Hello, everyone, thank you for coming out tonight. Im Larry Cohen Davis shoulders, the Early Release of this book refinery town big oil, big money, and the remaking of an american city, thank you for coming out, this is part of a partnership we had going for a couple years now we are selling books and hosting events in three location this, and at this location, if you would like to pick up a calendar you can see where we have events throughout the city in addition to the ones we host at the main store of the location. Part of that is you want to drink throughout the event, treat the servers well but we think the busboys for the relationship we have going on here. I have a few housekeeping notes to get started if you will silence any cell phones, so we dont have any interruptions during the event, we will do the signing right here, the place to purchase the book in the bookstore. If you havent already there are plenty of topics out there and of the you here in the store but in the room, bring them back for the signing and the time for q a and i can carry it out and come to you with a microphone to hear the questions, comments and half the conversation so refinery town, home to one of the oldest refineries in the state, richmond, california, company town dominated by chevron, 100,000 suffer from poverty and poorly funded Public Service, one of the highest rates in the country, and jobless rates like the National Average but in 2012, moved from new england to richmond, and struggle to remain itself lose the refinery town, 15 years Successful Community organizing that raise the local minimum wage and the development project, and taxation, it is a specific tale of governance at the local level that should appeal to labor activists and scholars, and was written by bernie sanders, a timely book offers ideas for making change where it counts the most among friends, neighbors and fellow community. Activator labor journalists, organizer since 1972. A bostonbased staff member of the communication workers of america, 2000, the Administrative Assistant to Vice President of district one which presents 160,000 workers in new york and new jersey, the author of journalistic reflections, civil war and us labor, birth of a new Workers Movement and save our union, facets from the union in distress. Tonight we join in conversation with larry cohen, chair of the board for our evolution and the Democracy Initiative and past National Presence of communication workers of america so please join me in welcoming steve early. Thanks, everybody. Great to see so many friends. Steve will give some shout outs, great to be here. And actually to correct one thing, 25 years, you cut 5 years off of steves time working together, but more than fulltime is cw a. I will come back to steve in a minute. Different context about the book. I am a big supporter of reading this book, getting steve to sign the book. It fits directly in the frame of what so many people have done for so many years which is to try to figure out how can you do political work with the integrity and get some results . Here we are at a time when particularly in the last couple weeks or months to a large extent on defense, resisting, for me that is a big word in my own early life particularly. We want to be on offense, just defense. What this book is about is how folks in a town or city of 150,000 people got off of defense, chevron is doing this, chevron is doing that, chevron is ruining our water, chevron is ruining our air, chevron is ruining our political life and how they built the Richmond Progressive Alliance and for me those in our revolution, just this past election so miserably in so many ways, in melvin you will hear more about them, got elected to city council and became the fourth and fifth members of the city council out of 7 so now instead of political work, all at doral work being about resistance, now it is about governing and the other thing that is clear when you read the book everyplace is not richmond but every place has some element of richmond and to spend a lot of time doing a lot doral work, that part of political work, having some dreamlike the rpa dream for most of us doesnt make sense because when you dont have that dream it is always this one is worse than that one. Anybody feel like that when you go to vote . No one in this room has ever felt that way, right . Certainly not november. It is not totally funny but when you build Something Like the rpa, cant do it exactly like this everywhere but i would argue there are thousands of richmonds and even People Living here in washington dc, if anyone hear from the government, dont be offended but we can do better here. We got to get big money out of politics even here and you see that example in here because even though they run in nonpartisan elections which is the case in most municipalities they have to take on the Democratic Party and they had to build their own organization which ends up being 500 activists and more volunteers and a dream that they wont be dominated by chevron, that they can look at each other in a very Diverse Community, black, brown, white, mostly workingclass and most importantly to me they believe they can win and that is the inspiration in this book and that is the question as an activist on the Bernie Campaign or a revolution or anything else, not just for me, but everyone in this room, do we believe we can win . Do we believe we can win, that workingclass people can win with allies . Workingclass people . That we can build government and cities whether it is this one or that one, that really reflect the majority of the people and the aspirations and dreams of kids and parents . If we believe we can win, we get inspired like the 500 members of the rpa to stand up and fight back not just on defense against chevron but just recently adopting rent control for the first time despite the Real Estate Interests and so any more things steve