On July 1, the minimum wage in DC moved from $17.50 to 17.95/hr. Tipped workers, however, are still waiting for a raise. Last month, the DC Council voted to stop the expected tipped subminimum wage increase as outlined by Initiative 82, keeping the wage frozen at $10/hr. I82, which was to slowly phase out the subminimum wage in DC by 2027, was passed by DC voters in 2022 with 74% of the vote on the back of intense campaigning by the organized Left in the city. However the corporate restaurant lobby — intent on maintaining a favorable power imbalance over workers and windfall-through-wage-theft provided by the subminimum wage — have been engineering an assault against the ballot initiative, with a proposed repeal currently tied to the DC Council’s budget.

Over the past two months, servers, bartenders, barbacks, and bussers have been maneuvering through the DC Council to pin down Councilmembers on the proposed repeal, reveal the plot against workers to subvert DC’s democracy, and to frustrate the restaurant lobby’s attempts at repeal. These insurgencies, organized by the Fair Price Fair Wage Coalition, have been supported by a network of progressive groups, labor advocacy organizations, unions and, of course, democratic socialists. (The Restaurant Opportunities Center has been documenting workers’ forays into the Council building over the past two months.)

As of Wednesday, the votes to stop outright repeal of I82 in the Council budget have been collected. In a recent budget work session, capitalist puppet CM McDuffie (at-large) — one of the corporate plants on the Council responsible for carrying the repeal forward — was under-prepared and unable to defend repeal of the Initiative. CM McDuffie’s ill planning was foiled by CM Parker, who revealed the corporate lobby’s antics and inability to engage in serious negotiations or discussion. Although CMs Pinto and Bonds attempted to tread water for the beleaguered McDuffie, Council Chair Mendelson quickly lost control of the meeting. In the chaos, the left wing of the Council forged a majority: CMs Lewis-George, Henderson, Nadeau, White, Frumin, Allen and Parker all confirmed their support for pulling the repeal of I82 from the budget. If Mendelson doesn’t pull repeal from the budget on his own (something he has the power to do), an amendment is set to be proposed by that left-wing majority of the Council on July 14.

The fight, however, will not end by just stopping the repeal attempt. The proposed repeal was always intended to terrify tipped workers into settling on a freeze on I82 implementation. Workers called this bluff, but the restaurant lobby will be pressuring the Council to water down resumption of I82 implementation.

As tipped workers continue their insurgency in the Wilson Building, socialists will be fanning out across the city to call for the public’s help in fighting this attempted weakening of Initiative 82. This weekend, DSA will be leading three wheatpasting expeditions to rally resident’s support for tipped workers’ wages and to stop further delays to I82:

• TODAY, July 4 at 10am from Sherman Circle Park (Sherman Cir NW, 20011)
• SATURDAY, July 5 at 11am from Lincoln Park (East Capitol Street and 11th Street SE, 20003)
• SUNDAY, July 6 at 11am from Shaw Neighborhood Library (1630 7th St NW, 20001)

Those joining the expeditions should expect to spend about 2 hours on the march. All who sign up will receive all the supplies and training needed.

Metro DC DSA’s Internationalism Working Group is holding the sixth and final session of its six-week Beyond the Bombs: Anti-Imperialist Summer School teach-in series on Sunday, July 6, with a session titled “The Shifting Global Order.” This session will run from 4 to 6pm, in-person at the Festival Center (1640 Columbia Road NW) and on Zoom. Attendees will turn their attention to the major global shifts currently underway — namely, the decline of US hegemony, the rise of new superpowers like China, and the emergence of an increasingly multipolar world order — all of which are taking place amid accelerating political, economic, and ecological crises on numerous fronts. Space will be opened for a nuanced and critical discussion of the opportunities and contradictions that these crises offer the anti-imperialist left. Learn more and RSVP to attend.

On July 14, Metro DC DSA will be holding the next Socialist Night School on Socialism 101. The event will be held both in-person at MLK Library in DC and online. The Night School will provide an overview of socialism and capitalism, cover the role of organizing to build a better world, connect attendees deeper to DSA’s work, and answer any questions those may have about capitalism and socialism. This is the perfect event for someone looking to learn more about the world, to build a knowledge base to hold conversations to grow the movement, and to introduce friends and family to DSA. Be sure to sign up for the Night School in advance to get notices and information if you are joining virtually.

