Monthly Working Session Meeting

The Political Education Working Group is the place to bring your ideas for workshops, educational material, agitprop, and more. Our goal is to bring socialist ideas, DSA messaging and campaigns, and class consciousness to the people of Ventura County. All levels of organizing experience welcome.

Many hands make light work.

Please reference our Slack’s events channel, or general, for the Agenda.

Zoom Meeting link will appear upon RSVP.

Join DSA Ventura County’s Labor Working Group on zoom to discuss recent labor struggles in our communities, from Starbucks Workers United’s indefinite strike, to the new contract our County employees won by threatening to strike, to the movement for an arms embargo by Labor for Palestine, and the calls for a general strike by May Day 2028. Please, bring other ideas, campaigns, and your own workplace experiences. An agenda will be posted on slack soon. You will receive the zoom link shortly after completing RSVP.

Building the resilience to productively work through conflict is one of our most important tasks in building DSA into a real party – one that many leftist organizations struggle with. Without a healthy democratic culture and structure, political disagreements metastasize and become intertwined with personal grievances, a toxic cocktail that can boil over and implode chapters (including our own in 2022-23).

Selecting leadership can require navigating divides within a chapter that may not always be entirely reconcilable. Leaders have to be able to build some level of ideological or strategic unity to collectively execute a shared direction for the chapter, or risk gridlock and inertia that blunts our organizing momentum. On the other hand, operating too hegemonically risks alienating or marginalizing others within the chapter to a degree where they feel their only recourse is to leave, which, for an organization like DSA which prides itself on its big tent politics, would be robbing us of one of our greatest strengths.

There’s no formulaic approach for striking the right balance here. It requires rigorous and frequent analysis of the current conditions surrounding the organization (i.e. a muscle that needs to be regularly exercised), being structurally flexible enough to meet those changing conditions, and strong leaders capable of facilitating those tasks and meeting the moment.

In 2023, we stepped up as leaders in a disorganized, demobilized chapter lacking cohesion and stretched across siloed working groups. Our analysis then was that the primary task was to re-establish a healthy chapter culture and organizing practice. We emphasized general meetings as a social and political hub for the chapter and built consensus with leaders across the chapter for a collective campaign, with the mindset that the politics of the campaign was secondary to building a shared democratic muscle where the chapter collectively executed and debriefed this campaign together. 

We believe this approach was generally vindicated by the growth and maturation of the chapter over 2024-25. That trajectory has not changed since, and we’re now taking on projects larger than ever before. Some of the challenges we’re working through or likely to hit in the coming years are new, others are familiar territory for veteran DSA organizers – maintaining political cohesion with so many chapter projects without stifling new organizing, the presence of more politically developed and organized factions within the chapter, etc. 

Sustaining our social practice and chapter culture is still a priority (and mostly outside the scope of resolutionizing), but we now believe structural changes to our leadership election process are also needed to better facilitate this over the next few years, as Madison Area DSA becomes a chapter over 1000 members strong and we reckon with how to most effectively wield that growing power at the city and state level. From observing how larger chapters have already been wrestling with these questions, we want to tackle these changes proactively rather than reactively.

In that context, we’re bringing this proposal to the 2026 Chapter Convention to change how we elect executive committee officers from row elections for single seats to at-large elections. Here’s a brief summary of the actual changes in our proposal, followed by additional context and rationale for why we’re motivating this.

• The executive committee this year will prioritize building out committees to delegate more of their current administrative work (e.g. budgeting, general meeting coordination) where appropriate..
• Starting in 2027, the five non co-chair officer positions on the Executive Committee are elected at-large from a single pool of candidates, rather than by individual election for each position. The newly elected executive committee will vote on their officer roles after the chapter election. 
• Exec elections will be required to use Single Transferable Vote, a ranked-choice voting system that preserves proportional representation.
• The Administrator position shall be renamed to Secretary, in line with other chapters.
• Provisions where branches automatically receive an additional voting representative on Exec shall be removed.

What does the executive committee do?

In order to understand how these changes will affect the composition of Exec, we need to discuss what the executive committee actually does.

The bylaws (specifically Articles V and VI) give a brief overview of what Exec’s basic scope entails, as well as the duties of each officer. While that description is not inaccurate, it doesn’t capture the full scope of leadership responsibilities, and the influence they have on the political direction of the chapter as a whole.

