Minnesota labor and anti-ICE organizers are finding common ground and tools in the fight against authoritarianism in the workplace and on the streets

The post How to organize against authoritarianism appeared first on EWOC.

It feels like we have all been here before. A massively unpopular president, mass organizing against repressive policies, an electorate that seems primed to opt for a more aggressive combating of the status quo

And then… nothing.

The Illinois primary saw many credible challengers fail to gain enough momentum to break through against a littany of AIPAC-sponsored candidates, old Democratic Party incumbents, and “progressive” but pro-Israel politicians. In a few races, voters had several decent options and coalesced around none. In others, a sea of money flooded them out. In several races, the most credible progressive candidate didn’t even finish second.

Chicago DSA needs to look at what happened in these races and ask two key questions:  how this happened and what we can do to prevent this in the future. And nowhere in the city can we learn more about how things currently stand than in the 9th Congressional District, made up of most of the Lakefront North Side.

We must be honest with ourselves that with three open congressional seats in the city and a plethora of candidates running trying to be the “left” candidate, only one sought the endorsement of Chicago DSA. , And that required some coaxing on our part. In IL-9, where there are hundreds of CDSA members, not one candidate sought out our endorsement.

We had candidates running for Congress that are dues paying members of our chapter who did not seek our endorsement. We can debate how much we should prioritize electoral organizing, but this is a verdict on the power of this chapter to intervene in events in this city. These candidates either did not trust that DSA would endorse them if they applied, did not believe we could meaningfully influence their race, or calculated that our electoral efforts wouldn’t outweigh any downsides of being “DSA-endorsed”

***

Let’s start by taking a step back to look at the electoral terrain.  United Working Families has seemingly imploded, and the Chicago Teacher’s Union and SEIU Illinois found themselves on opposite sides of multiple races in this cycle. There is no one group that leads the left in the city now. Comrades on the Northwest side have shown the ability to build electoral power, allying with local ward organizations to construct a “Commie Corridor” up and down Milwaukee Avenue (overlapping with the territory of Chicago DSA’s Northside Blue Line Branch). There is much to be learned from the process by which they have gained power, even though some of these electeds have not been endorsed by CDSA.

We need to follow through with the priorities we established at the December General Chapter Meeting and encourage members start attending meetings of their local Independent Political Organizations (IPOs). But we should take this a step further. Those of us with children should integrate ourselves into the school communities and talk politics with those people. If we are members of faith communities, we should be present there. It is how we can identify candidates and it’s how we make CDSA a presence in places we currently struggle to reach. A key rule of union organizing is that one needs to build trust with co-workers on the shop floor before one starts to talk about a union. The same is true of political organizing.

A second lesson is that for everything else that may have changed, both showing up locally and having local ties seems to matter. Kat Abughalea’s campaign did very well in the district (winning the Chicago vote), but it was hampered by both the candidates own missteps in blowing off CDSA, Indivisible, and People’s Lobby forums in a part of the city incredibly friendly to the type of politics she was espousing. By not seeking to work with anyone organizing on the ground in the north side of Chicago, Kat’s campaign passed up on a huge apparatus of volunteer organizers and advocates who could have tipped what turned out to be a close race.

There were other problems in Kat’s campaign that we might not have been able to overcome.  Comrades on the ground that were working for various campaigns reported that many potential supporters  had already made up their minds not to vote for Kat due to the short amount of time she had spent in the area prior to running for Congress. She was accused of being a “carpetbagger” by some detractors for that reason. The divide in Chicago between transplants and natives is a well-known dynamic, and it can be an uphill climb for candidates who have few ties to the community they want to represent.

In some ways, Kat’s staff and supporters did a very good job running a campaign. Their social media and communications work was excellent. They raised a surprisingly large amount of money. And they came unexpectedly close to defeating Daniel Biss, finishing in a close second at 25.9% of the vote compared to Biss at 29.6%. However, their efforts did not prove to be enough. Comparisons to Zohran Mamdani fail to take into account that Zohran used his social media prowess to reinforce a strong message. This message proved not only popular, but was also reinforced by his time already spent fighting for working class New Yorkers. Delivering a message that resonated with voters is the area where Kat struggled.

Comms, memes, and social media are valuable tools to a candidate that is telegenic, well spoken, and likeable. But they are not enough to win elections. Voters need to get to know the candidates and trust them to deliver change . Those candidates should have some kind of base where they are running. Kat’s campaign had a great messaging infrastructure that also failed to connect with voters. 

Going forward, with an eye on future elections, we should remember that our strength as an organization is always going to be our members. We have an excellent Comms Team. We have smart theorists. But our key advantage is always going to be a motivated base that is politically educated and skilled in political organizing. Our comrades who worked polling locations on Primary Day for 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez ran into election workers who were almost always paid by our opponents to be there. They often didn’t care about the outcome, it was just another job. How many of us feel personal stakes in the success of the places we work? Many of these paid canvassers want to collect their check and go home, and some won’t even vote for the candidates they are “supporting.” 

The upcoming political cycles around the 2026 midterms, the 2027 Chicago mayoral race, and the 2028 presidential elections are likely to be particularly tough one. There are going to be massive sums of money spent on convincing people that the corporate interests and real estate developers of this city have the best interests of working class Chicagoans at heart. We have decided we will challenge those who have chosen to put the interests of corporations over the people. We have decided to be more dedicated in trying to find candidates. But we also must be clear about where we are strong.

