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By: Chris Brady
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent the official position of Working Mass.
Around 1500 DSA members gathered in Chicago for the bi-annual national convention, joined by representatives of left-wing organizations and parties from around the domestic and international socialist movements. As keynote speaker Representative Rashida Tlaib described: “there is a revolutionary energy in the air… the working masses, y’all, they’re hungry for revolutionary change.”
The challenge of DSA is twofold: organize and politicize the American working class. Valiant efforts from worker-organizers and activated rank-and-file union members has met the current moment, yet institutional labor still remains sluggish in the face of blatant class warfare offensives from the Trump administration. DSA continues to organize against these conditions as we build greater and greater numbers. There are literally hundreds of experienced organizers in the membership and bring with them successful DSA-led campaigns; such as rank-and-file reform caucuses in the Teamsters and UAWD, nationwide Strike Ready campaigns, the Emergency Workers Organizing Committee, and the Federal Unionists Network. The unique precarity of the current moment, however, mandates political clarity on residual labor questions and strategies.
Namely, DSA deliberated on resolutions ranging from electoralism, organized labor for Palestine, the May Day 2028 General Strike, and the partyist labor strategy. The 2025 DSA Convention was monumental, the largest socialist political organization in the country debating labor strategy openly and transparently, and it is important for engaged socialists in leading implementation of the resolutions.
Approved Motions
R20: Workers will Lead the Way: Join with Unions to Run Labor Candidates
R20 aims to build on past successes of the left in recent elections, strategizing to deepen organizational connections with organized labor and leverage those connections to beat the far right. The right wing’s attacks on labor unions echoes Reagan’s PATCO strike-busting and Governor Scott Walker’s assault on Wisconsin labor unions, and that DSA needs to deepen the contradictions of this reality and the faux-populists right wingers falsely proclaiming themselves as working people champions by assertively uplifting the labor movement in elections.
With an aim of mass politics, this resolution commits DSA to running a slate of ten candidates in 2026. It also delegates messaging and campaign tasks to national DSA and local DSA chapters. DSA is now charted to do significant outreach to the anchoring labor unions of the left and develop strategic plans together in an attempt at a left-labor unified political program. In addition, DSA does not mandate that the candidates run on the Democrat ballot line or our own. This resolution offers concrete and achievable steps for DSA to pursue electorally, but critics argue that this is a re-run of the already existing labor strategy cemented by previous DSA Conventions.
R33: Unite Labor & the Left to Run a Socialist for President and Build the Party
R33 shares some similarity with R20 in aiming to officially get DSA and labor in the same rooms and on the same page. However, R33 is significant because it explicitly articulates a vision for the left-labor alliance exemplified by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ocasio Cortez’s recent ‘Fighting Oligarchy Tour’, injecting some juice into an otherwise largely decrepit anti-Trump “resistance” that has so far been unable to move beyond mass mobilizations. It is perhaps best characterized as a left-labor-progressive front as opposed to left-labor-Democratic one. The resolution calls for a committee of relevant groups of unions, squad members, and other left wing political parties to build a coalition for a 2028 presidential run independent of the Democratic Party.
This is a resolution about political realignment. It allows for a reshaping of the Democratic Party like the Tea Party reshaped the GOP by formalizing the progressive DSA alliance as an immovable political force. It also lays the groundwork for launching a new party, depending on future conditions, while continuing the maintenance of the left coalition. Critics point out that the resolution ignores the damage that high-profile democratic socialists like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have done to their credibility with the organized left due to their objective failure to mount meaningful opposition to the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza. They also argue that the entire coalition itself is predicated on leftists and bureaucratic capital-friendly organizations putting aside potentially significant differences to fight Trump, a socialist-led popular front, which is not necessarily guaranteed.
R30: Fighting Back in the Class War: Preparing for May Day 2028
UAW President Shawn Fain – whose presidency is in part due to organizing from DSA UAW rank-and-file members – has targeted May 1st 2028 for a nationwide general strike. This mandate from the face of American labor provides a timeline for organizing work that DSA is ready and able to contribute to and presents an opportunity for a fundamental shift in class relations. DSA must utilize the next three years to build class-consciousness, rank-and-file power, and propagandize. The resolution emphasizes the logistical and organizational demands necessary to make May Day successful, and where it makes the most sense for DSA to plug in. Specifically, DSA will create a May Day 2028 committee to coordinate rank-and-file strategy, salting efforts, reform caucuses, and rank-and-file coordination with union leadership when strategically necessary.