Individual exec members have additional administrative and political leadership duties beyond the scope of the bylaws, including tasks like liaising with working groups, committees, and other chapters; adjudicating grievances and conflict; and developing new leaders to replace them. Political leadership here is not limited to ideological positions, but encompasses other dimensions of organizing leadership such as how they show up in the chapter’s internal political life, organize others to accomplish projects, and model skills like delegation.

While the chapter may vote to take specific actions or direct broad strategy, it is often Exec that is tasked with implementing that broad mandate (or steering other chapter bodies in doing so).

Exec has wide latitude in how to prioritize these decisions, strategizing and implementing (which can have significant political consequences in terms of what sort of infrastructure or power that builds for the chapter long-term), how much outreach is performed to membership or coalition partners, which chapter bodies are brought into planning, etc.

Exec also plays a key advisory role for the chapter, and has been a primary force for bringing proposals to the general membership. Unlike other chapter bodies though, Exec has authority to define the terms of discussion to general membership that can potentially tip the scales, deciding such things as what items (such as proposals, resolutions, or bylaw amendments) are agendized, how much time they are given, what the format of discussion looks like (alongside the decisions of the meeting chair), and some hand in the degree of announcement given to the general membership prior to the meeting. Exec also is empowered to make some political decisions on behalf of the chapter between general membership meetings. 

All of the above can in theory be overwritten by a vote of the general membership, but this is a right that often goes uninvoked. In the past few years, we can recall very few motions brought forward by Exec (as a whole body, not individual members) that have failed to get approval by the general membership. While there are other factors such as pre-selection of motions for ones that are most likely to pass when brought to the chapter, having a good understanding of the collective political vision of the chapter, and being personally developed enough to write and present a winning proposal, the powers of the chapter’s highest offices does confer potential to put an often unintended thumb on the scale. 

If the executive committee is tasked with the responsibility of steering the chapter and executing its will, then that committee should be broadly representative of the chapter’s collective will and political currents, which often form loose collections or tendencies. “Factions” is the most useful term for speaking to these distinct collections of members.

What is factionalism, and why are we engaging with it?

Factionalism is a bit of a dirty word, especially in the context of liberal democratic forms. However, factions are any collectivity of our membership that are bound by common goals, generally directed towards internal (within DSA) organizing ends. If you have ever spoken to other members in favor of or against a contentious motion prior to a meeting with the intent of building support or identifying opponents, then you have engaged in a sort of factionalism. 

Most internal organizing that meets some level of opposition can be described in factional terms, though such factions are usually short-term. There is a natural tendency to gravitate towards others within the chapter who share similar vision, which can take many forms: a group chat, an affinity for specific chapter projects, or perhaps something more formal like coalescing around an ideological caucus.

This is a normal, generally healthy expression of political conflict, and addressing those conflicts productively is in part how we resolve the contradictions inherent to a big-tent organization like DSA. A lack of such conflict might indicate a failure to engage in impactful political action, preserving the big-tent at the expense of building/wielding power, or that the membership has consolidated around a singular, all-encompassing political vision, collapsing the big-tent; something that our organization in its current form would be unlikely to structurally survive.

Regardless of whether such a conflict is acknowledged or not, factionalism is a reality that is already present within the chapter, has been for some time, and will continue to evolve as we grow. Rather than bury our heads in the sand, it is important that we address the potential pitfalls of factional conflicts before they can grow to proportions with dire organizational consequences (splits being the primary concern).

As our chapter grows, questions and disagreements on political strategy will have greater stakes, which increases the pressure and incentives for members to make tradeoffs that might secure short-term political victories at the expense of our long-term organizational health.

Returning to the substance of our proposed bylaw amendment, one way we can place guardrails is by making Exec more likely to proportionally represent the range of political currents within the chapter. Our current election system, while effective in previous stages of chapter development, is less well-equipped for our potential future trajectory. We believe that changing to an at-large voting system places some guardrails against factional excesses, and also allows membership to better consider candidates on the basis of their leadership rather than just for the specific position they’re contesting. In the event our chapter doesn’t develop beyond our current level, we think it unlikely to have a major impact on our elections as currently run.

One weakness of row elections is a reduced ability for membership to weigh in on the collective makeup of the body, instead having each race be a separate first-past-the-post election. This can result in a leadership body not representative of the chapter, and organized political pluralities or slim majorities able to win disproportionate voting power on our highest leadership body. An example of this is in New York City, where the two largest political factions won about ⅔ of members’ votes in last year’s convention delegate elections (using STV), but represent almost 100% of seats on the chapter’s steering committee, since candidates from those factions can win a simple majority in almost every row election. This is not inherently a bad thing on its own and not an indictment of the chapter’s other successes, but we believe it presents real contradictions and limitations for NYC’s internal democracy. 