will talk to you about so steve, a real treat for me to talk about my friend of at least 35 years. I lost track. He loved to correct my numbers. Though do a lot of other people. Organizing in cwa together, watching him work on what we call the triangle, he was wicked, helping people bargaining new and creative ways, building this movement, Building Political work, doing organizing which he did most of the time and helping bring in huge groups of people, starting jobs with justice, introducing me to bernie some 30 years ago. I kid him about that but we believe him out of this introduction. He is an incredible mix of someone who can i never saw anybody right so fast we first met up before the computer age, right before 19791980, stuff would appear in the newspaper in minutes and it is an amazing mix of someone who can do that and crank out books, incredibly disciplined and this is his trademark. All the decades i know him he has got this, his list and unlike some of this he completes his lists. I will keep it short. I couldnt be prouder than to introduce my friend, brother, colleague, coworker, amazing human being, steve early. [applause] change it is equally a treat to be here with my oldest and closest comrade and coworker in cwa. I first met larry 37 years ago this month in a ratty organizing office storefront in trenton, new jersey, came up from dc, he was directing a very Ambitious Campaign to organize state workers in new jersey, a little bit outside the communication workers of america, traditional jurisdiction but a Great Campaign built from the bottom up, based on the concept of organizing state Workers Organizing committee empowering rank and file people developing new leaders, maybe already here, hard to see with the blinding lights at cspan booktv, some of you know it has been for many years, international Vice President in charge of the Public Sector and related fields, was a member of the state Workers Organizing committee and worked closely with larry on the campaign. I want to thank a few other people, we get into the question period in 15 minutes, many people with years of labor, Community Organizing and political experience, we want to hear from so this is interactive, not just in speechmaking, particularly helpful in this particular project. I want to recognize my old friend, mark, on the atomic workers barred. Mark gave me a lot of essential background for the oil industry parts of the book. He then reviewed it for a great new magazine, and one of the best reviews that has appeared so far, other people locally have been tremendously helpful in the local publicity for the book, a show that i was on the other day to help with turnout for this event, we had a number of generous sponsors, turnout helpers, democratic socialists of america, the National Writers union, folks in jobs with justice and i want to recognize the esteemed helpers of jobs for justice over the years who is here in the room with us, also an author [applause] books, and another one, forthcoming about his years on capitol hill. Come back recognizing some of the people who have been so helpful. Let me follow up on what larry said about the richmond. I have been there five years ago after 30 years as a bostonbased rep in new england and i was inspired to write the book partly because of bernie. I had done a story in these times in 2012 about the growing impact and elect oral success of the investment party, the most Successful Party in the country, one bernie helped foster, many second or Third Generation leaders, people who were volunteers and supporters last fall. The of you may know the rest of the party had a major breakthrough, longtime bernie outlining zuckerman, a Progressive Party leader and state senator, became the Lieutenant Governor of vermont, the first time in 25, 30 years where an independent progressive candidate other than bernie has been elected statewide, state legislative delegation of 11 or 12 now, evenly split between members of the house and state senate, dave zuckerman, a ponytailed organic farmer, proenvironmental guy, in a few years to become a progressive governor of vermont. The story i did, bernie said that was great but we need more case studies, alexa laurel initiatives, we need to get them into the mainstream media, not just publications like in these times, i told him in the phone call that was arranged by a staff member that i moved to richmond and started to meet people in the Richmond Progressive Alliance, had up to that time richmond was the largest city in the country with a green mayor, there were important struggles going on locally against big oil and the big banks and money in politics generally and you should come out at some point and check it out which he later did. In the meantime i was able to wind up a great publisher it deacon press, it has been around for 160 years and i have to recognize this wonderful press connect originally with the Unitarian Universalist church and used here. This event was in boston it would be out of the room but among those who are religiously inclined, beacon press has a distinguished history of publishing important work on civil rights, the Labor Movement, environmental issues, black history. I am humbled to be in the ranks of James Baldwin and cornell west and howard zinn and reverend barber in north carolina, bill fletcher, the richmond story might have a lot of residence in many other company towns. They signed a contract for particularly interested in having bernie on the cover, doing the forward and that was before he got 13 million votes. The only other time in beacons 160 year history that a senator contributed a forward to one of their books. In 1971, not remembered as well as he should be, mike revell from alaska, his name on a book that was beacons alltime bestseller, multivolume series called the pentagon papers. You might remember that. This book will not sell quite as well as the pentagon papers