Montgomery County Council Members Kristin Mink (D-District 5) and Will Jawando (D-At large) have introduced legislation to levy a tax on demolitions and housing expansions to fund social housing in Montgomery County. This legislation applies when a property owner tears down an existing single-family house and replaces it with a larger house on the same lot. Proceeds from the tax would go to Montgomery County’s Housing Production Fund. Montgomery County has used the Housing Production Fund to build mixed-income, county-owned housing (i.e. social housing) since 2021. These properties include a mix of market-rate and subsidized, affordable housing. This bill will come up for a Committee hearing later this summer; Montgomery County residents are urged to use this action alert to urge the County Council to pass this bill.

The fight against the landlord and developer lobby also extends into DC. Stomp Out Slumlords, MDC DSA’s tenant organizing arm, is planning tenant canvasses across the District to talk to tenants about Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed RENTAL Act — a bill that would gut the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. SOS needs locations for these canvasses. Are you a tenant in the District? Can you help host a canvass at your building? Fill out this form to get connected.

Our Metro DC chapter of DSA will be holding our next hybrid General Body Meeting at the Cleveland Park Library (and Zoom) on Sunday, July 13. Among the topics to be discussed are Resolution 2025-06-GR01: For Ranked Choice Voting in MDC “Standing Rules for Internal Elections” which is currently in the amendment period — the deadline to submit an amendment on Red Desk is Sunday, July 6 at 11:59pm — as well as our 2025 general election endorsements. Please RSVP for the GBM.

Want to fight fascism from the heart of the empire? Join DSA and fight to build socialism! July’s first Why You Should Join DSA/New Member Orientation is in-person on Wednesday, July 9; there’s a virtual version Wednesday, July 23. Learn about the Metro DC chapter — branches, working groups, campaigns, current activities, and enduring values — anytime right here.

Want to stay current? Weekly Updates, like the one you are reading, are scheduled and emailed on Fridays; current and past Updates are available on our website. Not subscribed? DSA member or not, sign up to get the Update, the go-to source for the DMV left. The MDC Dispatch is the chapter’s new video news series, published on the first and third Sunday of each month. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and submit your Update or Dispatch suggestions or DMV scandal tips to our tip line. The Washington Socialist, published since the 1970s, offers in-depth analytical/opinion articles on a quarterly schedule; the Spring 2025 quarterly issue now leads the queue but the Summer 2025 issue is in editing now. Check out our indexed and searchable archive to see what we write — and what you can write. Anyone, MDC DSA member or not, interested in contributing to the Washington Socialist can email submissions or questions to [email protected].

Members — want to stay updated in our local chapter workspace? MDC DSA members are encouraged to join our all-member Slack for real-time info on working group and campaign events, strategy exchange, and inspiration. Email [email protected] with your most recent DSA dues receipt to get Slack access.

ESSENTIAL PERSPECTIVES are articles and opinion pieces of interest to DMV leftists but not, generally, appearing in local media. They should have links without paywalls. Readers are invited to submit candidates at our tip line.

How Mamdani connects climate policy to his affordability agenda as he runs for New York mayor
“Climate and quality of life are not two separate concerns,” Mamdani told the Nation in April. “They are, in fact, one and the same.” This account from The Guardian after his primary victory updates and enriches the strategy.

Anatomy of Mamdani’s ubiquitous primary campaign poster: Chapter member Tyler Evans on his Zohran Mamdani poster design; “I’m passionate about all things creative, all things political, and how to make those intersect to better our country and enact real, progressive change for the working class,” his website asserts. “I firmly believe that design is a crucial medium for the political space in order to effectively and simply get ideas out into the world.” The collaboratively created poster, with its hues from New Yorkers’ familiar but distinctive surroundings, was seen everywhere. A full account from Fast Company

Tech visionaries imagine a polity after humans. It includes them, but probably not the rest of us.
Jeer Heer of The Nation recounts and analyzes a podcast dialogue between tech billionaire Peter Thiel and the NYT conservative columnist Ross Douthat. “Listening to Peter Thiel,” Heer says, “it is hard to escape the conclusion that he and his fellow billionaires are sick of the human species. They want to escape the inferior beings that surround them. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg has radically cut back his philanthropy, preferring to give his money to STEM research rather than helping poor people.” Heer’s account (and Thiel’s frankly frightening wanderings) raise themes present in the (popular in the tech sector) philosophies of Longtermism and Effective Altruism that suggest resources should be withdrawn from today’s oppressed and unequal in order to benefit future generations (and avoid human extinction). For a deep dive into the background of these Valley Brain fads, see Adam Becker’s new book, More Everything Forever.

