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Cerena and Griffin, two DSA labor leaders from Houston and DC, join us to discuss the meaning and history of May Day for the socialist and labor movements and how, in this disorganizing time, we can still organize towards higher worker militancy and struggle to fight the right and capital.  

This year, our May Day demands are NO WAR, ABOLISH ICE, TAX THE RICH! Now, over 150 DSA chapters are doing something for May Day — we hope your local DSA is too. 

This site shows May Day actions all over the country — find yours! 

Here is a chapter toolkit for May Day, including a socialist night school module on May Day and the General Strike from NPEC! 

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Hi, comrades, and welcome to CLASS, the podcast of
Democratic Socialists ofAmerica's National Political
Education Committee, or NPEC.
My name is Michaela, and I'm thecurrent chair of NPEC and a
member of North New Jersey DSA.
Today I'll be speaking withSerena M.
Griffin, two DSA nationalleaders, on the meaning of May
1st or May Day for socialistsand the labor movement.

(00:21):
Before we dive in, a reminderthat class is available on all
major podcast platforms.
Please consider becoming a DSAmember by following the link in
the podcast description.
You can also send us a messageabout the episode and sign up
for Red Letter and PEC's monthlynewsletter using the provided
links.
May 1st, May Day, InternationalWorkers' Day, Labor Day.

(00:41):
This day has great significanceto socialists worldwide and to
the labor movement historicallyin almost every country but the
United States.
But the events that precipitatedMay Day as a modern marker of
working class politicalradicalism and a celebration of
the international workers'movement occurred here.
In fact, the violent details ofthe first few days of May 1886

(01:04):
and the threat of an organizedmilitant working class to the
industrial and political rulingclasses that the clashes and
aftermath signified sparked along anti-communist backlash in
the US.
This backlash included theerasure of May Day here and
replacing it with American LaborDay in September.
So, lucky for socialists, we gettwo Labor Days.
The Haymarket Affair in Chicagowas a violent confrontation

(01:27):
between the police and workersstriking citywide for an
eight-hour working day, part ofa national general strike that
started on May 1, 1886.
That day was chosen by theNational Labor Federation as the
deadline for a change to themaximum hours law.
The unions prepared workers tostrike, and then they hit the
streets right on schedule.
In Chicago, the crowds ofstrikers and their community

(01:49):
supporters marching with themnumbered around 80,000, which,
according to the census andestimating from the
industrialized sectors who weremost likely to heed the call,
was between 7 and 15% of thecity's entire population, which
matched up with the nationalstatistics of strikers.
Chicagoans continued to strikefor several days.
On May 3rd, a large picketformed to stop scab labor in

(02:11):
front of a machinery works, andthe picket line was fired upon
by the police.
Several people died, includingtwo machinists, and at a rally
the following day at the samesite, a bomb was thrown into the
crowd that killed a cop.
Scores of labor activists werearrested that day, and later
four were executed on charges ofconspiracy, anarchism, and
murder.
Another died by suicide to avoidbeing killed at the hands of the

(02:34):
state, and others faced lifesentences, but there was never
any solid evidence that anyonearrested or executed threw that
bomb, and no one knows for sureto this day who actually threw
it.
The bloody miscarriage ofjustice ignited both an
anti-communist fuse and a fiercerecommitment of the labor
movement to its cause, whichcontinued organizing around the

(02:54):
demand for an eight-hour day.
Mayday continued to be a strikeday the next couple of years,
and in 1889, the SocialistInternational adopted May 1,
1890, as the day for a greatinternational demonstration for
the eight-hour day demand and tohonor the workers who died
during the Haymarket affair,both during the demonstrations
and afterwards.

(03:15):
And thereafter, the idea of ageneral strike started to become
synonymous with Maydayworldwide, even if most people
in the United States may nothave realized that until
recently.
But that's starting to change.
Here to talk with us aboutwhat's changing and the role of
the modern socialist movementhere in the U.S.
in making that change are Serenaand Griffin.

(03:36):
Serena is a member of HoustonDSA and a member of DSA's
National Political Committee,which is our convention-elected
national leadership.
Griffin is a member of Metro DCDSA and is one of DSA's National
Labor Commission electedco-chairs.
Welcome, Serena and Griffin.

SPEAKER_00 (03:52):
Hey, excited to be speaking with you.

SPEAKER_02 (03:54):
All right, so for both of you, this is the first
question that we ask everyonewhen they first get on the
podcast is how and why did youbecome a socialist?
And how and why did you joinDSA?
Griffin, if you want to, you cantake this one first.

SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
Yeah, I think I uh became a socialist towards the
end of middle school or thebeginning of high school.
I don't remember exactly where Iwas at the time, but I remember
having a moment where I thoughtto myself, why does homelessness

(04:35):
exist?
And then I Googled thisquestion.
And uh the internet at the timewas maybe slightly different,
and our search engines workedbetter, and it led me to reading
lots of essays abouthomelessness, but also kind of
like moral philosophy.

(04:57):
Uh, and I think some of the kindof like intuitions or feelings I
had about how we should try tomake our society fairer started
then for me.
And then in high school, I had ahistory teacher who I got along

(05:19):
really well with.
And I remember his humangeography class was the you know
class that I most enjoyed,really opened up my mind to
thinking about places other thanwhere I lived.
And at the end of the year, hegave me the book Blowback by

(05:42):
Chalmers Johnson, which is aboutthe domestic effects of US
foreign policy over the courseof the Cold War, where the, you
know, wars that the UnitedStates government had carried
out all over Southeast Asia andLatin America, you know, had

(06:04):
consequences that made our livesworse at home, sometimes up to
and including violent attacksagainst Americans that you know
we could predict as a patternbecause when you bomb and kill
people, it upsets them.
Uh and after that uh point, Istarted reading a lot of Noam

(06:25):
Chomsky, and I was excited bythe first Bernie Sanders
campaign.
And at that point, I became asocialist.
I joined DSA in uh 2017, shortlyafter the uh first Trump
administration's inauguration,helped along the way by a
particular center-left comedyaudio show.

(06:46):
And then I've kind of been anactive member ever since then.

SPEAKER_02 (06:50):
All right.
So lots of threads, and you youthink you feel retrospectively
that you became a socialist orthat started for you when you
became curious about whyhomelessness existed, and then
it kind of solidified fromthere.
Out of curiosity, did you have amoment where you realized that
homelessness at home wasconnected to warfare and like US

(07:13):
involvement and war abroad?
Was there like ever that momentfor you, or did that take more
development like later on?