but we are doing our best. Beacon was interested in the richmond story because of what you might call the intersection now money. This is a term that is thrown around a lot but i dont use it in the book but it does apply. This is a city where grassroots organizing in recent years, all at doral work and Public Policy initiatives are widely acclaimed, grappling and addressing issues of race, class, immigration, problems of homophobia which exist in richmond, discrimination against formerly incarcerated, Housing Affordability, lease accountability, Environmental Justice, Workplace Safety and one of the most hazardous industries, oil refineries, fair taxation of business, the largest employer, chevron curbing the influence of big money in politics particularly local politics, raising labor standards by passing minimum wage increases at the municipal level at the state or federal level, making sure Economic Development, how many people have been to the bay area recently seeing what is going on in San Francisco and oakland and berkeley for years, people moved to richmond, richmond is the city, 80 nonwhite population, workingclass for, the bay area, other cities are background for the privileged few, richmond people are free to work in a place like San Francisco or oakland but people with modest and low incomes have a hard time living there now in these places so the fight in richmond for Housing Affordability for rent control, Economic Development projects that benefit everybody in the community, not just the few but a big part of the Progressive Movement after the locally ongoing and over the last 15 years as the rpa got started 15 years ago roughly and the coalition, coalescing of typical landscapes. A lot of competitive, fractured single issue groups, organizing initiatives, some people banking on chevron about its pollution and environmental hazards and fires and Carbon Emissions as the 1980s through a group called the west county toxic coalition. There were people, latinos doing day labor organizing, and through random traffic stops, there were Serious Problems of Police Brutality and lawsuits against then predominantly White Police Department alienating itself are many decades in the community it served and people involved in homelessness and advocating for rent control in people involved in national thirdparty politics or statelevel thirdparty politics supporting green campaigns in california and nationally in 2000 when ralph nader ran and it took quite a bit of effort to get these people to set aside their single issue focus and figure out how to come together and are brought local political tent where peoples differences about the nature of socialism in the nature of capitalism and other big picture questions were set aside in the interest of pursuing a concrete agenda for local change, local improvement that proved to be because of the persistence and patience of the group achievable over the last 15 years. This was not a diversity town as we have examples from the 16s manys of people trying to take over City Government in madison, santa monica, santa cruz, berkeley, bernies wonderful Progressive Movement take over in the 1980s, those are different kinds of cities. Richmond is not a University Town is for many years it was until recently much contested, dominated by an unholy alliance of the oil company, originally standard oil, now chevron, local developers, the chamber of commerce, Building Trades organizations, police and firefighter unions. That powerful Business Funding coalition had virtually no counterweight for decades in richmond, a few Good Government liberals, oysters of integrity on city council tried to impose that coalition but not until the Progressive Alliance coalesced and people from all these different party, thirdparty backgrounds am a dissident latino and africanamerican dems, independents, came together and formed a different they facto political party, one based on a membership organization, candidates who did not take business privatizations by way of separating out. A lot of candidates in richmond, those you can count on once they were elected to stand up to corporate power. The other critical element was rpa candidates have always run as teams, it is not an individual entrepreneurial activity where somebody gets it in their head that i will be on Richmond City council. I will be up in sacramento, in the senate and i will be congressperson and the sky is the limit was that kind of person is not attracted to this model of electoral politics which it is people who believe in Building Political power collectively and put people in office, holding them accountable and having hybrid organizations, individual dues paying members, organizational affiliation represent tatian on the Steering Committee from local progressive unions and Community Groups which doesnt just pop up in election time. The key to the rpas success is a yearround program of Community Organizing around important issues and those issues 15 years ago were identified as living wage ordinance, rent control, protection against evictions without just cause, police reform, a competent city manager on the verge of bankruptcy, industrial safety ordinance, contracting out, repealing an antihomelessness ordinance, heavier taxation of chevron, reversing Public Service that were resuscitated by mishandling the citys finances and very important for winning future elections, electoral election reform, progressive candidates who raise small donations get matching money from the system in the city. That was the initial program adopted a Peoples Convention in 2004, the first year the arcade ran a candidate and current city councilwoman Dale Maclachlan won, small margin. In the last 12 years since then progressives in richmond won 10 of 16 mayoral races which is an electoral record. Probably just about anywhere else in the country. Last fall the election results, for the first time a