Structural changes on their own are of course insufficient for resolving political and organizing problems. Our chapter has had the same row election system for years and vastly different political cultures over that time; some chapters with steering committees elected at-large have a healthy internal democracy, but others do not. 

As such, our other priority with this bylaw amendment is to shift the focus of elections towards that of electing the strongest leaders overall. This is increasingly important as the scope of officer roles exceeds the ability for all tasks to be completed by any single person, before considering other leadership responsibilities on Exec’s plate.

Over the last three years we’ve made major strides in our membership work, going from most tasks being handled directly by membership coordinator (or other exec members), to a standing committee led and overseen by the membership coordinator. This has also helped create a leadership development pipeline where people running for membership coordinator have been able to build more direct experience before running. To a lesser extent we’ve seen similar success with our Communications Committee. Regardless of the vote on the larger proposal, we believe it should be a priority for Exec to set up similar structures to delegate other areas of work, e.g. budget and finance, general meeting coordination, and other common administrative processes.

To make this a reality, we want to set the expectation that organizing leadership is the primary requirement for these roles, something we’ve already emphasized to candidates for Exec this year. We want the chapter to elect the members best suited to lead those roles, recruit other members and delegate work as necessary, and believe at-large elections allow us to more effectively consider that long-term.

Baseline technical skills are still needed for certain roles, but in the past few years many officers have come in without extensive prior experience and develop these skills after taking office. Our long-term growth requires elected officers understanding their role as overseeing particular areas of work rather than being solely responsible, and have resources and guidance built in to ensure that future terms of the executive committee are able to take on those roles from all levels of baseline experience. 

This, alongside the expansion of committees aiding individual offices in performing many of their expected tasks, including more technical roles like treasurer, leaves us confident that we can continue what has already been standard practice of electing officers whose primary qualifications are in more generalized organizing skills. This is in line with the trend away from the main historic selection criteria for Exec, which has been based entirely on whoever has been willing to run, resulting in a 4-year stretch of conventions (2021-2024) with uncontested elections. 

We’ve heard concerns that running in an election whose technical responsibilities are not definitively listed at the time of the election might discourage members from running, and that the post-election sorting of roles is too much of an open question. In our experience, this sorting process is already happening, but prior to elections – members considering running for Exec typically talk with others informally beforehand and we see at least 1-2 cases a year of people adjusting what positions they run for based on what others are running for.

The natural expectation written into this bylaw amendment is that most people will likely join exec with a “preferred” role they might want to pursue, with mechanisms to resolve irreconcilable conflicts between exec members over the same desired role, opportunities for exec members to rotate roles as needed (though we don’t expect this to need to be invoked often), and the option for exec members to resign and trigger a new election if they find an assigned technical role to be personally intolerable. If the capacity to fill these roles exists in the current moment, it will continue to exist under the new structure. In all, it formalizes, democratizes, and makes transparent processes that are already happening.

Conclusion

It is important that, when a DSA chapter is altering its bylaws, that such changes are not intended to be overly prescriptive. The goal should not be to fundamentally change the nature of our organizing work through the changes, but to more subtly adjust existing practices to fit the current conditions. Additionally, changes to bylaws should be utilized to give formal recognition to informal practices that have proven useful for the body at large, designating a mandate that such practices continue or simply acknowledging that said practices are unlikely to cease given current organizing needs. This philosophy is reflected in another proposal we authored to rewrite our bylaws with guardrails against that process being used as a vehicle for major political changes, and it informs our thinking behind this proposal as well.

We believe this change helps codify leadership expectations we’ve contributed to shifting the last few years. And though we don’t expect it to have a significant immediate impact, we believe it sets up long-term scaffolding whose positive effects will be increasingly felt as we continue to grow and tackle new challenges in the coming years.

Purpose

This procedure is intended to assist Milwaukee DSA in effectively responding to and promoting actions and events when there is not time to meet beforehand. 

Procedure Steps

1. Within two days of notification of a new event:

• Someone (in membership) alerts the rapid response body (Outreach Officer), who will determine whether we will promote DSA attendance or decline to promote.
• If Outreach decides to promote, proceed. If Outreach declines to promote, announce in discord that we are declining to promote this event for DSA attendance. Announce that this does not mean DSA members shouldn’t attend, it only means that we are not showing up organized as DSA.

