I could understand why an organization like DSA might feel like a nebulous cult from the outside. The reality is rather different. DSA isn't funded by billionaires, oligarchs, or corporations. DSA isn't composed of bots operating under hidden agendas.
DSA is people. DSA is an open organization. If one feels that DSA can do a better job interacting with unions, politicians, or people at large... one can just join and have a voice in how DSA operates.
There are no secret offices. There are no secret board meetings. There are no secret plans.
Its people. People dedicating their time to make political change. If one feels that such efforts are being 'hidden' or 'nefarious', then one may simply have never bothered to try and actually meet the people within DSA.
The article did a good job emphasizing that this isn't being done in secret. And you kind of missed the thesis: the political changes you refer to are outside the scope of a labor union's core mission, and the union's legitimacy can be compromised by making it a vehicle for such political activism.
Wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, dispute resolution, workplace representation. That's what the union is for. Union political activity should revolve around those core functions. The further we stray from that the less our claim to representation holds water.
That conception of a labor union’s core mission is a subjective one. Business Unionism, while ubiquitous here in the US now, is not the end all be all of what unions can be. The idea that straying from business unionism would hurt unions legitimacy, feels a bit moot given the track organized labor has been on since the dominance of business unionism after Taft Hartley and the Red Scare. That legitimacy has been getting compromised, doing exactly what you think they should.
Businesses, chambers and capital more broadly engages in political activity beyond the immediately economic all the time. Especially given the threat of oligarchy and autocracy in this country, feels silly to scare monger about working people doing the same in kind.
I could understand why an organization like DSA might feel like a nebulous cult from the outside. The reality is rather different. DSA isn't funded by billionaires, oligarchs, or corporations. DSA isn't composed of bots operating under hidden agendas.
DSA is people. DSA is an open organization. If one feels that DSA can do a better job interacting with unions, politicians, or people at large... one can just join and have a voice in how DSA operates.
There are no secret offices. There are no secret board meetings. There are no secret plans.
Its people. People dedicating their time to make political change. If one feels that such efforts are being 'hidden' or 'nefarious', then one may simply have never bothered to try and actually meet the people within DSA.
The article did a good job emphasizing that this isn't being done in secret. And you kind of missed the thesis: the political changes you refer to are outside the scope of a labor union's core mission, and the union's legitimacy can be compromised by making it a vehicle for such political activism.
Wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, dispute resolution, workplace representation. That's what the union is for. Union political activity should revolve around those core functions. The further we stray from that the less our claim to representation holds water.
That conception of a labor union’s core mission is a subjective one. Business Unionism, while ubiquitous here in the US now, is not the end all be all of what unions can be. The idea that straying from business unionism would hurt unions legitimacy, feels a bit moot given the track organized labor has been on since the dominance of business unionism after Taft Hartley and the Red Scare. That legitimacy has been getting compromised, doing exactly what you think they should.
Businesses, chambers and capital more broadly engages in political activity beyond the immediately economic all the time. Especially given the threat of oligarchy and autocracy in this country, feels silly to scare monger about working people doing the same in kind.
There's your Communists.