Mid-Mo DSA’s Field Organizer will present this training, which includes historical context, discussions, and breakouts to explore the idea of building a mass organization, and why DSA is committed to becoming a mass working class organization.
What you will take from it: a base level understanding of YDSA and DSA as a political project, the fundamentals of our uniting politics, more clarity around what we’re trying to build together, and how to choose priorities in your chapter.
When and Where: Saturday, November 23rd at 6pm at the University of Missouri Arts & Science Building.
This past Tuesday, we made history. Thanks to your dedication and support, we raised Missouri’s minimum wage to $15, secured paid sick leave for workers, and overturned Missouri’s abortion ban. Because of this incredible achievement, over 562,000 workers will receive a much-needed raise, more than 728,000 workers will no longer have to choose between a paycheck and caring for themselves or their loved ones when sick, and clinics across the state can start making abortion care more accessible than it has been in decades.
We know that many of you may have found this victory bittersweet amid the news that Donald Trump has been re-elected as president. In moments like these, it’s easy to feel disheartened. But while Trump may have won, the fight for the future of our country—and our world—is far from over. Our mission has always been to build a better, more just world, and that mission has not changed. It’s just become more urgent.Together, we overcame tremendous odds to gather the necessary signatures and mobilize voters for Proposition A and Amendment 3. Let’s not forget the example set by our comrades in Mizzou YDSA who made Columbia an LGBTQ+ Sanctuary City despite daunting challenges. The lesson is clear: when we fight, a better world is within reach.No matter what the next four years hold, one truth remains: ordinary people like you and me have the power to shape our future. We can build a world that works for everyone, not just the powerful few. A world where freedom, equality, and joy are realities for every person. A world where resources go toward homes, healthcare, education, and meeting basic human needs—not toward war and environmental destruction.That world is just as possible today as it was last week. If you haven’t yet joined us, now is the time. Help us continue building the world we want to live in.
Our plan to face the road ahead starts with community. Last summer, we hosted Organize CoMo, an event that brought local progressive organizations together to support one another and to inspire community involvement. We’re now working to plan an even larger event before January 20, so we’re ready to meet any challenge head-on.Join us for our next general meeting this Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at 404 Tiger Lane to learn more about how you can get involved in this event and in the initiatives that follow.Together, we can make the future we deserve.
Below are a handful of articles, podcasts, and videos we have turned to as we reflect on this election and look towards the future. But first, we want to leave you with this quote from the prophetic Mike Davis:”This seems an age of catastrophe, but it’s also an age equipped, in an abstract sense, with all the tools it needs. Utopia is available to us. If, like me, you lived through the civil-rights movement, the antiwar movement, you can never discard hope. I’ve seen social miracles in my life, ones that have stunned me—the courageousness of ordinary people in a struggle.”
Joint Statement by St. Louis DSA, Kansas City DSA, and Mid-Missouri DSA – Missouri chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) celebrate the decision of Missourians to overturn the state’s abortion ban, raise the minimum wage, and guarantee paid sick leave. DSA volunteers gathered thousands of signatures to put Proposition A and Amendment 3 on the ballot and knocked on thousands of doors to secure their passage.
“This victory shows what happens when workers come together to create change. Had we simply waited and hoped for others to give us the dignity we deserve, where would we be? Rather, we did the hard work ourselves,” said Alejandro Gallardo, member of the steering committee of Mid-Missouri DSA.
Crucial facts about these ballot initiatives:
Proposition A puts into place the highest inflation-adjusted minimum wage in Missouri history. The buying power of the federal minimum wage peaked at $13.69 in 2024 dollars in 1969. With the passage of Proposition A in 2024 (and previous propositions in 2006 and 2018) Missouri voters reversed the 60-year slide in the value of minimum wage, uninterrupted at the federal level since 2009. Workers subject to the federal minimum wage will soon be paid half what they would have been paid in the 1960s. Workers in Missouri will be paid more — and, thanks to the propositions’ inflation peg, will keep that level of pay as long as these measures remain in the statute books.
Amendment 3 overturns one of the United States’s most extreme abortion bans and puts reproductive rights, under assault in Missouri long before Roe v. Wade was overturned, into the state Constitution. Missourians who had to cross state lines to get an abortion — estimates suggest more than 10,000 did so in 2023 — and the unknown number of Missourians that could not make that trip will be able to access these services when and where they need them.