2. If vote is to promote:

• Create a thread in discord (under #emergency-actions) to coordinate people, title this thread as descriptively as possible to this one event (Event title + date).
• Announce in #general-announcements that we are promoting DSA members attendance and link the event coordination thread in this announcement.
• Assign an event coordinator who will be responsible for performing setup and communications for the event.

3. Before the event:

• Event coordinator will pick up supplies from Zao MKE:
  • DSA banner or flag
  • Sign-in sheet (if possible)
  • Sign-up QRs, petitions, etc. in rapid response bin (will need to be put together)
  • Five clipboards for canvassers
• Event coordinator will transport the supplies to the event and arrive at least 15 minutes prior to the event start time.
• Event coordinator will announce a meetup point in the event discord thread.

4. During the event:

• Event coordinator will stay at the meetup point for at least 15 minutes after the event start time.
• Event coordinator will assign and distribute literature/petitions to members who are willing to canvass.
• Event coordinator will be responsible for carrying DSA banner/flag.
• Event coordinator will maintain a unified body of DSA members that moves together, the exception to this rule will be the assigned canvassers.
• Event coordinator will monitor the discord thread for the event for the duration of the event.

5. At event close:

• Event coordinator will collect all materials from canvassers.
• Event coordinator will take a photo of the DSA group.
• Event coordinator will return materials to Zao MKE.
• Event coordinator will separate filled-out petitions and label them with the event title and date on a scrap piece of paper folded around the petitions.
• Event coordinator will return sign-in sheet to chapter secretary.

The 2006 “Day Without an Immigrant” offers urgent lessons for beating ICE today.

The post We’ve had a nationwide immigrant strike before. We can do it again. appeared first on EWOC.

Capping rent increases, increasing the minimum wage, and banning corporate money in politics are just some of the issues two democratic socialists are advocating for in their campaigns for state Assembly.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) received national attention due to Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race in November 2025, as the schism between the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic party deepens over how to engage with working class voters after failing to defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Mamdani openly described himself as a democratic socialist throughout the primary and general election and is a member of the New York City DSA.

Here in Nevada, Assembly candidates Shaun Navarro and Val Thomason do not shy away from the label. Both are members of Las Vegas Democratic Socialists of America, or LVDSA, which is a political activist organization, not a political party..

“Rich people tell us what to do at our job, they write our laws,” Thomason said. “We don’t even have control of our own tax money.”

Democratic socialism to her is taking control from the rich and giving it to the working class.

Read the full article

by Alexandria R

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become infamous, particularly in the past year, for brutal tactics, intimidation, and even murder. In 2025, 32 people lost their lives in ICE-related incidents. Some of the agency’s more lethal crimes have drawn major headlines – particularly the most recent killing of two US citizens in Minnesota. While ICE as an agency has gathered a popular reputation as a secret police force, the agency and its activities date back to March 2003, when it was formally created and mobilized as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Its tactics, including infiltration and disruption activities akin to COINTELPRO, have not changed. ICE has acquired Israeli-manufactured spyware known as Graphite, developed by Paragon Solutions. The software is capable of hacking encrypted drives and phones, including live location data, photos, and encrypted messages. Additionally, the agency embeds itself within local law enforcement, often making use of Flock license plate readers and shot spotters to target migrant families and coordinate its operations. Officially, Flock denies that this cooperation exists. 

The agency’s effective infiltration and lethality is concerning, especially when their official mission is taken into account. DHS effectively functions as an organ of the state dedicated to mass internal surveillance and policing. ICE has a mandate to use children to draw out their parents, and detain people based on their outward characteristics. 2026 is a little over two months old, and in that time, ICE has murdered more than six people. Some of them are activists. Other American citizens have been threatened with detention or death for interfering with ICE business. Of particular concern are reports from activists in Minnesota, which echo strange occurrences reported by other activists since at least 2020. Judy and Noah Levy were stopped by ICE agents while observing agency operations in St. Paul. The couple noted that their license plates were photographed. Jarringly, the agents addressed Judy by her name when they came to speak with her. Recalling the incident, Judy said that she was shaken, but continued to follow the agents and their caravan. That’s when ICE vehicles turned onto Levy’s street. 

“Our street is off the beaten path,” said Noah, “You don’t go down our street to get to anywhere. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t intimidating.” 

In September, ICE spent millions on technology to surveil social media and the dark web. The software, called “Tangles,” creates a daily life profile of the people it surveils by mining social media for their posts, contacts, locations and events they attended, combining it with any information leaked about them online. While the agency has been using AI to “crawl” social media apps and sites, ICE is also putting together a surveillance force for 24/7 social media monitoring. DHS wants your data, but surveillance of public information is not where ICE stops looking.