If we want the kind of power and influence that allows us to push citywide narratives, we have to win elections. We must not just serve as the tail end of a larger movement, but as an organization capable of putting on our own candidates in office. We are never going to be an organization that is able to build political power by spending money or gaining media space. But with strategic focus on contesting elections, by seeking partners in the struggle, and by finding candidates suited to run where they are, we can build working class power in this city that can withstand AIPAC, crypto billionaires, and whatever else the capitalist class throws at us.

The post Lessons from the 2026 Primary Season appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Eric Blanc and Chris Winston have both written articles recently investigating why there is currently no mass anti-war movement in the US and proposing actions for us to take to address that problem. I’m glad that they each put forward their analysis, because both are grappling seriously with this issue, and we do need to figure out what we can do to build a mass anti-war movement. Although I lean more towards Winston’s position, my primary objective in this piece is not to argue for why he is correct or why Blanc is wrong, but rather to dig into the underlying assumptions that lead some of us to Winston’s conclusions and others to Blanc’s.

Both authors propose various tactical interventions that they believe will help to build a mass anti-war movement. However, selection of tactics is downstream from strategy. In this case, the primary strategic question should be, “Who is our base?” Who do we seek to organize into this mass anti-war movement? Once we have the answer to that question, determining tactics is much more straightforward. With a war as unpopular as this one, it seems obvious that the potential base for the anti-war movement would be that majority of the American people who oppose the war, but when we look at the imperialist system more comprehensively, the base becomes smaller.

I propose that the potential base for the anti-imperialist movement within the US consists of the following:

1. The portion of the American ¹working class that is exploited by capitalism to a greater extent than it benefits from imperialism,
2. People in the United States, regardless of class status, who, due to ties of family or friendship, suffer net harm from imperialism when all impacts are taken into account, and
3. Individuals who, despite benefiting more from imperialism than they are exploited by capitalism, desire the end of the imperialist system because they believe it to be abhorrent and are willing to sacrifice the benefits they derive from the system in exchange for its end.

There is a potential fourth group: people who benefit more from imperialism than they are exploited by capitalism, but desire the end of the imperialist system in part because they don’t believe that they will have to endure any reduction in their standard of living when the imperialist system is dismantled. It is potentially possible that the productive forces could be developed more rapidly than the malapportionment of resources is redressed, such that the people in this group won’t actually face a reduction in their standard of living. Personally, I believe that doing so should be one of our objectives should we gain enough power to implement preferred policies, because it will be easier to carry out the changes we want to see if this group is not actively opposed to us. However, this group should not be considered part of the base. It might not be possible to develop the productive forces with sufficient speed to protect them from any decrease in their standard of living, and to pretend that we can definitely do so would be to act in bad faith. In order to presume good faith of our comrades, unless presented with evidence to the contrary I will assume that no one is including this group in their calculations of what constitutes our base.

The second and third groups of our base will be important, and are likely overrepresented among the organizers already involved in the anti-war movement, but the key factor determining the size of the base is the first group. This, I believe, is the primary point of dispute between those who agree with Blanc and those who agree with Winston. Before we get to that, though, I’d like to make explicit four points that I have been assuming so far, because I believe both sides of the debate agree with them:

1. The American working class is exploited by the capitalist system, given their position as workers.
2. The American working class benefits from imperialism, given their position as Americans.
3. At least some members of the American working class are exploited by capitalism to a greater extent than they benefit from imperialism.
4. At least some members of the American working class benefit from imperialism to a greater extent than they are exploited by capitalism.

The question is, of course, how big is the “some” in points 3 and 4? I will leave it to future articles (by me or others) to seek to quantify the degree of exploitation by capitalism and benefit from imperialism, but we now at least have the crux of the issue. If one believes that the group in point four is merely a small fraction of the American working class, then our base makes up a majority of the American public, and majoritarian ²tactics are the correct path to build a mass anti-imperialism movement. On the other hand, if one believes that the group in point four is a majority of the American working class, or even just a large minority, then our base does not make up a majority of the American public, and we should pursue minoritarian tactics instead.

What does it mean to pursue either majoritarian or minoritarian tactics? Well, here are some examples. In electoral work, majoritarian tactics would involve seeking to either win enough elections to pass our preferred policies, or to demonstrate the counter-majoritarian nature of the electoral system. Minoritarian tactics would mean seeking to win races in certain areas where the electorate is friendlier to us, running other races that we don’t expect to win, and having those elected officials and candidates use their higher profiles to encourage people to participate in the movement. In labor organizing, majoritarian tactics would involve strengthening our relationships with whatever unions we can and supporting any worker organizing. Minoritarian tactics would be specifically building relationships with unions that represent large portions of our base (and organizing unions in unorganized workplaces where members of our base are overrepresented), whether that is workers who are exploited more by capitalism, workers who have personal ties to the imperial periphery, or workers who are more likely to be willing to suffer reductions in their standard of living as the cost of ending imperialism. In direct action, majoritarian tactics means mobilizing as many people as possible to events such as the No Kings rallies, while minoritarian tactics requires researching specific pain points where a smaller number of people can put effective pressure on the imperial system.