SPEAKER_00 (07:20):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I don't um know that I ever kindof connected those two issues
explicitly in a way that waslike an epiphany for me, but I
remember paying a lot ofattention to and being kind of
like stunned at the EdwardSnowden revelations about the
NSA's PRISM program and like theyou know um boundless,

(07:47):
warrantless surveillance ofAmericans' electronic
communications really aggravatedme and seemed kind of beyond the
pale.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (07:57):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, the socialistmovement can't really claim
Edward Snowden as one of theirown, but you know, takes all
kinds sometimes.
Um Serena, how about you?
When did you become a socialistor feel that you did?
And then how did you join DSAand when?

SPEAKER_03 (08:13):
Yeah, so hi, my name's Serena.
I'm excited to be here.
Um I would say I had a similarsort of intuition around high
school and middle school as withGriffin.
Um, just growing up um withparents who are Filipino and um

(08:34):
who I didn't really get to knowas my parents growing up because
they spent so much time workingduring my childhood until we
moved to Texas.
Um, I felt very acutely awarethat there um exists some sort
of inequality in the world.
Um, going to public school andmeeting people who are meeting

(08:57):
parents who are more involved intheir children's lives.
Um, and also my parents alsobeing um first generation um or
migrants from the Philippines,um, coming from the Philippines
explicitly to work and to liveand to make like a better life
for their kids in the US.
Uh I felt very acutely that youknow this inequality that I saw

(09:21):
not just around me was also justeverywhere.
Um I never really got to explorethat until I got to college and
I learned a little bit moreabout the decolonial movement in
the Philippines and just reallyinterrogating why do I exist in

(09:42):
this very moment?
Uh I had a lot of questionsabout my family's upbringing,
like why the US in particular,um, and why do they talk about
why am I so lucky in thiscountry when all around me I see
inequality?
And I think around that time Iwas starting to make the
connection.

(10:03):
I had developed the language forit, going into an international
relations major at ET, um,understanding what imperialism
is, and like actually being ableto write about immigration
patterns and like really, atleast through an academic lens,
like understanding um who I amand um sort of what heritage and

(10:27):
intergenerational like traumathat I've inherited.
Towards being a socialist,though, I joined DSA around
2018.
And this was also in the middleof Trump's first term.
I gravitated towards DSA throughYDSA in particular.

(10:48):
We had a chapter at UT Austin,and they had a really cool table
with a big old Bernie Sanderscutout.
And at the time, I was like verycursorily aware of this Bernie
Sanders guy.
Uh, but I was also extremely madat the fact that there is no

(11:10):
real left opposition in Texas.
And at the time, we really justhad like the sad excuse of Beto
Auroric, who was, from what Iremember, was kind of giving me,
gave me like a no-bottle-likehope.
I'm not a millennial, but it wasvery much like, is this the best

(11:31):
that the left has to offer alljust platitudes in Texas?
Because at the time we wereseeing mass deportations, just
fascism on the rise.
And it wasn't enough thatDemocrats in Texas in
particular, all they had tooffer was platitudes.
So I ended up joining DSA andreally putting into action um a

(11:56):
lot of the things I learnedgrowing up, um, understanding
the world and how I exist inthis world.
Um and yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (12:08):
So it sounds like there was a sort of early
awakening, but a lot of kind ofum uh frustration with the fact
there didn't seem to be achannel until the YDSA table
just appeared before you, um,which is of course great
commercial for YDSA.
Any people uh in high school orcollege who are listening, you
know, you can always start yourown chapter or find one um if

(12:28):
there is one in your area.
So this actually brings us tolike the next stage, because if
you both joined in part becauseof like a sense things are going
on around me that feel unfair,unjust, in unequal, I feel
socialist.
Like what then brought you intothe labor movement?

(12:50):
Because both of you are here inpart, Serena, you're a nurse
working as a rank and filenurse.
And then Griffin, you've been astaffer for UAW and been
involved in labor for a while.
So what was the thing that kindof made you decide, like, okay,
I'm gonna commit myself to thelabor movement on the socialist
side?
Serena, do you want to startoff?

SPEAKER_03 (13:10):
Yeah.
So around the same time that Ijoined YDSA, I also became an
undergraduate student workerthrough our sustainability
department.
A lot of what I did was researchon environmental justice topics
and presenting across classesand developing curriculum.

(13:30):
Uh, it was very academic, butthat's really through where I
learned about um the Texas StateEmployees Union.
Um that also like convergingwith some of my earlier mentors
in DSA in particular, also beingmembers of this same union.
Um, that's when I think me beingpart of the labor movement was

(13:55):
less of like um just a thoughtor something that I can
participate that brings good tothe world, but um really just
being part of a movement that ismuch bigger than myself.
Um so I think around a yearafter I joined um TSU

(14:20):
specifically, I think I engaged,yeah, I engaged in um a couple
campaigns.
I supported uh grad studentworkers organizing at the time.
Uh, and then when COVID hit, welaunched a petition action
demanding that our presidentdelay uh forcing us to go back

(14:41):
to in-person classes.
Um, and around the same time, wewere also supporting um a
janitor who died while workingon campus.
And um I guess at the time, Ithink I was developing really a
sense of that this work that I'mdoing organizing as a socialist

(15:06):
and explicitly um within thelabor movement is something that
I can't just stop doing as soonas I leave college.
Um and that's how I ended upbecoming a nurse.
Um, I mentioned earlier thatboth of my parents are nurses,

(15:29):
uh, but my mom in particular,uh, she worked at a public
sector hospital in Brooklyn, NewYork.
And that's when she joined herfirst union.
And um growing up, going intocollege, she always talked my

(15:49):
ear off about how nursing's agood job and you can get a
pension out of it.
And um, the union that I have isso great.
And it was kind of like, youknow, I think that's a really
good thing and all, but maybe Iwant to do something else.
Um, maybe I want to go intolabor law, actually.

(16:13):
Um but uh when COVID hit, I hadthe realization that I didn't
just want to be like notnecessarily on the sidelines,
but a supporting character inthe labor movement.
I wanted to be in the frontlines.
And so now I'm about over a yearinto my career as a nurse and

(16:36):
currently rebuilding an ASMElocal from the ground up that
has been trusted by ourinternational.

SPEAKER_02 (16:44):
Wow.

SPEAKER_03 (16:45):
Wow.
So that really is the frontlines.