The Guardian first broke the story of DHS/ICE’s acquisition of Graphite. Stephanie Kirchgaessner’s report details the capabilities of the software, noting that Graphite can “hack into any phone. By essentially taking control of the mobile phone, the user – in this case, ICE – can not only track an individual’s whereabouts, read their messages, and look at their photographs, but also open and read information held on encrypted applications, like WhatsApp or Signal. Spyware like Graphite can also be used as a listening device, through the manipulation of the phone’s recorder.” The agency’s contract with Paragon Solutions dates to late 2024 under the Biden administration. ICE’s mandate to spy on members of the public originates with the founding of its parent organ, DHS. 

Infiltration via spyware is not the only point of entry into personal and private data. It has always been important to be aware of your safety when disclosing personal information online, such as location “check-ins” and specific information about shops or restaurants you frequent. Securing information that can be used to track you and your activities can be difficult when you don’t know what people are looking for. The many different ways that federal agents gain access to sensitive details about ICE observers and their affiliates certainly don’t make it easier. Agencies often infiltrate group events and Signal chats by posing as a concerned member of the public or as an activist. This can be mitigated by ensuring that people are who they say they are via connections to the community, but informants and state collaborators could be anyone. I do not encourage readers to start viewing their comrades with suspicion – only to be wary of sharing specific, personal information, even among friends or comrades, as much as possible.

Internal policing and surveillance have always been the mandate of DHS. Though the agency’s tactics have shifted recently to become more ruthless, the existence of ICE has been maintained and expanded upon by every administration since George W. Bush. The contradiction is glaring. Internal policing and anti-migrant policies such as forced deportation of asylum seekers have no place in a society that calls itself a nation of immigrants, and we as citizens have an obligation not only to inform the public of the tactics and goals of these entities, but also to actively work against them.

The post Every Step You Take, ICE is Watching You appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

How do you put pressure on key people in your workplace, build up natural leaders, and disrupt the status quo? Consider a work action.

The post What is a work action? appeared first on EWOC.

When members of Chicago DSA arrived at 3201 S Millard in late September last year, they were confronted by a startling question: did you hear about the helicopter? Leon, a worker at Mauser and a steward for Teamsters Local 705, shared a video that another striking worker had taken with one of the Labor Branch steering committee members. In the video, a Customs and Border Patrol helicopter could be seen circling the site of the picket for a few minutes, just above the treeline. To the workers there, it was clear that CBP had gone to Little Village to intimidate the workers, immigrant and native-born alike, as their strike against Mauser entered its twelfth week.

When people talk about unions, it’s easy to think only of their economic benefits. In posters, social media posts, and TV ads, locals for the various building trades advertise the union wage premium; non-workers make this much, while union workers make this much more. In Kenny Winfree’s “I’m a Union Card,” he sings about how the union card “could have been a Visa/could have been a MasterCard,” and how it protects workers from getting fired.

For the Teamsters who struck Mauser, unions and collective bargaining agreements offered something more than better compensation and safer working conditions (which themselves can be life or death concerns). They sought guaranteed protections against ICE raids from management. With “Operation Midway Blitz” in full swing in Chicago, this was an essential stipulation sought by the bargaining team alongside long-standing demands for higher wages and better PPE when dealing with hazardous chemicals. Their struggle, like many labor struggles, encompassed not only economic justice, but also immigrant rights, racial justice, healthcare, and the environment. For so many working people, these issues are most salient in the workplace, and the workplace is where they have the greatest power to change them. 

Members of the Chicago DSA, led by solidarity captains from its Labor Branch, continued to show support for Mauser workers, walking the picket line and cooking meals. We did so because we cannot build our movement without other working people, and because we, like the Teamsters at Mauser, believe that labor is an economic justice issue; it is an immigrants’ rights issue; it is a racial justice issue; it is an environmental and health justice issue. In short, labor is the foundation which unites our struggles, and it deserves a central position in our organization. 

Why unions?

While organized labor in general may have broad appeal, trade unions in particular have been a site of theoretical contestation on the left. Going back to Marx and Engels, the idea of a problematic ‘labor aristocracy’ has complicated the relationship between socialists and trade unionists. Setting these theoretical concerns aside, for the Steering Committee of the Labor Branch, our commitment to unions is grounded in the long term project to achieve socialism in the United States. 