Blanc’s preference for majoritarian tactics is most explicit in section 6, “Sectarianism Has Helped Marginalize Anti-War Activity.” He presents building “the broadest and deepest possible opposition to US military aid and interventions abroad” as the preferred option, and laments that the movement has tied “widely supported demands against war to unjustified and unhelpful romanticization of any and all anti-imperialist forces.” This is a long-running dispute within the left, where anyone who expresses support for the people who are putting their lives on the line to resist imperialism will be lambasted as romanticizing “any and all anti-imperialist forces”. Because such forces are universally condemned in American media, any support for them whatsoever (justified or not) tends to be incompatible with cohering majority support, at least in the short term. Blanc also explicitly criticizes the encampments on college campuses for lacking, “concerted efforts to win over and mobilize majorities on campuses,” but he does not explain why winning over majorities would have been preferable to other strategic objectives that could conflict with an effort to win over majorities. Blanc’s bias towards majoritarian tactics is so strong that he never bothers to argue for why such tactics should be preferred; it is self-evident to him that majoritarian tactics are necessary.

On the other hand, Winston’s preference for minoritarian tactics does not come out in any overt rejection of majoritarian tactics, but rather a belief that there are some things more important than staking out a majoritarian position, and those things are sometimes incompatible with such a position. In response to Blanc’s assertion that Americans are overwhelmed by all the terrible things Trump is doing, and thus don’t have time to build an anti-war movement, Winston asserts, “We have plenty of time to meddle in their [Palestinian and Iranian] affairs, and allow DSA politicians such as Zohran and AOC to manufacture consent for these wars, yet none, it seems, to build a competent, powerful movement to actually be of service.” In this section, Winston counterposes the need to build a movement that can materially impact the situation with public criticism of anti-imperialist forces, and crucially, presenting it from the perspective of our comrades in other countries: why would they have any respect for our critiques of their social systems if we aren’t actually inhibiting the mass slaughter our government is subjecting them to? Thus, building a powerful anti-imperialist movement must precede any critiques of their societies. This line of reasoning does not allow for any exceptions in the event that public criticism of anti-imperialist forces may be necessary to build a majoritarian movement in the US, so if such a necessity exists, then we have to rely on minoritarian tactics. However, the gaze of anti-imperialist forces is not the only reason to refrain from public criticism of them. For Winston, “What distinguishes us, however, is that we also hold AOC and Sanders and Zohran to account for their role in normalizing, from the left, the American narrative regarding Iran.” Public criticism of anti-imperialist forces, even when paired with rhetorical opposition to the war, strengthens the narrative that is employed to justify the war. As a result, any potential gain from a broader base being willing to support us if we concede the flaws of the enemy du jour is more than offset by the harm done by reifying imperialist narratives.

I do not expect us to all agree on whether or not our potential base makes up a majority of the American public. Even if someone effectively quantifies the relative degrees of exploitation and benefit I allude to above, there will be many who dispute the results of their calculation. However, I hope that this piece will help us to all understand the reasons for or against the various tactics that we propose.

by Eric Herde

1. While I am not fond of using the word “American” as a demonym for the United States, the English language does not have a workable analogue to Spanish’s “estadounidense”. “UnitedStatesian” just feels to clunky for formal writing. In the context of this piece, “American” is used as a demonym for the United States, not for the Americas as a whole. ︎
2. The term ‘majoritarian’ is not meant to imply that anyone thinks we can organize a majority of the population into DSA, or get a majority of the population to actively participate in any particular campaign. The majoritarian/minoritarian distinction refers specifically to the size of the base; the people whom we could reasonably expect to passively support or at least not oppose our actions ︎

[[{“value”:”

By: Vanessa B

BOSTON – On Sunday, February 22, postal workers gathered for a rally in front of South Station. Agitated by growing managerial bloat and stagnant starting wages, postal workers affiliated with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) are looking to win a contract in 2026 that will make the postal service a sustainable place to work for years to come. 

In speeches, workers repeated the call for “30/30”, demanding a $30 starting wage and a ratio of 30 workers to 1 manager.

“If this job is going to survive, if we’re going to recruit and keep people, $30 an hour should be the floor, not the ceiling,” said a rally speaker. “The cost of living didn’t freeze in 2006; housing didn’t freeze, gas didn’t freeze, groceries didn’t freeze. The only thing that froze was us on the streets, and our starting wage.”

Rally speakers outlined a list of demands, such as an all-career workforce, as well as shorter timeframes for moving up the pay scale and overall pay scale reforms, which postal workers hope will help increase retention rates for newly hired letter carriers. 

The fight illustrates an upsurge in letter carrier rank-and-file organizing locally – but why? What brings rank-and-file postal workers together amidst a bad contract, tensions within the union over its bargaining process’s (dis)empowerment of members, and a hostile federal environment?

2024 NALC Conference Opens the Door to Democratic Reforms

Rank-and-file worker organizing has been steadily accumulating into a nascent reform movement within NALC. Workers brought proposals for constitutional reforms to bargaining to the national NALC conference in 2024, aiming to increase transparency around the process. 

Prior to a national NALC convention in 2024, NALC’s constitution empowered just one person to negotiate contracts between the union and USPS: NALC’s national president, Bryan Renfroe. Much of the ire about the lackluster contract campaign that emerged in 2025, following the 2024 conference debates, has been directed at Renfroe.

The anger of many rank-and-file members towards their union president over the contract stems from the ways in which 2024 reforms did not go far enough. At the NALC Conference, membership won some bargaining reforms. For example, rather than solely having closed-door meetings between the union’s president and management, there will be an appointed group of worker leaders from across the country invited to give input on bargaining. 

