AOC justified her vote by claiming she was fighting “tooth and nail” for the additional sick days. Jamaal Bowman claimed he was “always fighting in solidarity with the workers.” But what the Congressional “Progressive” Caucus pulled was a con job, and a hamfisted one at that. They colluded with Pelosi to separate out the vote into two, promising their roughly 100 votes on the rotten TA in exchange for a separate vote on the sick day amendment, which they knew full well would get crushed in the Senate. It took only one day to confirm the brutal reality: that the majority of the “Squad,” in coordination with the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, sold rail workers down the river while blowing smoke about paid sick days.
On November 30, Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) national center posted a statement of support for the rail workers which included this sentence:
“Any member of Congress who votes yes on the tentative agreement is siding with billionaires and forcing a contract on rail workers that does not address their most pressing demand of paid sick days.”
What then of their own members and endorsed elected officials in Congress who voted yes? What this statement implies, and what the actions of the “Squad” definitively prove, is that these elected officials are, and see themselves as, part of the capitalist state, the state that acts for the billionaires and against the interests of the majority, the working class.
A socialist cannot be a strike breaker. This needs to be the end of any pretense by DSA that the “Squad” is socialist, and should result in their expulsion from the organization. Failing that, the Squad’s betrayal of the working class becomes DSA’s betrayal.
She became a strikebreaker three years ago. Kshama Sawant: Rail Workers Betrayed By Biden & The “Squad”