We need a dedicated place for unions and workplace organizing in Chicago DSA because of their promise for organizing workers into radical political actors. Historically, socialist and communist organizations maintained strong organizing ties with unions. Even when unions were not explicitly socialist, significant numbers of organizers and rank-and-file members were. For many unions, only the height of McCarthyism in the early 1950s led to purges of socialists and communists from their ranks. More recent union drives have seen a resurgence of left-wing politics, from the brief formation of the American Labor Party in the 1990s to union support for Bernie Sanders in 2016. 

Elsewhere, in Europe social democratic and labor parties maintain strong or even institutional ties with their labor movements. Even today, as union density in Europe stands at its lowest point in decades, several European countries maintain higher union density than the U.S. had at its peak¹. In contrast, as of 2025, union density in the U.S. sits at 10% for all-workers, down from a high of roughly 34% in the late 1940s. In the public sector, 32.9% of workers are unionized, compared to only 5.9% of workers in the private sector. And the influence of working people over policy and politics at both the national and local levels has fallen in proportion to the labor movement’s decline.

In an effort to undermine support for left-wing politicians and movements in the U.S., some centrist politicians have invoked the monolith of the “white working class” while ridiculing the base for left movements as no more than a mass of “white Bernie bros.” These attempts to use identitarian attacks to undermine class-centered politics are at odds with the reality that unionized workers are disproportionately workers of color and women. While it’s true that some unions do have a greater proportion of white male members than the wider population, this is a reflection of their industry rather than the institution itself. The supposed antagonism between civil rights and unions is anachronistic and out of step with the current base of most unions’ membership. 

Unionized workers are more politically engaged than non-union workers: they vote more often and are more likely to contact their representatives in office. They’re also more likely than non-union workers to blame inflation on corporate greed, as opposed to the supposed inflationary pressures of higher wages. Unions also provide an infrastructure for political mobilization and the dissemination of political ideas. From talking points and trainings to broad social networks and rallies, unions facilitate the development of political agitation. Unions can even influence the political positions of their non-union managers. The push for radical politics in the United States cannot be separated from the struggles of the labor movement.

Recent CDSA Labor Branch Work:

Before detailing some of the recent work of CDSA’s Labor Branch, it’s worth pausing to reflect on the reason for our creation. Returning to the Branch’s manifesto from 2017 (when it was first created as a working group, and was most recently updated in 2020): 

We are an intersectional group of labor militants who are actively rebuilding the labor movement from the ground-up through organizing the unorganized and strengthening the power of the organized rank-and-file worker. We demand a proactive labor movement, both nationally and locally, that can combat worker exploitation and respond to the new economy of fissured workplaces. We believe that in order to overthrow capitalism we need to build a militant movement of labor activists. 

As Democratic Socialists, we bring an alternative vision of what the labor movement can be.  Through socialism, we are determined to win the democratic control of the means of production and democracy in the workplace. We are building a socialist movement topush for broader justice for all workers.

Our work is for the broader socialist movement, which means justice for all workers. This is not just the CDSA Union Branch or CDSA Organized Labor Branch. Our organizing encompasses all working people.

Political Education

We also hold events dedicated to political education and networking. We held a townhall after May Day last year where panelists in unions shared their thoughts and experiences with attendees who were interested to hear about the difference that organized labor makes. From this meeting, CDSA gained many new members who have become active throughout the chapter. Later this spring, Labor Branch will host another meeting around union jobs and organizing which will be advertised to the public, and we hope to gain new members for the chapter as well. 

Helping Members Get Union Jobs

As mentioned above, Labor Branch will be hosting a jobs fair this spring. The event will give unions and reform caucuses within unions the opportunity to advertise employment opportunities for people interested in dedicating themselves to the labor movement, whether in a currently unionized workplace or a site that is yet to be unionized. This will be an extension of the work our branch has already been doing within our chapter. 

CDSA Labor’s jobs pipeline program began 4 years ago, with the goal of getting socialists into strategic union jobs where they can organize for greater union militancy and democracy. With the Rank-and-File Strategy as our guide, we help members connect to steady employment and support them in their efforts to become workplace organizers. Like much of our labor work, the pipeline is a long-term project of building relationships and responding and adjusting to shifting conditions. At upcoming meetings this spring, we’ll also be evaluating the project so far and voting on its direction.

