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kshama sawant
Seattle Becomes First US City to Ban Caste Discrimination With Kshama Sawant Ordinance
The Socialist Alternative Seattle Councilmember stressed that "caste discrimination doesn't only take place in other countries" and said she hopes the new law will become a "beacon" for other cities to follow.
Feb 22, 2023
The Seattle City Council voted Tuesday for the first U.S. ban on caste-based discrimination, a move the measure's socialist sponsor hopes will inspire similar legislation nationwide.
The council voted 6-1 in favor of an ordinance by District 3 Councilmember Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alternative party that adds caste as a protected class to a long list that includes age, race, religion, gender identity, national origin, immigration status, disability, and military status.
Caste discrimination will now be banned in fields including employment, housing, and public accommodation. People experiencing caste-based discrimination will also be able to file official complaints.
Not only is it the first such law in the U.S., it's the first in the world outside South Asia.
"This bill is not technically complicated, it's a very simple question: Should discrimination based on caste be allowed to continue in Seattle?" Sawant said in a packed City Hall before Tuesday's vote.
Sawant, who is Indian-American, called the measure "profound and historic" and expressed hope that it will serve as a "beacon" for other cities to follow.
"If... you marched in the Black Lives Matter movement or you desire to live in a society free of racism, racial discrimination, sexism, or misogyny, then you should be paying attention," she told CNN before the vote. "Because while caste oppression or discrimination does not affect all Americans, the way it manifests itself is no different than other types of oppression under capitalism."
Emotions and tensions ran high in City Hall before, during, and after the vote. Yogesh Mane, who grew up Dalit—the lowest caste—in India, wept as he heard the council's decision.
"I'm emotional because this is the first time such an ordinance has been passed anywhere in the world outside of South Asia," he told the Associated Press. "It's a historic moment."
The caste system, which has existed in South Asia for millennia, divides Hindus into groups including Brahmins (priests and teachers); Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors); Vaishyas (farmers, merchants, and traders); Shudras (laborers); and Dalits (street and latrine cleaners).
Although India's constitution, whose drafting was led by the Dalit scholar Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, officially banned caste-based discrimination, those on the lower rungs—especially the Dalits—continue to suffer endemic discrimination and frequent violence. Such bigotry has been inflamed by the rise of Hindu nationalism in recent decades, and during the tenure of right-wing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Advocates of the ordinance in Washington state's largest city stressed that caste-based bigotry is by no means limited to South Asia.
"Caste discrimination doesn't only take place in other countries," Sawant—who grew up in a middle-class Brahmin family in Mumbai—said in a statement announcing the introduction of her bill. "It is faced by South Asian-American and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including in the tech sector, in Seattle and in cities around the country."
"We know that caste discrimination has been growing in the United States across many industries, including technology, construction, restaurants, and the service industry, and in domestic work," she added. "Caste discrimination is increasingly a grave contributor to workplace discrimination and bias—data from Equality Labs show that 1 in 4 caste-oppressed people faced physical and verbal assault, 1 in 3 faced education discrimination, and 2 in 3 faced workplace discrimination."
Sawant continued:
Just as racism is not the result of an "inevitable" racial friction between white and Black people, caste oppression has also been maintained by the class structure of capitalist society in South Asia and now in the United States.
Beyond winning reforms such as this one, working people in our city, nationally, and internationally need to unite and build mass movements to fight for a socialist society. Because as long as an exploitative and rapacious system like capitalism exists, oppression will be endemic. The only way to end caste, racial, gender, and other oppressions is for the working class to fight for a different kind of world.
Caste-based discrimination is at the center of a case making its way through a California state court in which a former engineer at Cisco Systems says he was excluded from meetings and passed up for promotions because he is Dalit.
One Seattle-area tech worker, who gave only the name Maya for fear of retaliation, told The Seattle Times that she has been the target of workplace caste discrimination because she is Dalit. Maya said her manager rebuffed an offer to volunteer for a work project, telling her, "You better not touch the project because you're ill-fated."
"It might not sound like something major, but for us, it completely resonates with the caste and untouchability because not touching is what all of the dominant-caste people have made rules around for so long," Maya explained. "That's why we are called untouchables. We're not supposed to touch anything or anyone."