SPEAKER_02 (16:47):
You've like thrown yourself right there.
And I bet your mom is just like,ha ha, I told you.
Yes.
Griffin, what about you?
How did you get involved in thelabor movement after or during
your sort of your development asa socialist?

SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
Yeah, I think um I was compelled by a lot of the
rhetoric from the Bernie Sanderscampaigns centering unions and
talking about the power ofworkers organizing at their
workplace.
Um, I basically didn't learnwhat a union was in the course

(17:24):
of my public education inVirginia and you know what a
union was until I was like 21years old.
Um perhaps there's a couple ofsessions I just didn't pay
attention to, but I actuallythink it just wasn't a big
feature of like the curriculum,and it wasn't a thing, at least,
that was present around where Ilived.

(17:44):
It's a like relatively low uniondensity state, although that
hasn't been the case throughouthistory, and there are still a
couple of places where there'sum a lot of um, you know, local
union members and presence.
And when I was at the Universityof Virginia and part of the YDSA

(18:07):
chapter there, I remember one ofthe first things we did is that
it had been revealed that thehospital system attached to the
university um was taking peopleto court over very small, unpaid
bills.
And in some cases, this meantthat they were taking their own
employees who had come to getcare, people who worked in the

(18:29):
healthcare system, nurses, tocourt over like$12 that they
hadn't yet paid, which was justlike the most offensive thing
ever, you know.
If you think about it, probablynot a good way to get back
twelve dollars either.
Yeah.
And I remember that being areally formative moment just

(18:49):
about how you know greedycorporations can be and how it's
a constant fight between bossesand employees.
And we had a little pressconference for that.
Um as I was leaving Universityof Virginia, there was a really
nascent effort that hadn't yetreally gotten off the ground or
gone public to try to organizeemployees at the university who

(19:12):
uh didn't have a union that someof the people in our chapter
were involved in talking topeople about.
And then I kind of figured thatI wanted to try out labor
organizing after graduation.
The thinking in my head beingthat uh, you know, probably
getting into labor organizing isnot something that you do later

(19:34):
in life so easily that it lendsitself to being relatively
younger, maybe because of theschedule and kind of pace of
life that it requires.
And then also personally,because I wanted to know if I
had, having been convinced ofthe importance of building
unions, the you know, personaldisposition or what it took to
be, you know, any good athelping people form unions,

(19:57):
thinking of myself as arelatively shy person, would I
be able to, you know, talk toand work with strangers on a
daily basis?
And if anyone else thinks ofthemselves that way, they should
know that uh, you know, peoplewho are quieter or more reserved
sometimes make some of the bestorganizers because it's a lot
about listening and askingquestions.

SPEAKER_02 (20:19):
All right.
That's interesting because alsoum, you know, this is a little
inside baseball, but of course,uh, you're well known as being
one of the best uh conventionchairs that we ever were ever
able to get whenever we have ourconvention.
So you really use that uh thatquiet, measured presence to the
advantage of the entireorganization.
And we're very grateful forthat.

(20:41):
So both of you got involved inthe labor movement relatively
young, right?
Um, you know, kind of as like,this is what I'm gonna do after
college.
Um, and I'm, you know, nowGriffin, you are the chair of
the National Labor Commission,one of the one of the two
co-chairs.
And Serena, um, you know, as oneof our national political

(21:02):
committee uh leaders, you havesort of joined the NLC and
especially like building up ouruh presence and our approach to
May Day um this year, as well ascommitting ourselves to Mayday
2028 as like this kind ofhorizon that we're going for.
And we can talk a little bitabout what that means uh for us,

(21:24):
like kind of on the what we'vecommitted ourselves to as an
organization.
But for either of you, do youhave um kind of any sense of
when you realize like Mayday wasimportant um for you yourselves,
or did it take kind of, youknow, this impetus towards
Mayday that DSA has currentlykind of seized more recently?

(21:46):
Um so maybe you could speak bothof you about like what Mayday
means to you, or like, you know,what you kind of see as being
the significance of Mayday.
Obviously, we're pretty distantfrom the initial activities that
kind of started May.
Mayday, right?
We're over 140 years later orso.
Um, but to the extent that it'sit's meaningful now, like what

(22:09):
is what does that entail?
So, Griffin, why don't youstart?

SPEAKER_00 (22:13):
Yeah, and I I I should say I I have a story as
well about how I quote unquotegot into labor workising that's
related to May Day, how Ilearned about May Day.
I basically learned about MayDay, you know, in the course of
the couple months after I uhjoined DSA, during which time I
was, you know, going to meetingsand meeting new people and

(22:34):
reading all sorts of things.
I think other people can kind ofthink back to when they first
became uh socialist orconsidered themselves uh
politically active or joinedDSA, and it's kind of heady and
exciting.
And at the time I was working atuh car wash in between going to
school, where you know, peoplefrom my high school happened to

(22:57):
work.
And uh some of my friends in mygrade had worked there longer
after high school, and we werepaid like uh, you know, 725.
And all things considered, itwas actually a pretty chill job
because people tipped well, itis basically like an automated
car wash, and you kind of justhad to be the person who opened
it up and made sure nothingbroke and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 (23:18):
I actually always thought it'd be kind of fun to
work at a car wash, to behonest.

SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
I think yeah, yeah.
I mean, it was kind of fun,especially when there were like
two of us.
I think the thing that is notnecessarily like immediately
obvious to people is that thereare a lot of like workplace
injuries that come with it.
Like one time there was a formeremployee who came by to say
hello and he had lost a fingerwhen it great had crushed his
hand.
And I think that sort of thingis pretty common.

(23:42):
And I know like in the lastdecade, there's been some kind
of prominent campaigns in themedia to informally organize uh
people who work at car washes asworkers because it's a you know
um place to work that doesn'tautomatically come with lots of
protections and you don't have aton of structural power.
But oftentimes the people knoweach other are connected to the

(24:04):
community can, you know,mobilize goodwill.
In my particular case, I didn'tget connected to any of the
community or mobilize goodwill.
But on the night of the nightbefore May 1st, I thought, you
know, I'm sitting here when carsaren't here, I'm reading the
ABCs of socialism by Jacobin.
This absentee owner who onlycomes here every two weeks up

(24:24):
from Virginia Beach isn't payingmy friends enough, but we keep
the place open.
I'm gonna go on strike tomorrowmorning.
What do I need to do to go onstrike?
You know, what makes what makesa strike legal?
You know, I'm perusing the NLRBwebsite.
I type up a little letter.
I learn that apparently you canstrike over economic demands,
and that makes it legal.