CHIWOC

The Chicago Workplace Organizing Committee (CHIWOC) is our local chapter of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), a joint project of DSA and the United Electric with the mission to organize every workplace in the country. CHIWOC volunteers field requests for support from everyone in the Chicagoland area, from doulas to software developers, looking to solve problems that they’re facing on the job. Those volunteers then pair these workers with teams of trained local organizers who teach them the basics of workplace organizing. Those workers then get the chance to become organizers themselves and support their neighbors fighting for better treatment on the job.

The structure of CHIWOC gives workers of all backgrounds an on-ramp into building the labor movement. It also gives them the opportunity to help us discover the kind of mass organizing it takes to truly bring this movement back, and show the working class that we always had the tools to free ourselves. Over the past year, that has meant doing promotional events, holding open meetings once a month where workers can bring their issues, and hosting live trainings on how to prepare your workplace for a general strike. 

Sharing Strategies and Tactics Across Unions

As mentioned above, unions hold the promise of getting people more involved in radical politics. As an organized force, unions are able to use their collective action in a lot of ways that can advance goals that we as socialists care about, including solidarity with immigrants and calling for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctioning (BDS) of Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza that respects the rights of Palestinians. For years, the Labor Branch has been a place where members of different unions sample resolutions from their locals, discuss tactics for advancing their vision in their unions, or simply commiserate over the challenges they deal with as union activists in a capitalist society. In situations where two unions were in seemingly intractable conflict, Labor Branch served as a place for rank-and-file members of those unions to come together and speak across those barriers to find shared understanding. For unions with more conservative leadership and less-democratic structures, our space has allowed for union activists to learn from each other to better organize within their union.

Strike Solidarity Support

Strike solidarity is probably the Labor Branch’s most public facing work. In support of the Teamsters who struck Mauser, we did more than just provide food and support to the workers at the job site; we made social media videos and posts to turn out more people to the picket line. Our members lobbied their union leadership to stand in solidarity with the Teamsters; we attended morale-raising rallies where co-chair Sean Duffy spoke before hundreds of people alongside Local leaders and elected officials. 

Chicago DSA has been involved in strike solidarity since before 2016, but our first major instance of strike support occurred during UNITE HERE’s 2018 strike, in which workers at 30 hotels walked off the job. Many in the broader labor movement looked to CDSA to lead community efforts, and we put forward our analysis that, in a strike at 30 hotels involving multiple employers, our numbers were most powerful when concentrated on the weakest link. We focused our turnout on the Blake in the South Loop, one of the smallest of hotels, sending members before and after work to build relationships with worker-leaders. The Blake was the first hotel to capitulate to the union’s demands. We then shifted our efforts to the Monaco, the second-smallest hotel, which quickly became the next hotel to fold. The vast majority of the remaining hotels quickly followed suit.

CDSA built on this experience in the following year as we prepared for the 2019 contract fight in Chicago Public Schools. Four months before a strike was likely to start, we held a preparation meeting and came up with a plan. We engaged in community education, making sure Chicago’s broader working class knew about the contract fight and was ready to support these workers if they had to walk out. We came up with a plan to support a set of strategic picket lines across the city through our relationships with CTU and SEIU 73 members. The most elaborate of our plans was our commitment to feed strikers, students, and community members. Modeled after the Bread for Ed project East Bay DSA organized during the Oakland teachers’ strike that March, we raised and spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring food trucks for rallies. Working with local food banks, we provided groceries and assembled thousands of bagged lunches for teachers and students across the city. The strike, which ultimately lasted nearly three weeks, successfully won common good demands for libraries and nurses at more schools, and housing assistance for students. 

Like all of the branches of CDSA, as well as many of the other working groups, Labor Branch allocates a significant amount of time at most branch meetings for political education. We have invited guest speakers to speak on issues past and present. We read and discuss articles written by our own members and other labor organizers. Our space facilitates conversations among union and non-union members alike to understand issues of labor, immigration, political organizing, and more.  

More recently, chapter members took a variety of solidarity actions on behalf of striking Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) workers, organized by our solidarity captains. Our members held informational pickets at non-struck stores to educate the public on the No Contract, No Coffee campaign. They walked the picket line at stores on strike. They textbanked for No Contract, No Coffee and encouraged their own unions to adopt resolutions supporting the campaign. They raised money for (and donated to) the SBWU regional strike fund. They prepared meals for striking workers. They engaged in flying pickets to enlist Teamster support and the refusal to deliver products to stores in the Loop and River North. Our work has engendered genuine support for CDSA, and it even led to recruitment of new members from among SBWU members.