Despite improvements, members of NALC still have not won a fully transparent open bargaining process. 

According to Read Wilder, a young letter carrier and shop steward in Cambridge, the lack of transparency, slow negotiations, and a disappointing contract last year have all led to an upsurge in rank and file organizing amongst postal workers in the greater Boston area. 

“The same activists who got open bargaining passed are also looking for a better contract campaign this time around,” Wilder said. 

2025 Contract: Too Little, Too Late, Say No

Adding to the urgency organizers feel around the 2026 contract fight is a widely-held feeling that the recently settled 2025 contract was ‘too little, too late’ for many. The contract was voted down by members following a nationwide vote no campaign. The final vote tally: 63,680 no votes to 26,304 in favor.  

The contract went to arbitration before a judge, where a deal was reached between the postal service and NALC virtually identical to the one that was rejected by membership. Despite leadership’s promises to “fight like hell,” NALC wrapped up arbitration with the US Postal Service after just two days spent in mediation.

NALC’s 2026 contract fight comes only a year after the previous contract was settled in March 2025. Letter carriers went on working under an expired contract for 700 days. Boston postal worker Harman said:

I was on the phone with my steward when he found out that we got a new contract. It was pouring rain. We were both working a 12-hour that day, but finding out that we got the same contract that we voted down was just like a punch in the gut… It killed any morale, finding out that they took 700 days to negotiate, but only a few days in arbitration to give us the same thing we said no to.

The Movement of Building a Fighting NALC (BFN)

For those committed to building a rank-and-file reform movement within NALC, the focus isn’t toppling the establishment overnight. Their priorities lie in strengthening locals and empowering union members to take ownership of their union, their work, and their contract fights. 

In a July statement, NALC reform caucus BFN stated that:

Build a Fighting NALC (BFN) aims to build a national rank and file reform movement to transform NALC into a democratic, fighting union that engages with and mobilizes the membership to fight for better wages, working conditions, and a high quality public postal service.

BFN organizer Derek Liehmon, a Boston-based postal worker, said that he hopes the caucus will “give people an opportunity to learn how to do union democracy.” He continued:

BFN is not doing something because one person or some leader who’s three or four levels of bureaucracy above the rank and file, decides we’re doing it. We vote on stuff, we decide together.

Establishing union democracy internally has involved electing leadership for the caucus, and drafting a constitution for the reform group to follow. Liehmon said the group has looked to other reform caucuses, such as UAW’s Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) and Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), for guidance as they start the process of reforming the letter carriers’ union from within.

“We are trying to apply the last 50 years of reform caucus history in our context, and this is something that really hasn’t existed in the postal unions. From my understanding there aren’t reform caucuses in the other ones,” said Liehmon.

Growing concern about the future of USPS

While union leadership are under increased pressure from members to win a stronger contract this time around, questions remain about the USPS’s ability to remain afloat financially. In their financial report for fiscal year 2025, USPS reported a loss of $9 billion.

At a House subcommittee meeting about the financial future of the USPS, Postmaster General David Steiner testified that the USPS may not be able to provide the current level of service a year from now. Steiner cited decreased usage of the service and high labor costs as factors in the current crisis, and asked that Congress increase the service’s borrowing authority while they “determine what the Postal Service should do to best serve the American public.” Rather than a government that wants the massive funding the USPS requires to fully succeed as a public service, the USPS faces a government deeply invested in its disinvestment. 

According to the Office of the Inspector General, USPS spent over $800 million from 2022-2024 on grievances, which are typically related to violations of the collective bargaining agreements between unions and employers.

In a statement published on NALC’s website, the union agreed with the Postmaster’s call for Congress to extend USPS’s borrowing limit, but pushed back on Steiner’s suggestions related to the workers who deliver the mail. 

“We will fiercely fight limiting letter carriers’ workers’ compensation benefits in any way or increasing usage of non-career employees in our craft as some in the hearing suggested. Even suggesting such foolish actions are insulting to America’s hardworking letter carriers,” said NALC president Renfroe.

Liehmon told Working Mass:

If you listen to how Renfroe and the union admin talk, they’re really worried that pushing management too hard is going to destabilize the Post Office, that pushing too aggressively is going to create a target for our union and for the postal service, that trump is going to DOGE us. But he might just do it anyway. What happens when they do to us what they’ve done to everybody else?

“The answer to this is not austerity or lower wages,” Liehmon said. “It’s a political decision. Where do we want to spend our money? Do we want to spend it on this public service that mostly funds itself, or do we want to spend money on the military? We (NALC) have to be left wing, and have left wing politics because at the end of the day, it’s a political question.”

That political question may be solved beyond the shopfloor of the Post Office, but NALC faces its own political decision in engaging the question. NALC can work within the broader labor and reform movements to create the political conditions needed for its needed survival. But without leadership from below, there’s no guarantee.

The future of NALC, in other words, relies on the workers. As always.

Vanessa B is a member of Boston DSA and contributor to Working Mass.

The post Postal Workers Demand 30/30 Amidst Organizing Surge Among Rank-and-File Letter Carriers appeared first on Working Mass.

“}]] 

Enjoy your April National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 27-person body (including both YDSA Co-Chairs) that functions as the board of directors of DSA. This month, sign the May Day pledge, learn organizing skills, hear about our summer conference, and more!