(24:46):
And so I um type up in a Worddocument that I'm going on
strike over pay.
I send a text message in thegroup chat of my friends at
probably literally midnight.
Hey, do you guys want to go onstrike in the morning?
Again, bad idea.
Don't do this.
I walk up in the morning, not inmy uniform.
The owner happens to be there.
I hand him the letter.

(25:07):
He says, What the hell is goingon?
Fuck off, get out of here.
I say, Don't talk to me likethat.
And then I drive down toRichmond for a May Day
celebration, at which there's areally nice interfaith gathering
in the morning, and then laterin the day, a rally that the
newly formed DSA chapter isgoing to, at which there were

(25:27):
also some Maoists in militaryfatigues and a right-wing
provocateur who was putting acamera in people's faces and got
someone to throw coffee on them.
It's a very like 2017 moment.
But I feel like in that story,there's a negative lesson, which
is like, you know, our powercomes from our numbers.
You got to be talking to peopleand building trusting
relationships ahead of time.

(25:47):
You can't take action on yourown.
And I thought I really had thisin the bag because, you know,
I'd gotten fired over somethingthat was protected concerted
activity.
And a couple weeks later, whenthe NLRB agent called me because
I had dutifully submitted anonline, you know, uh complaint.
He said, Okay, great.
Well, do you have any evidencethat someone took action

(26:08):
alongside you?
And then I just kind of had anout-of-body experience where I
had realized I was the stupidestperson in the world.
But in this, and and you know, Itell this story to to people I'm
organizing with sometimes, likeat the bar, just because it's
kind of funny in it.
Like um, I use it to make mefeel good about myself in terms

(26:28):
of how far I think I might havecome since then.

SPEAKER_02 (26:32):
As I would say that that's a very radicalizing
Mayday story.

SPEAKER_00 (26:36):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (26:36):
It radicalized you into not being such a dumbass in
the future.

SPEAKER_00 (26:40):
Exactly.
Exactly.
But basically, everything inthat story, you want to do the
opposite, and then you'll have agreat time getting people to
organize together to, you know,make demands of their boss.

SPEAKER_02 (26:52):
Incredible.
Yeah, that's so great.
And I definitely want to hearmore about how that lesson
taught you a lot about what neckneeded to happen then the
following May Day, and maybe allof the May Days after that.
But Serena, did you have anyprobably nothing like that, I
would assume.
Um, but um, any kind of likepersonal May Day realizations,
or was like what was the kind ofthing that made you realize like

(27:13):
this is meaningful to me?

SPEAKER_03 (27:15):
That was an incredible story, Griffin, by
the way.
I'm keeping that in the back ofmy mind whenever I fumble an
organizing conversation.
Um but I think for a while inDSA and YDSA, May Day has been
just kind of an academicexercise and like learning

(27:39):
history.
And whenever I did see it kindof play out in the streets with
demonstrations, it was kind ofyour usual suspects on the left
uh doing uh some sort of smalldemonstration.
I think at the time Red GuardSauston was a thing.
So it to me, there wasn't reallyany sort of political

(28:02):
significance beyond just what Ilearned about the history and
the eight-day workday and theweekend and so on and so forth.
But after Sean Fain made thecall for May Day 2028 for
contracts across unions to belined up for that specific day,

(28:24):
I thought, wow, history ishappening kind of right now, I
think.
And at first I was veryskeptical, um, knowing what the
labor movement is, andespecially coming from Texas,
where um for as long as I'velike been in the Texas A
Employees Union, and for as longas um like many of my mentors in

(28:47):
Texas DSA chapters have beeninvolved in their unions, it's
really hard just even organizingpeople into some sort of
concerted action.
And that was around the timewhere I think the tides were
turning, really.
I think whenever we startthinking about a general strike
or the labor movement takingreal militant action.

(29:11):
So I think around that time waswhen May Day became kind of more
material in my mind.
And it wasn't also fast forwardto um around convention time
where I think a lot of us in DSAand a lot of my mentors really
took seriously the question ofcan we actually do this?

(29:34):
Can we actually heed Sean Vane'scall for a general strike on May
Day, 2028?
And I think we took the rightapproach in just kind of looking
at that and saying, fuck it, weball, basically, because I think
that was a really good approachbecause so many of our members

(29:55):
in DSA are already rank and filemembers of their unions, putting
forward or taking leadershipwithin their unions, uh,
organizing within reformcaucuses, bringing workplace
democracy, truly workplacedemocracy, from the shop floor
um all the way to their unionlocals.
And it felt like there was thatrebuilding of that militant

(30:18):
labor movement that was key inall of these strikes in American
history that I've read about.
And now looking back, um, I itstill feels very far away, May
Day 2028.
But looking at what's developingright now with our May Day work,

(30:39):
we have 98 chaptersparticipating in some sort of
May Day action in Houston.
Our chapter organized is workingon organizing three different
rallies across three differentplaces in Houston, which is
amazing and covers a lot ofareas that are left out whenever

(31:01):
we organized around downtown.
Um and these are also areas thatare represented by a lot of our
immigrant neighbors.
So a lot of what Mayday to me isnot just the labor movement
putting forward economicdemands, wresting the means of

(31:21):
production from the catalysts.
But this is, it's also beencolored with really immigrant
justice in particular, um, whichhits very close to home for a
lot of folks in Houston, butalso echoing to the day of
action in Minneapolis, where itwasn't exactly a general strike,

(31:46):
but this mass action around areckoning that it's really
screwed up, that 5,000 ICEagents can descend upon a city
with no democraticaccountability.
And I think May Day is at leastcoming up, is not just a
reckoning with our economicsystem, but also a reckoning

(32:08):
with the lack of democracy inour country.
And I think that's a reallyimportant reckoning.
And I look forward to organizingaround the sort of demands that
come out of these May Dayactions and putting them,
putting this energy into durableorganization.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (32:26):
So thank you for that.
I think this gets to a couple ofthings.
One is that, like, for a longtime, I think that May Day is so
abstract, like for a lot ofpeople in the United States,
because it's not our Labor Day,quote unquote, and it doesn't
have that same um immediatehistory um that it does in other
countries where they have, youknow, essentially adopted that

(32:47):
day for the workers andrecognized it.
But DSA is currently incoalition with lots of other
organizations, including majorunions, in May Day Strong, which
is hopefully something thatcould potentially endure, you
know, longer as a way to bringforward these kinds of current
demands, because before it wasan eight-hour workday, which was

(33:10):
an international demand.
First it was 10 hours, ifanyone's read Capital, now, and
then it was eight hours, right?
The eight hours to work, eighthours to sleep, eight hours to
do what you will was a rallyingcry that was resonated all over
the world among industrializedworkers.
But as mentioned before in theintroduction, it wasn't actually

(33:30):
every worker because a lot ofworkers were not part of the
organized labor movement at thetime, right?
And um even though there were alot of industrialized workers,
including immigrants, like, youknow, that time in particular,
18 middle 1886 or so, like thelate 19th century, tons of
immigrants were therespecifically to work in in

(33:51):
factories and in um kind of likemanufacture.
And so immigrants were really ahuge part of um striking, you
know, both in Chicago as well asall over the country wherever
there were these factories.
Um so I think it's really notjust like kind of resident of
the past, but obviouslyextremely important now to think
about that, right?