These ballot initiatives are on track to dramatically outperform Kamala Harris and the Democratic ticket statewide — demonstrating the potential of direct democracy and progressive policy anywhere in the country. Continued right-wing control of state government means it is crucial that Missourians organize to keep up the pressure. Politicians in Jefferson City must be made to understand that any attempt to repeal these measures, undermine the rights they guarantee, or limit the initiative petition process that made them possible will be punished by the voters that backed them.
While celebrating tonight’s victory, democratic socialists in Missouri understand that these measures are not sufficient. Missourians deserve a living wage and robust workers rights, secured by union representation. Households with retirees, children and students, and non-wage earning people with disabilities and care-givers need support outside the labor market. Abortion rights under the American healthcare system are only real for people with the ability to pay. Medicare for All would extend this right to all, free at the point of use.
To protect the gains embodied in Proposition A and Amendment 3, and to organize for more, join DSA today or get in touch with your local DSA chapter:
About DSA: The Democratic Socialists of America are the largest socialist organization in the United States. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.
About DSA in Missouri: Missouri has four DSA chapters — St. Louis DSA, Kansas City DSA, Ozarks DSA (which holds meetings in Springfield) and Mid-Missouri DSA (which holds meetings in Columbia) — a student chapter at the University of Missouri, and a pre-chapter organizing committee in South-East Missouri (which holds meetings in Farmington).
ORGANIZE COMO – LET’S BUILD A BETTER COLUMBIA TOGETHER!
The central idea at the heart of progressive organizing is simple: Solidarity. As working people fighting for our collective liberation, all of our fights are linked. “None of us are free until all of us are free.”
There are many different groups working right now to build a community that works for all of us, not just a monied few. Today, many of us came together in Cosmo-Bethel Park to celebrate the work that we have done together in Columbia and across Missouri over the last year, and to coordinate how to best support and lift each other up in the months and years ahead.
While we shared a potluck picnic together, the following organizations spoke about their vital work in the community. In this newsletter, you can learn more about each, and find a directory on how to get in touch with each of them to help support their work.
Mid-Missouri Democratic Socialists of America (that’s us!) is the local chapter of the largest and friendliest socialist organization in the United States, the DSA. We organize for economic democracy in Columbia, Jefferson City, and central Missouri. Join us!
Missouri Jobs with Justice is an organization that fights for economic justice in Missouri. Their mission is to create a state where everyone has the opportunity for economic security and a safe, healthy life. They achieve this by building power through action and strong relationships.
Fellowship of Reconciliation is a group composed of people from many faiths, and no particular faith — all coming together to support nonviolence and justice. Offering people of conscience an action response to a morally-impaired U.S. foreign policy. Join their Vigil for Life, Tuesday June 11th from 1-2 PM in the State Capitol to oppose the execution of David Hosier. Join their weekly Ceasefire March every Saturday at 2pm at Speaker’s Circle.
Abortion Help MO provide public education and support for people needing reproductive health services, primarily by providing financial assistance for Missouri residents who cannot afford the full cost of abortion care.
The IWW (International Workers of the World) is a labor union that promotes the creation of “One Big Union” and contends that all workers should be united as a social class to supplant capitalism and wage labor with industrial democracy. The local chapter carries out this work here in Mid-Missouri. They meet every third Wednesday of the month, 6pm, at the cafe of the EatWell grocery store on Providence near downtown.
Columbia Solidarity Network is a project of the local IWW chapter that offers help to people in the community who have been mistreated at work or by a landlord. If you have been the victim of wage theft, stolen security deposits, or other issues, please reach out for advice and support!
Email: columbiasolidarity@gmail.com
Phone: 573-246-0646
Boone County Community Bail Fund is a volunteer-run community bail fund supporting our neighbors who have been injured by the criminal legal system in Boone County, Missouri.
Sierra Club Mid-Missouri Group seeks to create and foster an inclusive organizational and workplace culture – a culture that grows, nurtures and retains diverse, engaged teams of staff and volunteers.
Como For Progress are an advocacy group affecting policy that bolsters freedom, equality, and humanity to better serve our local, national and global communities through outreach and action. We are stronger together as we strive for inclusive and welcoming communities.