strong progressive supermajority, 5 of 7. These had to be alliances between progressives who were under corporate control on the council and sometimes this coalition enabled the city to make progress. Other times there have been visions like rent control that have separated democrats and progressives in much the same way there with a Hillary Bernie conflict during the president ial primaries in california and many other states. It is a generational shift, the founding mothers and fathers stepping back, creating some space for younger people, electing a Steering Committee that is now a majority, people of color and women and younger people ran a slate composed of a 26yearold africanamerican native of richmond, melvin will this canvassing in the city for the acorn successor in richmond, Community Empowerment, he teamed up with a young environmentalist who works for a Marine Clean Energy and the two ran together, strongest pro rent control supporters in a field of tween 9, most of the other folks in the field were democrats, have a lot more endorsements, a lot more money, they were all against rent control and the candidates came in top of the field and melvin willis, potentially a future mayor of richmond defeated by 2000 votes, met data you get to know well as i did, a character in the book and for 40 years has been a pro Business Force in the council financed by chevron, deep roots in richmond and opponent of rent control and any progressive in the city by 2000 votes, the 25yearold taking out the 85yearold and we need more of that but in every city around the country. Lets throw it open to questions, comments, statements for me or larry or each other. The only rule i will suggest is conference ground rule. We will alternate calling on men and women to introduce gender balance in the discussion, we could limit peoples comments and statements to one per customer so everybody gets a chance to speak and then we will go for half an hour or so and start to do some bookselling and signing of people are welcome to thanks so much. [applause] so i see a female hand right in the front. A selfidentified [inaudible] do you want to stand up so people way in the back, because they may not hear you. My question has to do with the big oil part of your subtitle. Yeah. What was the problem, is it environmental or was it wages, unions . What were you trying to correct, and whats the situation now with the oil company . Okay. Well, if youve seen the cover of the book, this is my new neighborhood on a day in august of 2012, what you might call a big oil bad hair day. [laughter] and thanks to years of lax maintenance practices, chevron a company which, as mark can tell you, has for decades put production and profits ahead of worker safety and Community Health had a huge fire that sent 15,000 of the neighbors fleeing to clinics and hospital Emergency Rooms seeking medicalattention. As i describe in the book, this latest accident, which was no accident, is part of the long series of big oil misbehavior thats been highly contested in richmond both by members of the community through Environmental Justice organizations and going back to the early years of the 20th century by oil workers themselves. And thats part of the labor history of the book. The oil workers had a close to 50year struggle to organize what was then standard oil and became chevron in recent decades. The union did not succeed in standard oil this richmond until 1950, long after the cio scored big victories in other basic industries. To this day, what is now united steelworkers number five operates as an open shop in chevron richmond which shocked me when i discovered it researching the book. And as people with anatomical workers with a background can tell you, that makes it difficult to tangle with their employer about daytoday bargaining issues, Workplace Safety and, on top of that, get involved with greenpeace or 350. Org or the Richmond Progressive Alliance to create a Bluegreen Alliance locally thats going to hold the Company Accountable for its considerable contributions, Carbon Emissions, contributions to the problem of Global Warming and its periodic failures to provide a safe workplace and a safe refinery for those living downwind of it. Theres a long history of both environmental and labor struggles involving the company. Then company also wields influence by spending a lot of money in politics in not very helpful ways, and i think whats interesting is that, you know, the Environmental Movement in a place like richmond has not been led by stereotypical environmentalists. Its been poor and working class people, people of color who are directly affected by the failure of a Major Company like this to operate in the best interests not only of its work force, but the community at large. In the back next to mark and then a hand in front. I cant see who that is, but yeah. I have a question. Im wondering if you have plans to bring refinery town nationwide, the whole story . Because i think the story is not just a richmond or a bay area story, but its a nationwide story. Chelsea, massachusetts, savannah, georgia, its new orleans down in the bayou, so many different places, and its definitely poor people of color. Its not middle class white people like everyone i see in the room, its poor people of color who are being screwed to the wall. Do you have plans to bring the story on the road, because i think it needs to be told across the country. Well, i in the last week and a half since the official publication date for the book, ive done two statewide union events in california, a kickoff event in richmond and my east coast swing has involved stops in sommerville, mass, greenfield, mass, burlington, vermont, troy, new york, brooklyn over the weekend and here tonight. So, yeah, were interested in telling the story in lots of places, and im not just doing it as an individual book peddler. The Richmond Progressive Alliance has