And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.

• From the National Political Committee — Tax the Rich, War no More!
• DSA National Labor Commission Action Ask: Sign the May Day Pledge!
• Congressional Endorsement Alert — Help Elect a Socialist in the South!
• Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Sunday 4/19
• Help Support DSA — RSVP for Phonebanks Starting Sunday 4/26
• Are You a College Student? Join YDSA Today!
• DSA National Budget and Finance Call Wednesday 4/22
• Apply for Our Summer Organizing Conference — Deadline Monday 5/18
• Make Your Voice Heard! ICE Response Member Input Question
• BIPOC Members: Join AfroSoC! Next Meeting Sunday 4/19
• Fundraising Committee Training Saturday 5/2
• Learn Tenant Organizing Skills — Housing Justice Commission Training Series Starts Monday 5/9
• DSA Buddhist Circle Meeting Thursday 4/30
• Ecosocialism Commission Transition Committee Nominations
• Socialist Forum Call for Submissions: Homeland Insecurity and US Imperialism
• Work for DSA — Organizing Bookkeeper Applications Open Until Sunday 4/26
• Welcome New Chapters — With YDSA Spotlight!

From the National Political Committee — Tax the Rich, War no More!

Dear Comrades,

You don’t hear many people say “Happy Tax Day.” And on this particular Tax Day, we are really feeling what Martin Luther King, Jr. said almost 60 years ago:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Just a few weeks ago, President Trump laid out the ghoulish vision more bluntly than ever, saying it’s “‘not possible’ for the U.S. to pay for Medicaid, Medicare, and day care because “we’re fighting wars.” In 2026, our taxes are funding a trillion-dollar military budget to wage imperialist violence on peoples all over the world, plus billions for ICE thuggery against people within US borders. Meanwhile, the already rich get trillions in tax breaks to enable their corporate plunder. What do the rest of us get? Our public goods and social services sold off for parts.

It doesn’t have to be this way! All over the country, we are organizing in our communities and our workplaces to transform our society to work for the many, not the few. Check out our Tax Day 2026 call from last night, where organizers and policymakers from Florida to Minnesota to California laid out how, instead of funding endless war, ICE brutality, and handouts to billionaires, our tax dollars could fund everything for all of us!

From coast to coast, we’re showing what socialists can deliver for the working class. In the first 100 days of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, it’s clear what socialist governance is bringing to the world’s wealthiest city: getting millions in the bag for worker restitution from bad bosses, securing over a billion dollars for universal childcare, and filling 100,000 potholes through blizzards. It’s a “sewer socialist” agenda for the 21st century. And NYC DSA is fighting to give 8 million New Yorkers the resources they deserve, even pushing centrist Gov. Kathy Hochul to make concessions on taxing the rich. 

On the West Coast, California DSA chapters are pushing hard to tax the rich this year. Against the unchecked expansion of data center projects that Big Tech companies are using to extract our resources, DSA members are mobilizing with our communities from Arizona to Wisconsin to Michigan to Maryland to Georgia, and organizing instead to invest in green projects that tackle the climate crisis. Local opposition is slowing down this surge of AI data centers — nearly half of the projects planned this year have been delayed or cancelled. That’s just a taste of the massive work we’re undertaking across the country to transform our society away from the ills of capitalism. As Zohran said in his first 100 days address: “You eventually need socialists to clean up the mess!”

We’ve got just two weeks until May Day, the International Day of Workers — a day to celebrate class struggle all over the world. DSA is part of the May Day Strong coalition, which means we’ve joined hundreds of labor unions and organizations across the country to demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires, and organize for an affordability agenda that works for all of us — to tax the rich and build the world we deserve. Together we pledge to make May Day 2026 a day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping.” Join us and take the pledge!

We’re also organizing in solidarity with immigrants across the country to make this May Day a day of action against raids and deportations, toward the goal of abolishing ICE. We hope your chapter is planning a May Day action of some kind. Contact them to get involved! And if you don’t have a DSA chapter where you live, we encourage you to get out to one of the hundreds of May Day Strong actions across the country — maybe you’ll meet some folks to start a chapter with!

We are also asking you to join us in continuing to demand that Congress pass a War Powers Resolution and an Arms Embargo. Our National Electoral Commission is hosting a series of Block the Bombs phonebanks and we would love to see you there – you’ll be calling folks and helping them contact their congresspeople. Being an organizer often means being a force multiplier, and we need all hands on deck to stop the war with Iran, the genocide in Gaza, and whatever violent nightmares this administration is dreaming up next.

“On May Day the workers of the world celebrate the beginning of their international solidarity and register the high resolve to clasp hands all around the globe and to move forward in one solid phalanx toward the sunrise and the better day.

“On that day we drink deeply at the fountain of proletarian inspiration; we know no nationality to the exclusion of any other, nor any creed, or any color, but we do know that we are all workers, that we are conscious of our interests and our power as a class, and we propose to develop and make use of that power in breaking our fetters and in rising from servitude to the mastery of the world.” — Eugene V. Debs

This May Day and beyond, we have a world to win!

In Solidarity,

Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer
DSA National Political Committee Co-Chairs

DSA National Labor Commission Action Ask: Sign the May Day Pledge!