Third Red Scare, same as the first
“There is of a course a limit to parallels between two historical moments; still, it is illuminating to view the current suppression as part of an authoritarian genealogy stretching back more than a century. The U.S. government piloted modern enforcement strategies like surveillance, infiltration, deportation, imprisonment, and execution on anarchists and radical unionists at the turn of the twentieth century. These methods were further developed during the mid-century Second Red and Lavender Scares, and were later used to brutally suppress theBlack Power and anti-war movements in the 1960s, as well as against environmentalists during the 2000s Green Scare.” From Protean, TX our comrade Dan Singer’s “5 Lefty Links”

More on surveillance, there and here: Looking over your shoulder at who might be looking over your shoulder? How does our surveillance state compare with, say, China’s? What can we expect? Two views: Julia Angwin ‘This Is What We Were Always Scared of’: DOGE Is Building a Surveillance State and Megan Stack “Can We See Our Future In China’s Cameras?”

Local chapter-supported fight makes international news: Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, with organizing efforts from MDC DSA members Alexa Sloan and Rabitah Moses, exemplifies how, “In the absence of federal oversight, Black communities band together to stave off development on historic resting places. … ‘A dog cemetery would not be treated like this.’” From the Guardian

It has been a little more than a year now since the Key Bridge collapsed, yet in this time of short memories and rapidly unfolding disasters, it has receded from memory. An article by Wanda Hernandes in NACLA Reports, “Monuments of Mourning: Remembering the Victims of the Key Bridge Collapse,” reminds us of the cost to the families of the six workers killed that day; six immigrant workers to be precise. And she reminds us that over time, the economic cost of that disaster has overshadowed the human cost; that to talk of a “disaster” hides the corporate malfeasance that contributed to the accident.

An ongoing fight that we ought not forget is the solidarity movement for Palestine and the resilience of the student movement in Maryland. In Baltimore, Towson, Morgan State, College Park and elsewhere, solidarity continues. Jaisal Noor interviews a number of students in the Real News Network’s “To Maryland College Students, Speaking Out About Gaza Means More Than Any Potential Discipline.”

So too, organizing to raise the minimum wage continues in DC — especially for tipped workers — and throughout our region. This struggle is one not only local but national as Ella Tummel reports in her American Prospect article, “Fighting for a Federal $20 Minimum Wage, With or Without Congress.” (and for the latest in DC, see our leader in UP FRONT above)

Friday, July 4
10am | Defend Tipped Workers Wages Wheatpasting

Saturday, July 5
11am | Defend Tipped Workers Wages Wheatpasting

Sunday, July 6
11am | Defend Tipped Workers Wages Wheatpasting
2 – 4pm | Montgomery County Branch July General Body Meeting
4 – 6pm | Anti-Imperialist Summer School Week 6: The Shifting Global Order
7 – 8pm | NoVA Electoral Monthly Working Group Meeting

Monday, July 7
6 – 8pm | Labor Solidarity Social

Tuesday, July 8
6:30 – 8pm | Labor Working Group July Meeting
9:30 – 10:30pm | Be Prepared, Not Scared: undocumented workers rights training

Wednesday, July 9
7 – 8pm | Why You Should Join DSA/New Member Orientation (in-person)
7pm | Repro Justice Campaign Meeting

Thursday, July 10
5 – 7:30pm | Informational Picket at Le Diplomate
6:15 – 7:30pm | NoVA Branch General Body Meeting

Friday, July 11
5 – 7:30pm | Informational Picket at Le Diplomate

Saturday, July 12
10:30am – noon | Shirlington M4A Petition Drive
1 – 3pm | We Power DC July Wheatpasting
1:30pm | July TOPA canvass
3 – 5pm | Block and Build Discussion

Sunday, July 13
2 – 4:30pm | Metro DC DSA General Body Meeting

Monday, July 14
6:30 – 8pm | Socialist Night School: Socialism 101
7 – 7:30pm | Informational Picket at Le Diplomate
7pm | Trans/Queer Liberation Bi-weekly Meeting
7pm | Fiber Arts Group

Tuesday, July 15
6 – 7pm | NoVA Medicare for All Working Group Meeting
9:30 – 10:30pm | Be Prepared, Not Scared: undocumented workers rights training

Thursday, July 17
6:30 – 8:30pm | NoVA Social Meetup

Friday, July 18
5 – 7:30pm | Informational Picket at Le Diplomate

Saturday, July 19
12 – 2pm | Federal Workers Rights Training: Combating RIFs

Wednesday, July 23
7 – 8pm | Why You Should Join DSA/New Member Orientation (virtual)