All of this time, effort, and money raises the question: why do we support strikes? While it may seem intuitive to some, it still merits a robust answer. For one, we want unions to succeed. Although the life and death of the International Brotherhood certainly did not rest on the success of the strike at Mauser, the battle for SBWU is quite literally existential. Starbucks is among the largest fast food chains in the world, by both revenue and number of locations. While workers have signed cards to be represented by SBWU at only a few hundred locations, there is a reason that C-suite executives at the company have fought against the union drive so viciously. DSA at the national level has asked for all of its chapters to support SBWU where union efforts took place, and with good reason. If SBWU is able to obtain a master contract, it would be a game changer. 

Beyond this, we want strikes to succeed to uplift the struggle of militant workers against the complacency of conservative union leadership. For decades, across industries, union leadership has been happy to function as a backup campaign fund for Democratic candidates and as a type of employment insurance for its workers: ‘Pay your dues so we can fight against your termination.’ Labor peace was seen as a productive compromise to ensure decent wages and benefits, and avoid the risks of more militant action. If workers in Chicago go on strike and fail to win meaningful concessions, it would only embolden the opponents of strikes in other industries. However, when strikes succeed, the chorus of agitation can spread as workers become inspired by the victories of others. Militancy begets militancy, and militancy reinforces radical politics.

Lastly, what should concern socialists most about supporting striking workers is that our work can connect the struggles of workers across identities and unions. SBWU called for the support of Teamsters Local 710, and their members at QCD (the truck drivers for the logistics company that supplies Starbucks stores) honored the picket line for the unfair labor practices (ULP) strike. This meant that during the flying pickets organized by SBWU in Chicago, and in other parts of the country, stores did not get the breakfast sandwiches, cake pops, and milk that they need delivered every day to turn a profit. This February, drivers and warehouse workers at Sysco, who are also represented by Teamsters Local 710, authorized a strike. Through our leadership, dual SBWU/CDSA members have called for their fellow union members to support the Teamsters and pledge to walk the picket line if they do walk out. By developing these connections, our efforts have fostered lasting bonds of solidarity among the working class. 

Our struggle is to get workers to identify with the broader Labor Movement — those in organized labor and the unorganized; those in white-collar and blue-collar jobs; private sector and public sector; immigrant and native born; across racial, ethnic, and religious lines; and across the gender and sexuality spectrum. Our aim is to raise the political consciousness of the one and only identity group which has the power to bring about a permanent change to our political economy: the working class. Our task is vital to the struggle for socialism and it needs to have its own place within CDSA in order to flourish.

Why You Should Join the Labor Branch

Although the above is a good summary of the Branch’s recent work, it is only a part of the work that our members do and have done since its creation. Our steering committee members, solidarity captains, and other leaders in the branch have many more ideas that we hope to bring to fruition in 2026 and beyond. While many of us are union members, it bears repeating that it is the Labor Branch and our long-term struggle, as socialists, is conducted on behalf of the whole working class. 

We will continue to struggle on behalf of immigrant communities, and help train our members to educate their co-workers and union siblings about ICE-proofing their jobsites. We will continue to struggle alongside our trans siblings by standing strong with strike-ready nurses who fight for the continued provision of trans healthcare, including those at Howard Brown. Our members will continue to share strategies on how to democratize their unions and agitate for more militant action so that the socialist struggle can advance through more than just electoral politics.

If you have ever had the thought, “I shouldn’t get involved in Labor Branch, I’m not in a union,” or “I shouldn’t get involved in Labor Branch, I’m not that interested in unions or workplace organizing,” as the Steering Committee of Chicago DSA’s Labor Branch we are asking you to reach out to us directly or come to our monthly meeting on the second Tuesday of every month at 7:00 PM. Chicago DSA members who attend our meetings, union or not, can vote on our priorities, elect our leadership, hear reportbacks of the work being done by our members throughout the labor movement, and bring ideas of projects that the organized force of workers could support. 

Labor Branch is an onramp and home in the chapter for people involved in organizing as workers. If you’re building and exercising your power as a worker, or you want to help your comrades who are, Labor Branch is for you. If there’s something that you think the Labor Branch of Chicago DSA should be doing that we aren’t yet, anyone can request for time to speak at the meeting by contacting the Steering Committee or bring a resolution for consideration. We hope to see you there!

1. Union density in the US peaked at 33.4% in 1945. https://www.epi.org/publication/as-union-membership-has-fallen-the-top-10-percent-have-been-getting-a-larger-share-of-income/ 7 European-OECD countries have higher 33% union density, but many countries with lower union density have more extensive collective bargaining rights. 
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