(34:12):
You know, to think aboutimmigrants as part of the
workforce, but also as part ofthe wider, you know, United
States community.
And the demands currently,right, are tax the rich, abolish
ice, no war.
Those are the three main demandsof May Day.
But as you mentioned, Serena,it's like, can we go on general

(34:33):
strike?
Like what, like what is so maybewe could talk a bit about like
what is a general strike?
I mean, because one of thethings that's pretty important
to note is that there's peoplewho are kind of like online
calling for a general strike,you know, with uh, you know,
form that you fill out, likewith a QR code and it's like
sign up for the general strike,which is like, okay, well,

(34:54):
that's not adequate.
But then how else is it gonnahappen without this sort of like
organization, whenever the labormovement itself is kind of at a
a place where there's not a highdensity?
Um, those are some somequestions we might want to think
about, but maybe to begin, like,what's a general strike?
What does it require?

(35:15):
And what do we have now and whatdo we still need?
Griffin, do you have thoughtsabout this?
Uh, since you, of course, haveso much experience going on
really successful generalstrikes as a as a as a
one-person union.

SPEAKER_00 (35:29):
Yeah, of course, of course.
There's like a number ofhistorical general strikes in
American history that based onwhere our labor movement is
right now, and overallstatistics like number of
workers who are in unions, wemight not have the sense that US

(35:53):
labor history is very radical,but really at points it was like
some of the most violent andmilitant in the world.
And one of the things that Ithink is um important to keep in
mind is that a lot of thegeneral strikes throughout US

(36:13):
history, whether that's the haymarket strikes or the
cross-country railroad strikesor the Seattle general strike
after World War One or the bigstrikes during like the second
half of the Great Depression,where there were these external
conditions that also were partof motivating people to take

(36:35):
action.
Like in the late 1800s, therewas a recession or a depression
every couple years for like twodecades.
And so people's ability to likebuy food was just always up in
the air.
And farmers were alsoself-organizing in the scale of
like hundreds of thousandsacross the country because these

(36:56):
price changes meant that, youknow, at the end of the season
when they would go to buy, youknow, new seeds and equipment
for the next year of farming,their, you know, balance sheet
would be zero dollars.
And so they were just kind of ina state of peonage.
And after, you know, World WarI, people had come back from the

(37:18):
war and we're seeing thatworkers in the US still weren't
getting a fair share in thedepression.
A quarter of the country wasunemployed.
And I think that's a factorthat's also kind of present
recently in the ICE and youknow, DHS occupation of
Minneapolis that's really usefulto hone in on when we think

(37:40):
about how can specificallyunion-led mass mobilizations
against the policies of thegovernment happen.
There were, you know, sympathyrallies and have been on the
30th of January and since thenacross the country, but none of
them have kind of taken on thescale or like the level of

(38:02):
organization, because one of thelike just real underlying
factors that made people gooutside of where they lived and
talk to their neighbors and dothings together was just the
fact that there were six ICEagents for every local police
officer in the city.
And without that kind of likereally acute in your face on a

(38:25):
daily basis crisis, I don'tthink you end up in a situation
where one in ten people are in arapid response network in
Minneapolis.
I think the other factors thatare useful to consider that are
probably through lines in theother episodes of uh huge kind
of like citywide strikes in UShistory are groups of, you know,

(38:49):
organized radicals well placedin their unions and workplaces.
That's, you know, true inMinneapolis, where people have
been longtime progressive unionleaders were coordinating and
kind of brought together thecommunity coalition that said,
we're all gonna go out on thisday.
Uh and it was true, you know, inthe sit-down strikes in the

(39:11):
Great Depression, uh, or thelongshoremen strikes in San
Francisco or the Toledo strikes,groups of radicals coming
together with a plan.
I think another variable that isprobably true of many of these
cases is a conflict that's aboutbasic rights and people's
dignity.
In the case of Minneapolis,that's the freedom to be out and

(39:34):
about without fearing thatyou're constantly being
surveilled or that you're gonnabe snatched up or killed, and
that you're gonna have to, youknow, get in harm's way to
protect your neighbor or afamily member.
Um, and in 1886, it was we wouldlike some free time, uh, because
we, you know, deserve to havetime to spend with friends and

(39:59):
families and take up hobbies andrelax and you know do what we
will.
Uh have a choice.
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah.
And so, and another factor Ithink is just like uh
particularly influential interms of size or part of the
local economy group of workersleading the way that draws the

(40:20):
rest of the community into thestruggle.
Like in the case of the umMinneapolis Teamsters strike,
about which many of us have readthe Farrell Dobbs book.
You know, it was the fact thatit was truckers who bring stuff
into the city and take stuff outof the city.
Without it, there's no basicgoods.
And that also puts them in aposition then working with other

(40:42):
organized workers to, you know,set up a system where a council
of union leaders and workers arekind of managing the affairs of
the city for a period of time,which is also a you know system
of self-organization thatappears when class struggle gets
really high in a particularplace.
Uh, and so I think those arethose are kind of like some

(41:04):
patterns of factors that generalstrikes in the United States
have taken on.

SPEAKER_02 (41:09):
Yeah.
And um, so just to to clarifytoo, you're like distinguishing
between the groups of radicalswithin unions that are just, you
know, kind of like the ones thatmight push more militancy in
their unions.
But then there's also the factorof the logistics or the the sort
of nodes of the labor movement.
So like the truckers being, youknow, in that in that famous uh

(41:32):
strike of Minneapolis, thetruckers being like able to
really put their weight on onthe levers of of capital and
then bring other people alongand kind of organize that way.
So that's kind of a micro-macrorelationship there.
Serena, um, love to hear whatyou think about this question of
the general strike and and kindof what it needs and maybe where

(41:53):
we're we're lacking or where wecan grow, of course.
You know, like opportunityalways can lurk, um, but seems
far away, or like seems maybepotentially like, wow, could we
do that?