"Caste is an evil that has been practiced for more than 3,000 years now," she added. "We carry the genetic trauma of caste for such a long time already. But if we don't have caste protections, then this is going to affect even the next generations."
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'Our Movement Is Only Growing': Workers at Over 50 Starbucks Seeking Unions
Employees of at least 16 Starbucks locations across the nation filed unionization papers on Monday alone.
Jan 31, 2022
What began last month with a promising trickle has turned into a torrent as workers in at least 16 Starbucks stores on Monday moved to unionize.
Starbucks Workers United--which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)--announced Monday that workers at 16 of the coffee chain's locations filed for union elections with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
In a letter to Starbucks president and CEO Kevin Johnson, organizers at the 16th location to file union papers on Monday--the Garden Home Marketplace Starbucks in Portland, Oregon--said that they "have decided to unionize because it is time that our voices are heard, respected, and considered appropriately."
"Our movement is only growing," Starbucks Workers United tweeted. "Partners around the country are standing up for what's right and we couldn't be more inspired!"
According to More Perfect Union, workers at more than 50 Starbucks stores in 19 states have now moved to unionize following the successful unionization of employees at two Buffalo, New York-area stores.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler has accused Starbucks of engaging in anti-union tactics in a bid to thwart workers' unionization drive. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) last month decried the company's union-busting efforts, while calling Starbucks workers an "inspiration."
Speaking at a rally in support of the Starbucks workers last week, Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant (Socialist Alternative-District 3)--who is donating $10,000 from her Solidarity Fund to the employees' organizing effort--said that "it is extremely critical that we build on the success of Buffalo for a nationwide almighty battle to unionize and follow that up with a class-struggle-based approach to winning contracts."
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Big Business Defeated as Socialist Kshama Sawant's Victory Certified in Seattle
"We have defeated Big Business and the right wing in their attempt to use... trumped-up charges against me personally in order to push back against the success of working-class movements in Seattle."
Dec 17, 2021
Progressive cheers went up far and wide Friday after Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant officially defeated a right-wing recall effort, which the Socialist Alternative lawmaker called "part of the nationwide backlash" by billionaires and Big Business targeting lawmakers and others fighting for social justice and working people.
"The ruling class in the United States is afraid of these kinds of movements and so we should not be surprised by the reaction."
Elections officials in King County, Washington certified the anti-recall effort, with a final tally of 20,656 ballots against recalling Sawant and 20,346 in favor--a victory margin of 310 votes.
"We have won three elections and now we have defeated this recall," Sawant said during a Thursday interview for Jordan Chariton's Status Coup News podcast. "We have defeated Big Business and the right wing in their attempt to use... trumped-up charges against me personally in order to push back against the success of working-class movements in Seattle."
Turnout was around 53%, an unusually high figure for a special election that nearly matched the 55% level of last year's general election. Sawant supporters utilized an array of get-out-the-vote tactics, including pop-up tents where ballots were printed, to reach voters.
Sawant, the longest-tenured Seattle council member and the first ever to face a recall, was accused of "misfeasance, malfeasance, and violation of the oath of office."
Her supporters, however, argued that Sawant's successful record of fighting for working-class people and against billionaires and Big Business made her a target of "a cabal of tech corporations, real estate interests, and business lobbyists."
Sawant was instrumental in making Seattle the first major U.S. city to enact a $15 hourly minimum wage. She also helped spearhead the successful push for the so-called "Amazon tax" on large corporations and the fight for robust tenant protections including free legal aid for people facing eviction and a Renters' Bill of Rights.
"The ruling class in the United States is afraid of these kinds of movements," Sawant told Chariton, "and so we should not be surprised by the reaction, and the recall against us was at least part of that reaction."
The socialist councilmember also said that "it's no coincidence" that two of the three reasons given for the recall "were related to my participation in and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement."
"The recall against my office is part of the nationwide backlash... against this incredible movement that happened last year with 26 million American people, especially young people, marching in the streets in multi-racial working-class solidarity against police repression, against racism, and against oppression," she said.
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