Member Statements on PCR02: Make Labor a Chapter Priority Campaign for 2025

Member Statements
1

Statement IN FAVOR

Sam N.

I am writing this encouraging comrades of the chapter to continue to have Labor as a priority campaign in 2025.

I have helped lead the labor work of the chapter since 2017 and have seen it develop is leaps and bounds. As I’m stepping away from leadership of the working group right now, I see it in the best position for organizing in some years. In terms of leadership we have co-chairs from a variety of unions, backgrounds, and interest areas. We have had consistent engagement with newer members and workers coming to us seeking to unionize. Our education programs are humming along and several projects are now going in increase in importance as we turn from a moderately pro-labor government to one that will plumb the depths of reactionary action.

Metro DC DSA has always been uniquely positioned among DSA chapters when it comes to labor. We cover both open shop and closed shop states, we have an outsized presence of federal workers within the chapter and region, we benefit from long standing labor coalitions like Jobs With Justice. Keeping Labor a priority will allow us to build on this and take full advantage of what will be a tougher and more hostile organizing environment in the years to come. Nothing can be predicted with certainty when it comes to unions and the labor movement, so us being able to agile and ready to fill in as the gaps in the movement become starker will be incredibly important for our work. Lastly, I see labor as being able to deeply coordinate with whichever other priority campaigns get selected, from unions joining the Palestine boycott, to defending trans workers from bosses, we are positioned well to work with the other campaigns the chapter chooses.

I encourage you to choose Labor as one of our priority campaigns.

2

Statement IN FAVOR

John O.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties like to claim that they are “the party of workers” when they are, in fact, both vessels for capitalist and imperialist interests. DSA needs to be that true party of and for workers. To accomplish that, though, we need to be in the trenches with workers, helping them organize unions and fighting their employers. If we aren’t active participants in those struggles, we will not win the trust and respect needed to attract more workers, especially blue-collar workers, to DSA and make DSA more representative of this country’s working class majority. And if we fail at that, the justified rage that millions of workers feel at the status quo will be channeled in other directions rather than aimed squarely at those who own the means of production and use government as a mechanism for hoarding ever greater amounts of wealth produced by workers here and abroad. If we don’t sink deeper roots in the working class, we will have less power to exert pressure at the point of production, in the streets, and at the ballot box in service of workers and oppressed peoples the world over.

I am an incoming co-chair of the Labor Working Group (LWG) and have worked as a union organizer at UE, NNU, and SEIU and was a salt in the restaurant industry for five years. As a UE staffer, I helped get the eventually successful Politics & Prose union drive off the ground in 2020. During the past year, the chapter’s LWG has afforded us many opportunities to help build and strengthen the local labor movement (union organizing schools, phonebanking and knocking on doors in Fairfax in support of the successful FEA public school union campaign involving 27,000 workers, walking practice picket lines with flight attendants and airport workers at DCA, taking direct action in support of Starbucks workers bargaining their first union contract, organizing the D.C. labor history tour that brought out hundreds of people, etc). As a new co-chair, I will help the LWG initiate and support new organizing efforts in the area, e.g. via EWOC, targeted outreach, and the recruitment of salts, stand in permanent solidarity with workers in struggle, and win workers over to DSA and the cause of socialism. I strongly urge fellow members to grant the Labor Working Group priority status for 2025 so that our chapter can serve as a vehicle for workers to win the class struggle.

3

Statement IN FAVOR

Carl R.

Comrades, I am asking you to vote FOR Labor receiving Priority Campaign status. The campaign’s plans for organizing in 2025 are strong - I would especially like to see a local EWOC formation stood up and active. The chapter playing a central role in helping workers either organize their workplaces or win fights with their unions is, in my opinion, central to our ability to cohere DSA into the space for working class politics, locally and nationally.

4

Statement IN FAVOR

Nate M.

I encourage MDCDSA members to vote for the Labor priority campaign proposal. As socialists, it should go without saying that labor rights are essential for us. At a time when support for labor is consistently on the rise, and labor leaders are becoming increasingly popular as opposition figures to the wealthy elite and their politicians, we need to lean into and strengthen our connections to the labor movement as much as we can. The Labor Working Group was one of the ways I initially got involved in the chapter, and in my opinion its activities are one of the greatest selling points we have for potential new members and one of our best avenues to connect with unions and allied groups in the DC area, as well as nationally. We will need this strength in 2025 and beyond.

5

Statement IN FAVOR

Joshua A.

Comrades, I’m writing to give support to the making of Labor a Chapter Priority in 2025 (PCR2) for Metro DC.

It is absolutely vital that this chapter, situated in the heart of where the incoming Trump Admin will be, develop, refine and maintain a robust labor program, which builds upon the success of the previous years, the Labor Working Group has run competitive elections, which has generated more capacity, expanded its network reach, drafted and completed Know Your Rights trainings, basic organizing trainings and is participant to the National Labor Commission in various ways, including Starbucks organizing, “Workers Organizing Workers” (WOW) and other such campaigns, which have been connected to a local level.

Yes, in 2024 the Labor Working Group was helmed by comrades with a mixture of expertise and vision, but most importantly, ambition, one which I am confident will continue in the next term.

It is no secret that the incoming Administration, and its various lackeys, toadies and sycophants are no friends to organized labor, the working class, or the world we are trying to build my brothers, sisters and comrades.

Already, as I type this our opponents have promised to decimate public sector unions, roll back the NLRA, among other things, which has been the law of the land for nearly century.
DSA should be seen by organized labor, as not just an ally, but a key piece of the puzzle, in 2025 and the years ahead. DSA should be seen, not just by organized labor’s officers and staff, but its members and stewards, as an organization rooted in not just showing up to fights, picket lines, etc., but a political home as well. DSA should be seen, by the unorganized as a potential resource of information that allows for the formation of collective action or a union.

For that to blossom into fruition, for us to continue along the path we’ve been walking, our Chapter must make PCR2 a Priority Campaign, and thus I urge you to vote yes.

6

Statement IN FAVOR

Eduarda S.

Comrades, I am urging you to vote YES on making Labor, PCR2, a chapter priority campaign for 2025. As a returning co-chair of the working group, I can attest to the important and impactful role we play in the Metro DC region. Whether it be showing solidarity with workers organizing at Compass and Starbucks for the first time or mobilizing support to unions like ATU 689 and UNITE HERE 25, the labor community counts on us to throw down for the movement. To continue showing up for workers in this way and more, it’s essential that our chapter reaffirms Labor Working Group as a priority campaign for 2025.