Working-Class Unity and Power — Priorities Resolution

Capitalism makes our collective emancipation impossible. No reform can deliver actual freedom to our class. Human emancipation, as Marx wrote, requires the total demolition of class society. We should clearly state what it will take to form a socialist society: Revolution.

Revolutions require organizers who forge revolutionary power in our communities. Revolutionary power is always modest at first. It begins with small congregations of working class people who endeavor to win improvements through limited acts. These everyday moments form the bedrock upon which powerful movements catalyze. Suddenly, proletarians engage in daring acts of militant class struggle. It is in these moments that reforms are conceded, as revolutionary power truly terrifies the capitalist class. The teachers’ strike in West Virginia demonstrates this process.

Our Task: Building Revolutionary Power

Our task is to build a chapter that can produce and nourish the kind of revolutionary power exhibited by West Virginia teachers. To do this, EBDSA will participate in organizing projects that empower working class people in their everyday interactions with bosses, landlords, and other powerful reactionaries. To accomplish this, chapter organizing will center on two basic principles:

Organic Struggles. Identify and connect with struggles where the working class is self-organizing or could potentially organize; e.g. teachers strikes, fighting police terror, the Oakland port strike, etc.;

Mass work. Expand our political work from the electoral sphere by committing to organizing working class people around the political issues of their everyday lives.

Following these strategic insights, EBDSA shall commit to organizing around the following planks:

Health

EBDSA’s campaign for universal health should expand beyond an exclusively electoral emphasis. Our organizing must be a first step in taking our health into our own collective hands. To accomplish this, EBDSA shall:

Inquiry. Conduct inquiries as part of its canvassing effort, asking people what conditions affect their health and how organizing efforts might help meet their needs;

Organize. Put our inquiries and social positions to work. Potential sites of organizing include school nutrition, homeless encampment conditions, compromised drinking water, organizing care workers, etc;

Demand. Demand a universal healthcare system that is free, includes non-medical care work, is without citizenship qualifications, and is subordinated to workers’ control.

Housing

EBDSA’s endorsement of the Costa Hawkins repeal will be augmented by supporting Tenants and Neighborhood Councils (TANC), an organization created by EBDSA members. TANC will allow for community participation, and build the power to win strategic reforms. Councils will directly help end displacement and create affordable and inclusionary housing for all. EBDSA and TANC shall:

Inquiry. Survey members to find shared landlords and prevalent housing issues to better understand our shared position in the housing crisis and how to fight it;

Tenants. Organize isolated tenants into council groups that can act against their landlords. Build councils by canvassing fellow tenants of participating EBDSA members. Councils can win demands by disrupting landlord’s profitability, avoid ordinances, etc.;

Neighborhoods. Organize neighborhood councils that connect tenants and homeless encampments. Against today’s alienation, neighborhood councils will produce militant working-class communities;

Homeless Sweeps. Work with public employees and homeless encampments to prevent sweeps and forge class unity. Engage municipal unions in our broader housing struggle, and coordinate with union members to organize community pickets;

Public Housing. Promote collaboration with public housing communities by canvassing public housing complexes and offering to support social events like barbeques or resident-led organizing meetings;

Street Power. Organize direct actions supporting all housing work above.

Labor

EBDSA will support rank-and-file labor militancy and political education in the following ways:

Workers’ Power. Increase ties to rank-and-file union members and workers’ centers, support aims to transform unions, and support organizing unorganized workplaces;

Unity. Agitate against the tendency to divide our class along lines of nationality, race, gender, ability, and sexuality. Include sex workers, prison labor, undocumented, and the unwaged into organizing practices;

Salting. Encourage individuals to organize non-union workplaces, and to become rank-and-file organizers in union worksites;

Coalitions. EBDSA shall remain flexible enough to support ongoing labor militancy.

Imperialism & Empire

EBDSA shall prepare to resist international U.S. violence by creating a regional organizing group called the Bay Against Empire (BAE). BAE will promote coordination with neighboring DSA chapters and anti-war groups to do the following:

Infrastructure. Promote coordinated efforts that identify and organize around critical infrastructure, such as ports, freeways, or factories, that can be shut down if the United States initiates warfare;

Demonstrations. Prepare, in advance, plans for regionally coordinated demonstrations that can popularly support infrastructure shutdowns;

Palestine. Promote and support YDSA to organize Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) in schools, and advocate union dockworkers to block Israeli goods.

Police Abolition

EBDSA will commit itself to organizing for the abolition of the police state. To accomplish this, EBDSA shall create a working group called “Lovelle Mixon Organizing Committee” (LMOC) to:

Material Support. Provide a court support mechanism for arrested comrades, and fundraise on an ongoing basis for a bail and legal fees fund;

Police Violence. Promote and support demonstrations and direct actions against police violence as they occur;

ICE Raids. Organize a rapid text message network that can alert participants of ICE raids and promote community-wide direct action;

Support. Help efforts that reduce police department funding, eliminate cash bail and other economically exploitative tactics, and support transformative justice projects;

Mutual Aid. Develop mutual aid initiatives that build class solidarity across racialized divisions around policing.

Towards a Mass Party

EBDSA shall commit to building the foundation for a working-class, mass socialist party at the national level. While the chapter needs flexible tactics, these tactics must align with achieving this strategic goal. To accomplish this goal, EBDSA shall:

Direction. Point to socialism as the path forward in these struggles;

Class Unity. Build working-class unity across various national and international struggles;

Independence. Build our class’s independence from capitalist parties and other entities, like the Democrats, Republicans, and the non-profit industrial complex;

Mass work. Commit to mass rank-and-file work. Any engagement in electoral politics must serve the strategic goal of building working-class militancy, not managing the crisis of capitalism.

* * *

Signatories:

Kevin S.
Nicholas T.
Kate M.
Dan E.
June LS
Antonio B.H.
Blake G.
Noah K.R.
Cecelia S.
Daniel T.
Angie L.
bleak
Rosa A.
David S.
Justin G.
Rane S.
Kevin A.
Hasan-Can A.
Karina S.
Day J.
Camille F.
Matt R.
Gus G.
Liz C.
Khawer K.
Jess K.
Ryzhko A.
Ahmed K.
Derek R.
Tavy
Matt T.
Amelia C.
Emily C.
Kaitlin O.
Katie C.
Kelsey J.
Sergio G.
William O.