an Outreach Task force, and our former mayor mclaughlin, some of the folks with far more experience than i have running campaigns, dealing with california election finance laws are now going around and meeting with people in other communities, and were trying to connect with our revolution. The Steering Committee voted a week ago to affiliate with our revolution. Our revolution supported candidates including new mayor berkeley who was elected last fall, a young africanamerican be activist. Africanamerican activist. Hes now in stockton. And jane kim, who is a wonderful progressive member of the San Francisco board of supervisors, running for state senate. Unfortunately, did not win. So theres a lot of people with o. R. Ties in northern california. Were trying to figure out how best to Work Together with the National Office here, and whether using a local structure like the Richmond Progressive Alliance, the berkeley Progressive Alliance or Something Else of peoples own devising, could be the working families party, it could be, you know, any number of models. But the point is we need, as you said, organizations like this in more places not just running candidates, but running them in a different way and at the same time organizing day in and day out about a wide range of labor, community and environmental issues. Inside the beltway here, you guys are the experts on what were going to be facing for the next four years. Its not going to be pretty. Were not going to get much done other than defensive fights. All right. Another female hand. Were looking for a woman, not a guy . Oh, here we go. Okay. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] im blinded by the light of cspan booktv. Thank you for your work. Im a retired labor lawyer, im very much interested [inaudible] about you talking in terms of the working class [inaudible] it seems like in the last decade or more the whole, so much of the political talk has been about the middle class. Think that was partly what led to donald trump [inaudible] i think theres a lot of [inaudible] i just want to know how much you think that shift of the dialogue to the working class and the poor [inaudible] sure. Yeah, i mean, i think its essential. And when we look at, you know, what we saw highlighted in the midwest, a lot of the problem in the election in terms of clinton is a failure, in my view obviously having an a bernie be adviser and supporter to frame things in terms of work and working class people. And thats what you get. And so, you know, lots of examples i could give, the carrier plant where i spent a lot of time during the Indiana Campaign or nabisco which was carrier plant, by the way, is half black, half white workers. Its not a White Working Class plant. 2,000 people, very mixed. The nabisco plant in south chicago, mostly black. The union leadership, all black. Nabisco headquartered in the suburbs of chicago moving the oreo cookie line to mexico. These stories, i mean, we took them up in the Bernie Campaign. I all but begged podesta and others to take these stories up, fought for hard to say no tpp in the platform of the party. And be not just me, i mean, our whole campaign. And the failure to frame more decades Democratic Party leadership in terms of working people and what i call the culture of work from the framework of a worker and manufacturing as a key part of that as opposed to saying manufacturings had it, and, you know, well see the last eight million jobs go and be the only country in the world that reacts that way and doesnt care about trade deficits, let alone working class people. I mean, yeah. To me, if we dont do that, you know, we really have no chance. But on the other hand, as you heard from steve and its so well described in this book, when you do do it, you can bring together not only working class people, but even other progressive people who moved into richmond for Different Reasons who identified with that kind of vision. And i think, you know, thats really what this is about, that we can unite and fight and that the frame of working people has got to be the frame. Okay. Other questions, comments, suggestions . Okay [inaudible] news guild. Let me make a suggestion. Your next book should be about seattle. [inaudible] about the working class. Theyve been charging ahead in seattle. In seattle. In seattle. And i guess ill just leave it at that [inaudible] where we can, where we in the union and everybody else can well, theres two books coming out about shell, beacon press which i mentioned earlier is publishing a book in a month or or two by a longtime seattlebased organizer, jonathan rosenblum, has been involved in the fight for 15. Very good book which ive started to read about both the lowwage worker organizing and the political challenges of the city establishment, and sister [inaudible] who im a great admirer of, has her own story about the struggles, political struggles, hers and others in chicago in seattle in recent years coming out a little bit later this year. So i think the thing about shanna that is similar to what weve seen in richmond, when you elect people whether its mayor or City Council Member who are basically organizers, theyre going to use their job as a bully pulpit to link up with the grassroots constituencies to help put them into office, totally transforms the relationship between their constituents and the officeholder. And both Gayle Mclaughlin as mayor, otherses in the leadership of the rpa and certainly counselor suante in seattle have been very, very good at usingbe the powers of their office, to introduce legislation to try to build coalitions to support unions and to not just play the inside game, because we dont get enough playing the inside game. We need the outsiders to keep the insiders honest, and the insiders really to push the agenda in ways that you are not always able to do just through direct action and Community Organizing. I would just add