Peaceworks holds a vision of an ecologically sound, sustainable world and a violence-free community in which human equality and justice flourish. We aspire to create a participatory, cooperative social order in which all individuals can fully actualize their potential free of coercion or violence.
National Organization for Women is dedicated to its multi-issue and multi-strategy approach to women’s rights, and is the largest organization of feminist grassroots activists in the United States.
The Disabilities Commission of the City of Columbia advises the City Council as necessary and reviews or monitors accessibility of public and private facilities and educates the business community, civic groups and the public as to the concerns of residents with disabilities. Please submit nominations to their Senator Chuck Graham Memorial Disability and Advocacy Ambassador Award before the June deadline!
Mizzou YDSA is a big tent student organization open to leftists of all kinds at the University of Missouri with a history of educating and organizing students, workers, young people, and members of the community at large to make real and effective changes in our community.
Missouri is a peculiar state. Much of the national discourse boxes us in as an archetypal southern(ish) red state, and not without reason. In the past year alone, we have faced countless attacks from our increasingly reactionary politicians. Mere minutes after the United States Supreme Court delivered its final death blow to the constitutional right to abortion, Missouri became one of the first states to impose an outright ban on abortion.
If this was all you knew of Missouri politics, it would be hard to blame you from writing the whole state off. But the full picture is more complex. Missouri has an underlying populist streak–perhaps best exemplified through our initiative petition and referendum process. In 1908, Missouri joined the wave of progressive reform efforts when voters incorporated the rights of initiative petition and referendum into our state constitution. Today, Missouri is one of only 18 states where voters can use the initiative petition process to propose and vote upon amendments to the state constitution, one of only 24 states where voters can use that same process to propose and vote upon changes to state statutes, and one of only 24 where voters can override laws passed by the legislature through the referendum process.
The radically democratic nature of these rights are reflected in the language employed by our own Supreme Court in 1922 when issuing one of its many decisions protecting these rights from encroachment by those seeking to curb the power of ordinary citizens:
Under our system, that intangible thing we call “government,” the existence of which is least felt when best administered, has its origin in and draws its life and inspiration from the people. They frame and adopt the organic law, which defines the limits of legislative action; they incorporate therein whatever provisions they may deem proper. Thus empowered, as are the people in all governments organized as is ours, the inevitable conclusion follows that if they determine, as they have in the adoption of the initiative and referendum, to limit the province or modify the purview of the Legislature in the adoption or rejection of laws, there is no power that can say them nay.
Right now, people across the state are collecting signatures for yet another initiative petition campaign seeking to again raise our minimum wage to $15, permanently tie the minimum wage to inflation going forward, and allow workers in every sector to earn paid sick leave.
Two in five Missouri workers are not guaranteed paid time off when they are sick — forcing them to choose between their livelihoods and their health, as well as the health of their family, co-workers, and community. Half a million Missourians are paid less than $15 an hour — enriching their bosses at the expense of their ability to pay for the essentials of life. Securing these rights would represent a very concrete victory for these workers.
This will not be the only notable effort to employ direct democracy in the 2024 election. Once the Republican lawfare tactics have finally worked their way through the courts, Missourians will be able to begin collecting signatures to restore access to abortion in the state.
Mid-Missouri DSA has collected nearly 3,000 signatures to raise the minimum wage and guarantee paid sick leave for Missouri workers. We can win this — and use it as an opportunity to organize for more. Missourians have consistently shown a willingness to harness this relatively rare set of political powers to bring about the progressive change that so many in power are openly hostile to. If we can organize and build up an infrastructure to fully utilize direct democracy in this state, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.
Imagine a state where every person has the basic dignity of a livable wage, paid time to recoup from illness or care for their loved ones, and a constitutional right to abortion. But don’t stop there. Imagine a state where we don’t have to overturn right-to-work laws because our constitution prohibits right-to-work, guarantees a prevailing wage for public works, and provides meaningful protections to all workers who seek to collectively bargain. Imagine a state with an explicit constitutional promise of equal protection under the law for every person, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or economic status. Imagine a state where nobody has to choose between groceries, healthcare, rent or childcare. Now stop imagining that state and come help us build it.
Sign up as a DSA member here (pick the income-based or monthly dues option if you can). To let us know you want to help with this campaign, fill out our interest form and check the box next to “Fighting for a higher minimum wage and paid sick leave (signature-gathering and canvassing)” in the activities section.
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