SPEAKER_03 (42:05):
Um I have less of an academic perspective or just
kind of big picture perspectiveto offer.
I think Griffin pretty muchcovered that part.
Uh, but I recently spoke with amom and organizer who was very
visibly the face of protectingpublic education here in

(42:27):
Houston.
And I conjure her up becauseshe, her story could really just
be anyone's story beingpoliticized, being on survival
mode for their entire life, andthen being part of a very
politicizing moment.
And for her, it was the statetakeover of Houston Independent

(42:51):
School District.
And I think this does speak veryclearly to external factors
being a ri really uh importantvariable in bringing people
towards action.
But with her in particular, uhknowing her over the years since
the takeover happened, I thinkshe's developed a voice and

(43:15):
she's now a leader of anorganization called Young
Monarchs, where it's her, herkids, parents, and her kids'
schools all coming all togetherand bringing a whole community
together, all ages, to talkthrough what's going on in the

(43:35):
world.
And this is primarily speakingto ICE agents, uh stopping by
schools.
And I think what she's done andhow she's become and developed
as a leader is really what Iimagine all of our leading roles

(43:56):
and participants in a futuregeneral strike would embody.
It's not just, you know, justone singular political moment.
I think it's really importantfor us to, as we develop
politically from thesejunctures, from these crises, to
take ownership of the role oflike mentorship and really

(44:20):
raising new generations ofradicals for maydays to come.
That's great.

SPEAKER_02 (44:25):
I I just want to also note the name Young
Monarchs is so cool.
It reminds me of the YoungLords, but I'm imagining the
monarchs is like butterflies andnot actual kings.
Um that actually so what I'mhearing you say is that it's
about people being radicalizedkind of where they're at and

(44:46):
then committing to action andthen having a critical mass of
those people kind of ready to gois going to be very important.
Um, I I would agree.
I would say it actually kind ofintersects with what you were
saying, Griffin, which is thatthere's these crises that arise,

(45:07):
but not everyone recognizes themas crises, especially when
they're isolated, especiallywhen people are so isolated,
right?
Like um when they don't actuallyhave uh relationships in their
communities, but that's changingtoo, because what we saw in
Minneapolis is it was bothpeople who had those
relationships that were able tosort of urge them on, but then

(45:27):
people were willingly joining toput themselves on the line for
people that they didn't know,you know, like it's like that
sort of outward ripple, I think,is like that happens, but it
really does, I think, take umthe recognition of a crisis.
And in some ways, it's not thatit there has to be a DSA member
standing right there in order torecognize it or something, but

(45:49):
it's more like what are thethings that you can actually see
that will then allow people toum put themselves at risk
because that's really what astrike is.
It's a risk that people putthemselves out there in order to
collectively try to transformthe conditions that they're that
they're demanding, right?

(46:10):
Like to to get an eight-hourday.
That is such an interestingsingle demand, too, because now,
of course, we take it so forgranted that that's the standard
working day that people diedliterally to get that for us,
right?
Like to or to get that standardfor us, even though now it's
kind of been washed away by latecapitalism.

(46:30):
You know, people are like, ohno, you know, you don't really
have a fixed working day.
That's a myth.
Or, you know, what do you whatdo you think this is?
Um so I I really do think thatall of what you just said is so
important to think about it inrelation to this rising protest
movement, right?
That we're seeing because it'sMinneapolis had like this huge,

(46:51):
localized, very inspiringprotest.
But then we also have these moreregular protests called No
Kings, um, that is kind oforganized around obviously
protest against the Trumpadministration that has many
different factors, manydifferent demands, um, many,
many different people from thesort of standard liberal, maybe

(47:13):
even a person who wouldn't evenidentify as liberal or
something, but they're just sickof the Trump administration, to
participation by socialists.
So, what about this?
Like, how does that fit in inyour view?
Because it's like the protestmovement in the United States is
also something that is in manyways disconnect, it can be

(47:34):
disconnected from anytransformative change.
But over time, you know, likewe've kind of this is kind of
what we're trained to do is likego out into the streets.
Like that's the thing that wedo.
We vote, we go out into thestreets.
We vote, we go out into thestreets.
So maybe speak to that.
Um, Serena, what do you think?
Like, you know, as far asprotest, like the protest
movement goes, like what doesthat do?

(47:55):
Especially because not everyoneis going to be part of a union
or or part of like a sort oflike organized coalition, but
they can always go out into thestreet.

SPEAKER_03 (48:02):
So let me try to answer this.
So Minneapolis is a veryinteresting case to me because I
don't think a whole lot ofcommentary around or analysis
around how uh 100,000Minnesotans went out on the
streets came to be.
And I think we need to kind ofdo uh rewind to 2020, COVID, and

(48:30):
in particular uh the Black LivesMatter protests.
And I think this is my analysis,anyways, that protest movement,
in particular in Minneapolis,where George Floyd was shot, was
a sort of, it was definitely areckoning moment, but also I

(48:51):
guess the spark for a lot ofworking class Minneapolis
residents to see themselves aspart of this broader protest
movement demanding the abolitionof police.
And I think this also goes toreally the importance, broadly
speaking, of social justicemovements out on the streets,

(49:15):
politicizing really whatevercrises of capital brings forth.
And I'll also connect this tothe protest movement in Houston
shortly after October 7thhappened.
And I think that was most likelya lot of the protests that were

(49:38):
organized were just ascomparable to a lot of the
George Floyd protests thatoccurred here in Houston.
And from these protests cameorganizers in different places
across Houston.
Also, from these protests camemore focused and disciplined

(49:58):
demands for boycotts and alsoorganizers who are leading
campaigns for boycotts.
And in particular, we have nowan arms embargo campaign in
Houston that has built off thisprotest movement and is bringing
people closer into action,thinking clearly about what it

(50:19):
will take to win an armsembargo.
So that being said, yeah, thereis really important role for
social movements to play withinthinking about a general strike,
because again, union density isvery low.
And realistically thinking aboutreally who runs our economy,
we're also going to like have tothink about um how do we

(50:42):
organize immigrants in ourworkplaces.
These two labor movements andsocial movements, I think,
should be in conversation witheach other.