May Day is coming up very soon! And DSA chapters across the country are bringing socialist politics to May Day by organizing actions with their local unions and labor bodies. No matter where you live, sign the May Day Pledge to commit to calling off of work, walking off campus, or not spending money this May Day!

Congressional Endorsement Alert — Help Elect a Socialist in the South!

DSA has endorsed our first Congressional candidate of 2026! DSA member Oliver Larkin is taking on pro-war, anti-worker Democrat Jared Moskowitz in Florida’s 23rd district. Larkin is fighting for Medicare for All, an arms embargo to Israel, and for true democracy in America. Can you donate $20 to take on an AIPAC-backed slush fund pretending to represent Floridians in Congress?

Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Sunday 4/19

The Growth and Development Committee has launched our Spring ‘26 Semester of trainings! We have a core curriculum of trainings spanning topics from meeting facilitation to membership engagement. Spots are available now for sessions through the end of June!

Help Support DSA — RSVP for Phonebanks Starting Sunday 4/26

Join the Growth and Development Committee for an upcoming phonebank!

• Recommitment Phonebank Sunday 4/26 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT
• Solidarity Dues Phonebank Wednesday 5/13 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT
• Recommitment Phonebank Sunday 5/24 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT

Are You a College Student? Join YDSA Today!

Are you a college student? Take a few seconds to let us know! Affiliate with one of 150+ YDSA chapters and get updates from your YDSA chapter and YDSA National on elections, programming, and more.

DSA National Budget and Finance Call Wednesday 4/22

Join our DSA National Budget and Finance Call on Wednesday 4/22 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT! Come out to hear the DSA Budget and Finance Committee present on the 2025 Actuals and 2026 budget. And get updates on new projects, such as the Chapter Support Subcommittee and a space for Chapter Treasurers, Finance committee members, and comrades with financial know-how!

And Budget and Finance Chapter Support Sub-Committee applications are open now. This is a sub-committee of Budget and Finance Committee focused specifically on providing support to Chapter Treasurers.

• If you’re interested in training, helping maintain a space for chapter treasures, finance committee members, and comrades with financial know-how, and making materials, fill out the form here!
• To hear more about organizing our budgeting and finance, fill out the form here.

Please email budgetinfo@dsausa.org with your Budget and Finance questions! 

Apply for Our Summer Organizing Conference — Deadline Monday 5/18

Join DSA in Chicago, July 31–August 2 for the 2026 Democratic Socialists Summit, DSA’s National Organizing Conference! Our membership will gather to learn through political education, skills training, organizer development, general programming, and social activities. In order to cover a variety of topics, the NPC has created 5 different programming tracks. You can apply for up to two of the following:

• Palestine Solidarity and Anti-War
• Abolish ICE 
• Electoral
• Labor
• General Organizing

The application deadline is Monday 5/18 by 11:59pm PT. For questions, contact DSAcon@dsausa.org, subject line “2026 Conference Application.” Apply today!

Make Your Voice Heard! ICE Response Member Input Question

The new Member Input Policy, part of the 2025 Convention Democracy Commission suite of resolutions, aims to foster simultaneous discussion within chapters and across the country. 

The first question is designed to facilitate debate around how individual chapters are responding to ICE presence in our communities. It will also help the NPC and other national bodies better understand responses throughout the country. You can use this opportunity to reflect on the work that has happened thus far and strategize about what is to come, especially as the ICE invasions grow more insidious and less directly confrontational.

You can read more about and discuss this month’s question on the DSA Discussion Board. And bring the Member Input Question to your chapter!

Chapters (or branches of chapters) can submit resolutions via this link through early May, and are invited to tune in for a presentation and discussion at the May 17 NPC Political Discussion meeting of the analysis by members of the NPC, DemCom, and Abolish ICE Committees. If you have any questions or need support in any stage of the process, please reach out to the NPC at npc@dsacommittees.org or the Democracy Commission at demcommoutreach@dsacommittees.org.

BIPOC Members: Join AfroSoC! Next Meeting Sunday 4/19

Are you a BIPOC DSA member in good standing? Join AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color (AfroSoC)! The next meeting will be held this Sunday, 4/19 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT.

And joining an AfroSoC working group or committee is always open to BIPOC DSA members in good standing. You can sign up to join one here!

Fundraising Committee Training Saturday 5/2

Get to know the basics of fundraising! Join the Fundraising Committee’s May training on Saturday 5/2 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT.

Learn Tenant Organizing Skills — Housing Justice Commission Training Series Starts Monday 5/9

The Housing Justice Commission’s Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) promotes the formation of militant tenant unions through tenant-to-tenant training and instruction. ETOC is now accepting prospective tenant organizers through our Spring training series! 

In this series, you’ll learn the fundamentals of tenant organizing on a citywide or regional scale. Sign up here! The series begins Monday 5/9, and take place each Monday in May at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT.

DSA Buddhist Circle Meeting Thursday 4/30

Refuge/Rest/Decompression space for organizers, activists, everyone. Buddhism and socialism discourse. Compassion in (direct, public) action. The DSA Buddhist Circle is in on all of it! Help make it all happen! 

Join us Thursday 4/30 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT. And catch up on the conversation here.

Ecosocialism Commission Transition Committee Nominations

Following the passage of the amended Green New Deal Campaign Commission (GNDCC) Consensus Resolution in November 20525, the GNDCC is transitioning into an open standing commission (the Ecosocialism Commission Transition Committee) and formally broadening the scope of its ecosocialism campaign work.