in on seattle, many of you know this, but [inaudible] got elected to congress. [applause] and, you know, off of that kind of work in seattle in the seventh district. And, again, very active in our revolution now. And Washington State is one of about six states where that activism led to new leadership in the state Democratic Party, people coming in with very much this kind of frame. And on saturday or on saturday elected a new democratic chair of of the party and a native american leader as the vice chair. But that came about because at the county level and at the local level its basically the same kind of thing, that inside the Democratic Party in this case, they elected people who then came together to elect that leadership statewide. So thats really a process, as mark is saying, goes back in seattle for many, many years like richmond. But on a statewide basis, was largely fueled by or accelerated by the Bernie Campaign and the landslide in the Washington State caucus which set the stage really for a drastic change in what the Democratic Party now looks like in the state of washington. But let me just say we still have two senators there who were two of the thirteen who voted no on saying last week that we should be able to import pharmaceuticals. Packaged, i might add, from canada. They both voted fast track for tpp, and the governor is somewhere in that range as well, so this story goes on for the state of washington. Someone we havent heard from . The sister here in front and then the brother in back. [inaudible] im an organizer with [inaudible] from richmond originally. [applause] ive not lived at home for long periods of time in a while, so im kind of curious to see, hope i articulate this correctly. Much more expense be i right now. I expensive right now [inaudible] growing up and a lot more white middle class people are moving in. Have you how did [inaudible] reconcile that when you were trying to build, you know, a movement that, you know, centers working class people of color at the forefront as a lot of white middle class people are moving in [inaudible] yeah. [inaudible] yeah. Not all of them are white middle class. I mean, lots of different people are being pushed out of San Francisco and have been and oakland and now coming towards richmond. I mean, its one of the contradictions of the successful process of, you know, progressive change at the municipal level. You make a city better, it has parked, it has a bike path, it has a waterfront open to the people rather than dominated by industry and polluted and scarred. You have an activist city hall, you are able to reform the police department, Public Safety increases. You know, it becomes a hag net for people who magnet for people who want to live in a livable city where theres some modicum of commitment to social justice and protection of immigrants. Richmond was a pioneering sanctuary city, our current mayor a democrat, not part of the progressives, but theres a very strong commitment to circle the wagons and defend as best people in richmond and as similar cities can against the ravages of the trump era. I think the embrace of rent control is the strongest demonstration of a commitment to try to make the city still affordable for the thousands of tenants who are poor and working class, people of color. There was an antiforeclosure initiative that kind of stalled out a couple of years ago that i describe in the book, and in the course of doing canvassing around that, the threatened use of eminent domain, both the rpa and the alliance for Community Empowerment discovered there were a lot more landlord tenant issues that needed to be addressed perhaps even than the foreclosure crisis, and thats when the effort began to serially make seriously make a push for a 15year goal, the first city in 30 years to introduce rent control. The measure that was passed last fall rolled back rents a year, and now landlords have to have just cause before they can evict tenants. That was an 18 month struggle. The it was not just lets put it on the ballot. It was first passed in 2015 as an ord man, and the ordinance x the California Association spent 50 75,000 and repealed the ordinance, basically nullified the democratic decision of the city council to introduce rent regulation. So the in control forces then had to go out and circulate their own petitions to get it on the ballot last fall. And they just didnt do petition signing and political campaigning. There have been rent strikes, there have been expeditions to visit the homes of out of town landlords. The whole effort was made to register people directly benefiting from this new form of citylevel protection. So i think its not a perfect solution. If we had decent federal funding the to build affordable housing, that would be probably long term a better way to enable a very Diverse Community to flourish. But in the meantime, it is a very, very important stopgap measure, and well see how it works out based on whos appointed to the rent board. But already, you know, people are feeling empowered. Theyre not they cant be evicted just because the landlord has decided that he can charge 500 more a month to some newcomer from wherever. Whos been driven out by rent hikes, you know, where theyre coming from. So the brother in the back and the sister over here. [inaudible conversations] you mentioned that richmond was able to deal with some antihomeless legislation or regulation. What positive things have you been able to do that deal with the various problems that come with homelessness . Well, i mean, this the rpa, some of the founding mothers and fathers were involved in the homelessness issue because the Old City Council 14 or 15 years ago passed a very draconian, punitive anticamping thing that was leading to people being pushed around from one place to another. There was a lot of skirmishing about that. So that was repealed but, you know, obviously didnt solve the