SPEAKER_02 (50:50):
Yeah.
And I think I think probablythrough the Mayday strong
coalition, some of those thingsare starting to happen.
The thing that really struck meabout what you just said is that
there's kind of almost like agenealogy of protests, like
probably starting, you know,maybe recently around the

(51:11):
juncture of COVID and GeorgeFloyd, you know, I think that it
was something like 25% of adultpeople, adult people, adults,
um, went out and protest andtook part in at least one
protest during that period.
And even though it did notresult, and of course the right
and Democrats are very quick tosay it didn't result in in what
they wanted, you know, policeended up increasing, blah, blah,

(51:32):
blah.
It did train people or like, youknow, kind of start this spark,
like you said, of giving peoplethe impetus to go out and
express themselves in collectiveaction whenever there was a
problem.
Now, what the right andDemocrats, of course, want us to
do is either forget about it,right?

(51:53):
Or like, you know, stay at home,or only do it in like a very
specific kind of way.
And of course, definitely not dolike a real general strike, you
know, not a real one, not onethat's going to actually bring
the economy to its knees.
But I think, you know, I like tohear what Griffin has to say,
but this conversation that maybeneeds to just become more

(52:13):
active, maybe it needs tointensify or learn from each
other, like from the labormovement and social movements,
is is kind of maybe notstarting, but like starting back
up or like, you know, startingto kind of like percolate around
things like Mayday, right?
Like that the like Mayday can belike this sort of, I don't know,
rallying point.
And then between Maydays, youcan have these um continued

(52:34):
conversations potentially.
Griffin, uh, thoughts about therole of street protest or or
just protest generally in in MayDay?

SPEAKER_00 (52:43):
Yeah, I think people who have workplace organizing
experience will be familiar withthe idea that if your coworker
doesn't think that it's possibleto win, or if they think that
the thing that you're askingthem to do isn't connected to

(53:07):
the goal, they're just gonna beless likely to take part because
in their head they're doing, youknow, a rational calculation of
how they want to spend theirtime.
And people want to spend theirtime on stuff that they think
matters.
And I think, you know,particularly as like the new
generation of people who havebecome active socialists over

(53:29):
the course of the last decade,we might be a little protested
out in a way that almost meansthat we're kind of like missing
the significance of the moment.
But it's a really good questionfor like the anecdote Serena
gave about the person she knowsin relation to the you know,

(53:50):
significance of general strikes,like what would get you to go
out and do something if someoneasks you to do it.
Like, that's kind of thequestion we need to be thinking
about in terms of how to make ageneral strike happen.
And when it comes to kicking iceout of your city now or
decreasing the amount of iceoperations going on, we now
basically have empiricalevidence that if there's a

(54:12):
certain amount of like ice watchand big protests, that that just
means they like do lessoperations and abduct less
people.
And you could credibly askpeople to take part in that
because there's a pattern thatyou know has been, you know,
tracked exactly.
It works.
And that hasn't necessarily beenthe case for lots of the
protests that we've all been apart of through the you know,

(54:34):
waves of protests over thecourse of the last decade.
We've watched the genocideunfold.
The policy of our government interms of militarily supplying
Israel hasn't really changeddespite hundreds of thousands,
millions of people over thecourse of almost a thousand days
taking to the streets andexpressing sympathy with the
Palestinian people, similarlywith the protests inspired by

(54:58):
the people who have been killedas a result of police violence.
But I think right now, with uh,for example, No Kings, there's
just a lot of energy aboutpeople who weren't paying
attention before or thoughtthings were going okay, who now
have just kind of totallyshifted the way many of us

(55:18):
became socialists 10 years ago.
And it's a real opportunity to,at the very least, go and chat
with those people and bring ourown signs as a way to like
politicize what's going on,never mind kind of like trying
to officially engage engage withthe quote unquote movement.
And I feel like my mom is anexample.
She went to the last No Kingsand she texted me in the middle

(55:40):
of the day, and she was like,Unions in North Carolina, let's
talk about it.
And then five minutes later, shewas like, May 1, May 1st,
International Workers' Day.
And I was like, Yeah, what's up?
You know, like I'm gonna recruitmy mom to DSA.
And the, you know, in terms oflike opinion polling right now,
like 60% of people supportabolishing I 60% of people

(56:04):
support ending US arms shipmentsto Israel, which was not the
case two and a half years ago.
60% of people have alwayssupported Medicare for all.
So we should really feel likethe wind is at our sails.
And I think in the same way thathaving organized radicals was
like a key component of previousgeneral strikes, like the more
organized we are, the more wecan take advantage of the moment

(56:26):
and also kind of like steer whatthe demands are.
You know, lots of people kind ofbulk at the signage and the
branding that says hands offNATO, in addition to like, you
know, hands off Congress orhands off women's rights.
And I agree, you know, I thinkwe need to kind of very actively
take apart NATO, but we don'tget to a place where people are

(56:48):
hearing us out if we don't showup and chat with people.
And, you know, ideally we wouldall be going out with the same
signage and clipboards andsigning people up as DSA members
on the spot because people wantan avenue to fight back.
And the No Kings protests, youknow, in particular, are just an
opportunity for us to go andhave organizing conversations
with people.

SPEAKER_02 (57:08):
Yeah, no, that's I think that's kind of the
consensus, right?
Which is that, you know, weshould, as DSA, like be open and
and clear and approachable.
And one of the big ways we cando that, of course, is by really
having um a strong presence inguiding, I think, the Mayday
agenda, you know, um, like Isaid, tax the rich, abolish ice,

(57:32):
no war.
Those are all three things thathave popular consensus around,
you know, um, the people maybeeven can like see the
connections between some ofthose things already.
They just don't necessarily haveanyone to talk to about them,
um, or like, you know, anyone tokind of urge them on.
And that brings us to thecomment that we are actually
like, you know, a big part ofthis Mayday strong coalition.

(57:54):
And we have a variety ofdifferent things.
I can say that NPEC developed umsome Mayday political education.
Obviously, we're putting outthis beautiful podcast that's
going to come out on Monday, butwe um made like a kind of Mayday
and General Strike uh socialistnight school that chapters can
put on.
We'll put a link to that in theshow notes, um, as along with

(58:14):
the chapter toolkit, which is,you know, a kind of variety of
different things that ever everychapter can do.
And um, both of you have beeninvolved in kind of like shaping
the approach to Mayday that DSAis taking.
So maybe you could finish thisout with talking a little bit
about what people should expecton May 1st, wherever they're at,
or, you know, anything that youfeel has been like a great kind

(58:36):
of thing that you've learned oror kind of come about since
we've been working on Maydayvery intentionally.
Because as Serena had mentionedbefore, like Mayday always
seemed a little bit like a sidequest or something, um, as like,
you know, DSA.
Like it was, I always rememberit being like, uh, are we gonna
do anything for Mayday?