The process is underway with members of the previous GNDCC Steering Committee and NPC liaisons. The amendment also calls for up to five additional DSA members to support the Transition Committee as it writes new bylaws, establishes its membership, and conducts an election for the new EcoCom Steering Committee and other leadership.

Please fill out this form as soon as possible to be considered for appointment. The NPC will be seating these positions on a tighter-than-usual timeline, as the transition work is already underway.

Socialist Forum Call for Submissions: Homeland Insecurity and US Imperialism

Socialist Forum, one of our two member publications, is an open and wide-ranging venue for thoughtful discussion and debate among DSA members. We are currently accepting submissions for Spring/Summer. For this issue, we are looking for pitches exploring connections between the homefront and U.S. policies abroad. You can find the full pitch guidelines, suggested topics, and submission procedures here. For any questions, please email us at socialistforum@dsausa.org.

Work for DSA — Organizing Bookkeeper Applications Open Until Sunday 4/26

DSA is hiring an Organizing Bookkeeper to support our Finance Department. The application deadline is Sunday, 4/26. You can apply via our careers page here.

Welcome New Chapters — With YDSA Spotlight!

And a warm welcome to our newest DSA Chapters and Organizing Committees! This month, we have a bumper crop of YDSA chapters. Congratulations to all!

New DSA Chapters: 

• Southeast Kansas
• River Region, Alabama 

New DSA Organizing Committees:

• Fort Wayne, Indiana
• Central Oregon
• Sun Valley, Idaho

New YDSA Chapters: 

• William Cullen Bryant High School
• University of Oklahoma
• SUNY (State University of New York) Geneseo
• West Virginia University
• University of Hawai’i
• Syracuse University
• Chapel Hill High
• Cal Poly Humboldt
• Sylvania Northview High School
• Rutgers University New Brunswick
• Portland State University
• Pennsbury High School
• Michigan State University
• Concord High School
• Clemson University

The post Your National Political Committee Newsletter — War is Taxing appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

DSA proudly endorses Andrea Parr in her race for Louisville Metro Council District 9. We’re fighting for Andrea because she fights for us: She knows the working class needs a transparent budget process and a city that working people can afford!

Andrea and Louisville DSA are working together to bring socialism to the Metro Council. We are excited to stand with the chapter as they fight for a government that is truly accountable to the will of the people. Can you help build our movement with a donation today??

Andrea is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

[[{“value”:”

By: Jake S

WORCESTER COUNTY – On Thursday, March 26, UMass workers organized within the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) — the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth with over 26,000 members — held informational pickets for their contract fight across five hospital campuses: in Worcester, at Memorial, University, and Hahnemann; in Clinton, at UMass Memorial Health-Alliance; and in Marlborough, at UMass Memorial Medical Center.

Nurses have been in contract negotiations since as early as June 2025 with many forced to work without a ratified contract for nearly a year.

Hundreds of nurses gathered, marched, and chanted — some with children in tow, others staying out for as long as their 15-minute shift break would allow, but all bursting with energy. The message to UMass was clear: MNA members are ready to fight.

Negotiations with UMass

Bonnie S is an operating room nurse at UMass Memorial and the treasurer of her bargaining unit. She has worked at UMass Memorial for twenty-eight years, after a previous stint in the NICU. 

Bonnie told Working Mass:

We’re here because we’ve been trying to negotiate our contract for many months, coming up on a year. UMass hasn’t moved much at all in negotiations. Anything that has to do with what we’re really passionate about has gotten nothing. We just want to give our patients the best quality and safest care that we can – we need these things in order to do that. Management hasn’t really worked with us. A lot of talk, but not a lot of movement.

The escalation by workers arrived as Worcester approaches the five-year anniversary of the historic MNA strike at Saint Vincent’s Hospital, which launched in April 2021 and extended, uninterrupted, for 301 days. Nurses who served as co-chairs of the Saint Vincent’s bargaining unit during their strike walked alongside UMass nurses for their picket. Nurses with decades-long careers — some long enough to recall UMass hospital strikes of the past — held their signs and their heads high.

Passers-by on the streets and sidewalk of each and every one of the five campuses cheered, honked, and waved.

Ben P, vice chair of the Hahnemann Campus bargaining unit and an operating nurse of seventeen years, told Working Mass that safer staffing levels and working conditions, fair wages, and limits to shift rotations are top concerns for MNA members which UMass has yet to address at the bargaining table.

Safe Staffing Levels and Retention

“Number one is safe staffing and patient care,” said Phil B. 

Phil works in a recently-constructed building on the University campus. He’s worked for UMass for eight years as a nurse and now operates in his third year of acute care nursing. 

We have contract language about staffing now that isn’t even respected. The hospital doesn’t follow through on any of their staffing policies. Resource nurses — the ones that are meant as all-around support on their floors, especially in emergencies — have upwards of half a dozen patients at a time, which is more than a regular floor nurse should have. The whole unit becomes strapped. Care doesn’t get done; things get missed; we have negative outcomes.

We file unsafe staffing reports, and UMass just sits on stacks of them until their staffing committee just writes them all off at once. So, you could be in an emergency, but staffing problems haven’t been resolved when you really need them to be. There’s all kinds of red tape around it.

