wisconsin. 

The Labor Working Group hosted previous Act 10 events this summer, including a reading group and a movie night, and will be finishing their series with How Workers are Overturning Act 10: a Panel Discussion on August 28th. As usual, this event is open to the public and all workers are encouraged to attend – unionized or not!

Reporting Back from the DSA National Convention 

MADSA had the pleasure of sending nine delegates and one alternate to the DSA National Convention, which establishes priorities, policies, and leadership at the national level for our organization. Our delegates reported back in the August General Membership Meeting and shared some of their experiences. We confirmed that our chapter is doing well in terms of our activity levels relative to our size and recent membership expansion. Some key national topics included the details of the DSA’s stance against the genocide in Palestine, strategies for national unionizing and workplace organizing, and DSA’s political program for the foreseeable future. Between debate blocks, delegates attended programming sessions regarding prescient organizing areas and exploring how to strengthen our members’ leadership and decision-making skills. Delegates also discussed the role of electoral politics in our collective struggle, and debated strategies for building an independent working class party.

Hot Strike Summer: MADSA Stands in Solidarity with Striking Workers

This summer, workers across Wisconsin – and around the world – are taking action and striking for higher wages, better working conditions, and dignity at work. MADSA members have taken to the picket lines, helped fundraise, and raised awareness about these struggles. Here are just a few of our recent strike support efforts:

• Since July 2nd, more than 130 members of UAW Local 95, a local representing wall-to-wall healthcare workers at Janesville’s Mercy Clinic East, have been on strike to demand fair compensation and better workplace safety. Our members have visited the picket lines, donated supplies, and participated in Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement’s strike support fundraiser. 
• MADSA members held an informational picket at the Hilldale Lululemon, as part of a global day of action in solidarity with Filipino garment workers. Read more here.
• Immigrant workers at W&W dairy in Monroe are on strike because the dairy’s new, out-of-state owners implemented an e-verify system that effectively bars undocumented workers from working, even those that have worked at the company for 20 years. Wisconsin is not America’s dairyland without the workers that make our cheese. MADSA members joined them on the picket line on August 19th, and we encourage everyone to donate to their legal defense fund. Follow Voces de la Frontera for more updates and information on how to support these brave workers!
• Workers at Festival Foods and Hilton Monona Terrace have recently won their union elections! MADSA stands in solidarity with these workers and will support them as they begin to bargain their first contracts. 

Do you want to help with strike support or other labor organizing? Join MADSA’s Labor Working Group & sign up for updates from the LWG Text Tree! 

Further Organizing Highlights This Month

Our work continues in so many more ways thanks to our dedicated membership. Here are other key organizing efforts taking place this August in MADSA. This summary is not exhaustive! 

• Doing Politics in Public – This committee has been working on researching the formal systems of power in Madison, and exploring ways to make this information widely available to the general public. The group is looking into the various entities relevant to major decision-making in Madison, including governmental systems and non-profits. At our general membership meeting, members of this group presented preliminary information, including a report on our chapter’s geographical distribution and specific information about local electoral systems.

• Political Education Working Group – Our PoliEd group has been conducting a survey to learn more about topics of interest within our chapter, with the hopes of developing more events inside and outside of our membership. The group has also been running a “Socialism 101” series!

• Free School Lunch Campaign – This project is part of a coalition in Madison working towards a shared goal – that children and their families never have to worry about their next meal at school. As their next step this Fall, project members are planning to gather information from the Madison school system about the real costs of a free school lunch program.

• Hands Off Medicaid – Members continue to take organizing steps, including protest actions and ongoing communications with the governor’s office, to defend Medicaid in Wisconsin (also known as BadgerCare). Medicaid is currently under severe threat due to spending cuts and other restrictions being enacted at the federal level. 

Social Opportunities

Lastly, MADSA has had some budding social opportunities (get it?) as our membership grows! Events in the past month have included our regular Coffee with Comrades gathering and weekly jogging group. The chapter has also restarted a program called “Rose Buddies,” where members can submit a request for a 1:1 meeting with a member around an interest or question. You can sign up for that here! 

We’ve also had thriving reading group opportunities, including V.I. Lenin’s What is to Be Done, meeting Sundays at 11am, and Alec Karakatsanis’ Copaganda with the Abolitionist Working Group, every other Monday at 7pm.

Comrade’s Protest Song of the Month

To bolster morale in these times, I figured I’d include a protest song to close things out!

My pick for this month is a nod to labor, in Peggy Seeger’s Song of Myself (lyrics here). 

And that concludes our monthly round-up!