(58:56):
Like it was like, uh-oh, it'slike, you know, April 25th, like
are we gonna do anything forMayday?
And this year it's been verymuch like a, oh yeah, like here
are the plans for May Day.
Like we actually have them likefar enough ahead of time, which
to me, it's like that's a simplething in some ways.
Like it's like, oh, we'resuddenly paying attention, but
it's actually resulted, in atleast in my observation, in

(59:18):
quite a lot of stuff.
Um, so maybe you could talkabout maybe some of your
favorite stuff, maybe some ofthe things that you're gonna be
doing on May Day.
I'm gonna be in Louisvillehanging out with Louisville DSA
and canvassing for somesocialist candidates there.
Um, that's what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_03 (59:35):
So Serena, want to speak to that?
So this coming May Day, um, Idid mention that Houston DSA is
organizing three differentrallies across three different
areas of Houston.
Um, I will be speaking andattending a rally that will be
organized closer to the centerof the city uh where most of our

(59:56):
unions or union leaders will beparticipating in.
So I'm a little bit excitedabout it, not as excited as I am
about the other three ralliesthat Eastern DSA is organizing.
But I think it's verysignificant that we're able to
even just use May Day as a daywhere we can all come together

(01:00:18):
and demand similar things, andin particular, getting rid of
ICE from our city.
And I'm really looking forwardto this day, just broadly
speaking, for people who areparticipating to not necessarily
be disappointed that this isn'ta general strike, but to see it
as a jumping point where they'reseeing others realize their own

(01:00:42):
agency and politics as it existstoday, where capitalists and
bought-up politicians are reallyintent on taking away working
people's agencies.
And also people, attendees ofthese rallies themselves, seeing
themselves as people who canfurther carry out the sort of

(01:01:03):
agenda and the demands thatwe've demanded this one day out
of 2026 and onwards, because atthe end of the day, this is a
lifetime-long struggle againstcapital, against imperialism,
and Mayday today for this year,anyways, will just be one

(01:01:25):
galvanizing moment um before thenext one.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:28):
2027, then 2028, and beyond.
Griffin, what do you think?
What's what's your what are yourbig plans and what are the what
are the plans of otherspotentially?

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:38):
Yeah, I people should know that, you know, um
the National Political Committeeof DSA and the National Labor
Commission have been reallyworking on May Day as a priority
for the whole organization for acouple months.
It's earlier, Serena had saidthat 98 chapters have plans for

(01:01:58):
May Day that we know of.
Probably the number is morebecause it's our one holiday per
year.
But a cool part of that as wellis that 68 chapters have
affiliated with the May DayStrong Coalition, which is led
by a couple of unions that cametogether in response to Sean
Fain's call to line up contractsacross the country to make 2028

(01:02:23):
about workers' demands.
And by participating in thelocal May Day Strong coalitions,
DSA members leading theirchapters, doing labor work who
are themselves, union membersactive in their unions, have an
opportunity to, you know, meet,form relationships with, talk

(01:02:45):
politics with union leaders andmembers in their area.
And that matters, you know, togo back to like how did we
become interested in the labormovement?
Why did lots of socialistsarrive at the conclusion that
unions matter a lot?
Because they're long-lastinginstitutions of workers that,
you know, in terms of people andresources, can be used to

(01:03:06):
advance politics in theworkplace and outside the
workplace.
And I think it'll be reallyimportant that people reflect on
what mattered uh in terms ofactivating people for this May
Day.
What do people seem to care mostabout?
And how can we try to not justresist what's happening in terms

(01:03:32):
of the real democraticbacksliding across the country
and our government kind of beingpillaged as it gets harder for
people to live day-to-day?
But what do we want toaffirmatively, positively fight
for and win?
And I think, you know, forexample, we're seeing US
government support for Israel asit continues to genocide

(01:03:53):
Palestinians and annex parts ofLebanon and attack Iran,
becoming a defining issue indemocratic primaries.
Similarly, you know, Amazon is ahuge corporate target that's
degrading, you know, workingconditions in multiple
industries that affect multipleof the biggest unions in the

(01:04:14):
country.
It's going to take the wholelabor movement to take down
Amazon and get Amazon workers aseat at the table.
How does that argument get made,trickle up?
How does the where does thepressure come from?
Probably through, you know,local union members and
organizers frontizing andtalking about what's the most

(01:04:34):
important thing we can do rightnow with our unions, with each
other to fight back.
One other thing I'll just say isthat we have uh some really
excellent signs made by DSAcomrades that people should
print out with their chaptersand take to actions.
They say, strike for democracy,abolish ice.
We can't afford the capitalistclass, solidarity has no
borders, and no at war withIran, no money for Israel.

(01:04:58):
They're very simple, but they'rein DSA red, and I think they're
quite striking and will reallystand out in the crowd.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:06):
We'll definitely put a link to those in the show
notes for people to be able toprint.
And I know that um some of thethings that chapters are doing
to build up are like art buildsand like sign making uh events.
Um, so if you're listening tothis and um you have the idea
that your chapter might be doingsomething for Mayday showing up,
you can always um maybe, youknow, float the idea of doing an

(01:05:28):
art build this week and um, youknow, getting some of those
signs made.
So thanks so much, Serena andGriffin, for showing up today.
And thank you, as always, to ourproduction crew, Emma, Michael,
and Tim, who put all thistogether.
Class is a podcast of DSA'sNational Political Education
Committee, or NPEC, which worksto expand the knowledge of DSA

(01:05:49):
members and non members in theservice of winning the struggle
for socialism and democracy.
You can find out more about NPECby searching for us online or
following us on social media,but the best way to find out
what Our committees up to is bysigning up for Red Letter and
Hex Monthly Newsletter.
And if you aren't already, youcan become a DSA member by
following the link in thepodcast description.
Okay, until next time,solidarity.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:31):
Stehe auf dem Brüdergenos, an essential
Volksar und Wild, wer mit Lügeund Schmutz sich verbindet, wer
das Volk und den Friedenbesteht, wer die Fakten des

(01:06:52):
Friedes entzündet, hat seineigenes Leben verspielt.
An der Ostfahrt, an der Weichse,an der Wolda, an der Spring,
stehe Waffen höhergenossen, ausdes Leben sankeist aus mir