problem. Theres a couple of big homeless shelters in richmond, theres a Wonderful Program called saffron strand which tries to help Homeless People get job training and work actually in a catering business. I mean, theres a lot of attempts both privately funded and still through city programs to alleviate the problem of homelessness. But, you know, as bad as it is here in d. C. , you know, its a public disgrace. And in berkeley, you know, a city far richer than richmond, you go to the bottom of gilman down the intersection of interstate 580 or 80, and there are People Living under the underpass, you know . Dozens of them, hundreds of them. So its a wider than richmond problem, and its going to take a much more concerted effort by progressive leaders in a number of these cities, the state doing more and, ultimately, we can get beyond the trump era, the federal government as well. In the meantime, a lot of people are going to be suffering needlessly when so much more could be done with relatively few resources. But those dont seem to be available to provide the kind of housing that would get people out of tents and from under tarps and all the other people where theyre holed up out in weather like this. The sister here. I thank you. Can you hear me . Yeah. Okay. Im [inaudible] 350 action wing of [inaudible] first of all, thank you both so much. And in the circles that im and thats not my primary day job. Im wanting, right now im hearing a whole lot of groups, a whole lot of people talking about trying to take over the party [inaudible] building power. Many of these people are people of color, young people of who have [inaudible] and some are moving toward the working families party, some are moving towards, you know, our revolution what comes next youre probably familiar with. And my question to both of you really is there are hundreds of new groups popping up in the last few weeks. One woman here in town has organized 100,000 people last week online. Its just incredible, the kind of activity. If you could give these folks who are intensely engaged on how to start [inaudible] moving [inaudible] what advice would you each give, where would you point them . Clearly, reading your book is one of those things. That would be selfserving advice. [laughter] but that would be on the reading list. Be. [laughter] yeah. I mean, i think the thing is to organize, you know, broader than an election. Right. Thats a key lesson in the book. So its about issues, not just about candidates. And, you know, in this moment that were in, you know, local issues are fine. Theres tons of issues right here in d. C. That arent getting addressed including all the ones raised here in the room about richmond. But also tying it into a broader narrative as we talked about earlier, you know, from my point of view, a working class, working peoples kind of narrative about, you know, our nation. And that, and and to netWork Together those local groups as much as possible in a simple way. And that people are open to, you know, collaborating without having everything worked out. I call it messy. You know, we have to embrace messy. So i think if we did a few of those things, you know, well keep moving forward. But, you know, the thing i like best about the womens march just personally was the inclusiveness of the crowds, not necessarily the podium, and the way in which, you know, women organized to bring, you know, hundreds of thousands of women here, let alone l. A. Which had even more, i think. And i think thats the kind of spirit we need to embrace. Might be different than, you know, the organizing that some of us have done whether its in a union or somewhere else, its a lot less sort of conscious and more spontaneous, but thats the kind of populism of the 21st century. And, you know, my view is, its great. I mean, one audience certainly for our rpas outreach is the 20, 25,000 people who responded to bernies call last june. Run for mayor, run for county supervisor, 20 or 25,000 people is a lot of people volunteering to run themselves, become candidates or support candidates, and its really just like these mass marches. How do you deal with this influx of new people, varying levels of experience who are going to need infrastructure that in richmonds been 15 years in construction, get the kind of mentoring and get hooked up to Funding Sources and the training and the Leadership Development and the organizational support. So i think we should take an ecumenical approach just like progressives in rich monday have done locally richmond have done locally. We should be working together with as many likeminded groups as possible, and i think, you know, theres more than enough recruits out there for everybody. You look at the small towns, a weekend or to ago had huge, unexpected turnouts. 2500 people in fort bragg, 2500 people in greenfield, mass, a small town. Lots of places like that around the country and places where we have o. R. Type infrastructure, the better off were going to be in terms of longterm movement building. Just in terms of this crowd, bob mullencamp, whos over here, is part of a giant organizing committee in maryland, and i was amazed when he sent me a picture from saturday or sunday, thurmond, maryland, ive lived around here for a while, and ive never heard of it. Im sure other people have, but im speaking for myself. Bob sends me a picture on saturday went when i was on another adventure, thousands of people to come and say how are we going to organize and bring our groups together out in western maryland, you know, a trump stronghold, and, you know, people might want to talk to him more if you live in maryland. But theres definitely something happening here. Okay. David. First of all, thank you so much for your work in the Labor Movement for so many years and for your writings on progressive issues and raising this book at this very, you know [inaudible] for all involved. Be i want to