Beyond the hospital’s lack of follow-through and overload on staff, rank-and-file nurses report that Worcester County hospitals can’t retain nursing staff in the long haul. A lack of “new blood” to take on their roles leaves an older, aging staff pool to take on increased burdens at work, and low wages at UMass force younger nurses to seek opportunities elsewhere. At the time of writing, the bargaining unit at University has been offered annual wage increases as low as 1% by management. 

Since 2022, when many MNA nurses ratified their last contract with UMass hospitals, electric bills in Massachusetts have increased by about 30%.

Heather J, a registered nurse of twenty-seven years in the maternity postpartum unit at UMass Memorial, said:

We need new, young talent in the hospital because we’re all getting older. Some of us are going to be retiring soon, so we need new nurses to come along and pick up where we leave off.

Heather L works in Marlborough’s cancer center. She told Working Mass:

I became a nurse twenty-five years ago so I can sit there to hold their hands in the worst of times, and to celebrate with them in the best of times. That’s what I want to continue to do, but in order to do that, we have to retain our staff — we lose seasoned and specialized workers to other areas where the prospects and the wages are better and the hospitals are safer.

The Political as Personal

For Heather L, there was also a personal element to the contract fight. Unions are most successful when people see the individual texture of their dreams in the organization’s.

My daughter is a nursing student. I want this to be a great profession for her to join. She’s my baby, I want it to be safe for her and I want her to be able to pay her loans off.

Phil B also focused on the impact of student debt. 

It makes more sense for new nurses to eat the cost of a commute than to stay here, especially when you need to get a Bachelor’s degree to work at UMass. You’re telling us we need to take on huge amounts of student debt, then pull ourselves up by our bootstraps — all while we’re trying to pay outrageous rents in the city!

Roughly 1 in 6 households in Massachusetts spend more than half their income on housing.

I have coworkers who have families and kids, and they’re having trouble making ends meet in a dual-income household! People can’t afford their basic necessities.

Working Mass asked Phil how UMass justified new building projects, recent hospital acquisitions, and large administrative pay packages in contract negotiations while offering nurses no meaningful improvements to wages or working conditions.

Phil laughed: “they don’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. It doesn’t look very good for them. There’s never a conversation about executive pay or where they’re going to get the staff for all these new developments. Did you know our CEO has a stable of horses at home?”

Dr. Eric Dickerson, President and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, owns 9 horses and a 35-acre ranch in Princeton, Massachusetts. 

In 2023 — not long after many UMass nurses had ratified their most recent agreement — Dickerson was paid a total of over 3 million dollars, placing him as the highest-paid nonprofit chief executive in Central Mass for his third year in a row. His pay has more than doubled since he was hired. Including Dickson, UMass Memorial Health executives accounted for 6 of the 18 highest-paid nonprofit executives in Central Mass that year.

As Phil indicated:

We’ll have a real healthcare desert in our community if we can’t fill these roles with new nurses. Hundreds and hundreds of us are getting close to retirement. There’ll be a lapse in nursing care, and patients will suffer.

Solidarity from Within and Without

Members of other unions representing thousands of non-nursing staff workers across UMass — the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) whose members had a contract fight of their own with the University hospital just last summer, the State Healthcare and Research Employees Union (an affiliate of AFSCME), and the United Auto Workers — joined the picket. So too did MNA nurses working at Saint Vincent’s.

Marlena P has been a nurse at Saint Vincent’s for thirty-nine years. When asked why she and her coworkers showed up at the UMass pickets, she said:

You know the old saying: an injury to one is an injury to all. Our sisters and brothers are hurting out here, they’ve been fighting for a fair contract — better wages, safety, staffing — for many, many months. When their needs aren’t being met, it means all of our patients aren’t being cared for. That affects our whole city. UMass Memorial is one of the premier hospitals in the city, and we’re their sister hospital, and it’s important that we all show solidarity and our power in numbers. It’s not just a cliche, it works, and these big corporations who make billions of dollars off of our hard work need to know that. So it’s very important to stick together. It’s that simple: stick together.

The Steering Committee of Worcester DSA issued the following statement supporting the rank-and-file nurses:

Central Mass and Worcester DSA stands in complete and unwavering solidarity with nurses at UMass. 5 years ago, our chapter was built around the historic MNA strike at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Many of us work in these hospitals as nurses ourselves. By our own lived experience, we know that the purpose of the healthcare industry in this country is not to provide quality care, but to line the pockets of executives and investors. We will commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the working-class struggle until that’s no longer the case. On the hospital floors — not in the C-suites or boardrooms — are where we find some of the strongest and most dignified human beings in our communities.

When asked what their union meant to them, UMass nurses responded.

“My union? My union, it’s our family, it’s our support, it’s our strength, it’s the soul of everything that we have.”

“We can be stuck with things as they are, or we can push for something bigger, together.”

“Oh, it means solidarity, it means pride, it means honor. The honor to stand up for our patients, for our profession — it really means everything.”

“It means sisterhood and brotherhood, standing for and with each other and making sure that the big corporations and the hospitals aren’t taking advantage of us or our patients. You know, not looking at our patients or our coworkers like they’re just a profit margin. It means everything.”

Jake S is a member of Worcester DSA and a Working Mass correspondent. Interviews were conducted by Worcester DSA members and Working Mass correspondents Jason M, Lewis L, Lily L, and Jake S.

The post UMass Nurses Sound Alarm of Depraved Working Conditions Amidst Contract Fight appeared first on Working Mass.

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