follow up on the infrastructure issue you both talked about in the last [inaudible] because i think its really important. The question i have, in your comments earlier you mentioned that getting this done in the richmond, they changed the Campaign Finance laws. Can you elaborate on that a little bit . And what does it cost to run in richmond to get elected to the city council . Very good question. The active electorate ranges from 3040,000 depending on whether or not its a president ial election year. The breakthrough that we made initially or the rpa made on Public Financing without going into all the details was such that if you raised 30,000, youd get 25 in matching funds. So most of the successful rpa candidates through a mix of that private and public funding have raised in the range of 6070,000 for their campaigns. If youre running a slate, that adds up to depending whether its two or three people, you know, a couple hundred thousand. You know, this is in years like 2012 when the combined spending of big soda and big oil was 3. 7 million against our candidates, for their candidates, and that year for the soda tax which was defeated because of industry opposition. Two years ago chevron by itself spent 3. 1 million on its slate, candidate for mayor, three candidates for council, all of whom lost. And hundreds of thousands of dollars on negative advertising against the progressive slate who were outspent 30 or 35 to 1. So, you know, the public match, as larrys has often noted, is not as generous as the one in [inaudible] that we passed this year, 6 to 1 match. And, uni, due to the citys budget crunch last year, its been kaled back. Now you have to raise 25,000 in private donations to get roughly 1,000. 12,000. It has become a political football. Opponents have said, you know, this is a raid on the treasury, but i think people value it. It makes a small but very important contribution to leveling the playing field. The kinds of people who go into politics, you know, entrepreneurial dont have the structure to do berniestyle, small donor solicitation and fundraising. Theyre not able to access the public matching funds. It takes organization. So that helps as well. But in my view, it should be the same sort of formula in new york which has enabled the new york city city could be ill to amass a Progressive Council to amass a progressivecaucus of 20 yeah, the best city council in new york. David bonnier, anybody who gets a chance to talk to him, he represented mccolm county, michigan, now famous, because of this last election 14 timeses you were elected . 13. I get numbers close to never right. [laughter] merry math again. Why is mccolm county particularly important . Bernie sanders went there two sundays ago to talk about health care cuts. Along with him came nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, why . The swing in mccolm county between 2012 and 2016 president ial election obamaclinton was 25,000 . Well, obama won it in the 12 and 08, and then he got beat and then trump won [inaudible] by how many . 48. 48,000. So thats a swing of way more than i said. Once again, my numbers are off. 13 difference. Yeah. And clinton lost michigan by 10,000. So this one county, largely work class and, again, i get the privilege of spending a lot of time with david this notion of work and whos on my side when i go to work not necessarily just manufacturing, absolutely keep it, theres the guy who really knows. Amazing insight into what were doing wrong as well as what we can do right. Do we have time for one more . Thats in your next book, right, david . It is. Its all there. [laughter] weve got time for one more. One more . Question, comment from someone oh. Hi there. Can you hear me . I can. Okay. I want to tell you that i think i was a member of cwa before you were. [laughter] before i was born or before [laughter] actually [inaudible] oh, okay. I have hearing trouble, im that old, you know . I actually was an early member of cwa after i graduated from college with an internship through [inaudible] and i worked for the president at that time, but it was so long ago, i cant remember his name. But i did, i do want to tell you that im proud of all the work that youre doing. And now that we have retired, some of us, wed like to ask what we can do at our age. Now, we did put on a march on washington in Thomas Circle because thats where we could walk, and thats what we could do. And thats where we had signs. Which was something that i learned when with i was with cwa in 1952. So [laughter] i was almost right. I i want you to know, well never forget it. But i have a lady here who was the mother of bill fletcher. Oh [applause] [inaudible conversations] fellow author and many other things. I wanted to introduce her, and i wanted to say that were proud of what you do, and we still want to be a part of it. Thank you. [applause] yeah, right. Two of them. Skip over the cwa, thank you for your membership and service. So again, not to make everything about our revolution, but one of the good things about it is any group of ten members and a member is anybody who comes to a meeting or donates even a dime, no dues any group like your group if you have ten, if you dont have ten, go find six more, youve got four right here, can affiliate as an o. R. Group, and then within d. C. Were trying to help encourage those groups to get together if you live in d. C. And thats the kind of thing bobs doing in maryland where theres dozens of groups in maryland. Any group that already exists, you dont change your name or any of that, just say, hey, we want to affiliate, just like the rpa is now an o. R. Group. Again, its a very modest goal of tying people together so we can take on bigger things, not trying to get people to, you know, lose their own identity, whatever that is. Thanks again for what youve done for my entire lifetime. [applause]
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