R30 is an ambitious project that provides real structure for the next three years of DSA organizing work. The opportunity for DSA to grow itself and the labor movement with it is huge, but critics will note the amount of work required to be effective in this role is equally daunting.
Included with the resolution was an amendment – R30-A01: Tenants & Workers Together in 2028.
The amendment incorporates an additional tenant union dimension and strengthens existing labor sections. It argues that the engine of May Day 2028’s success is the rank-and-file and DSA needs to use specific strategies to organize them. DSA must build chapter infrastructures to meet this moment and utilize structure tests to identify progress and organizational needs. Rank-and-file recruitment strategies and May Day-themed trainings will connect national issues to the organizing work on the ground. Furthermore, tenant organizing emphasizes class consciousness outside of the workplace, where just 10% of American workers are unionized. This resolution charts a path where some efforts are dedicated to compounding any labor-led general strike with rank-and-file efforts within the tenants’ movement, with a particular programmatic focus on Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) properties under which tenants may wield the most strategic power during a general strike. The incorporation of tenant organizing improves the ceiling for May Day by simply involving more people and broadens the dynamics of “the working class” involved in strike efforts.
R42: Labor for an Arms Embargo
DSA’s National Labor Commission has endorsed a Labor for an Arms Embargo campaign,. Since AIPAC-funded candidates purchased primary victories over Representatives Bowman and Cori Bush, both associated with DSA, while the rest of the American political establishment has effectively have facilitated a bipartisan holocaust in Gaza, there has long been a need to escalate resistance strategy to target key nodes of the apartheid relationship between the United States and Israel. The labor campaign has coordinated rank-and-file membership to internally organize for unions to divest and disrupt for Palestine. Strategy includes targeting local ports and dockworker unions and local governments to disrupt the flow of capital that enables Israel’s savagery. Importantly, this resolution mandates that federal election endorsements should hinge on the candidate’s willingness to vote against military aid to Israel (both offensive and defensive). For local endorsements, the resolution outlines requiring the candidate to support the “War Crime Free Cities” initiative.
This resolution cuts through some of the largest internal DSA debates about candidate endorsement and anti-Zionist organizing strategy. It establishes clear parameters of engagement with candidates and will likely prevent wishy-washy both sidesism that plagued unprincipled former endorsed candidates. Most importantly, it provides concrete steps for DSA to engage with the most important task of human beings on planet Earth right now: stopping the extermination of Palestinians.
R34: Workers Deserve More, Forever
Most of DSA advocates for some conceptualization of a consistent and cohesive platform. This resolution explicitly outlines what that platform will be and how DSA will standardize. From now till Convention changes it, the platform will remain Workers Deserve More (WDM) and play all the classic hits – Medicare For All, union power, popular vote for President, and other boilerplate DSA political goals. Also, the resolution creates a committee to iron out political details and maintain the official party program as DSA’s priorities change after each convention. While the program includes the continuation of a broad consensus held since 2023, critics argued against moving further program development to a smaller committee.
Image of the Workers Deserve More program (DSA Store)
Chapters and working groups can purchase copies of the 2025-2026 Workers Deserve More program from national DSA.
Rejected Motions
R42-A01: For a Strike Ready Labor For Arms Embargo
This amendment to R42 Labor For Arms Embargo emphasized the need for workers to build a strike capacity for urgent anti-Zionist political organizing. The resolution stipulates that workers will be politically educated on anti-imperialism and the necessity to incorporate it into their organizing. International working class connections will be facilitated to contribute to workers strikes to halt the flow of capital to Israel. Additionally, the amendment removed reference to DSA electeds and the endorsements process.
CR10-A: A Partyist Labor Strategy
This amendment would have modified CR10’s “Building a Worker Led Labor Movement,” a proposal for the National Labor Committee’s priorities, including salting, May Day 2028, building a coalition with the labor movement, etc. as outlined above in different words. In a remarkably verbose resolution as typical for the authors, this amendment would have injected an understanding of building worker power to include agitating for socialist political directions in the unions themselves.
The amendment calls for DSA to reject the false binary of choosing sectarian or economism labor strategy into arguing for pro-socialism synthesis. It delineates that DSA must reject false populists in the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as the tribalism from many bureaucratic labor leaders. DSA’s organizing will come downstream from its politics. Additionally, given that May Day 2028 as a logistical hurdle and organizing goal requires a revolution of class consciousness, the amendment adds detail for how DSA will organize to that end. Namely, the National Labor Commission will support DSA union members and salting efforts with coordinating committees based on industry and emphasizing political education for all membership, particularly for those outside of DSA.
The amendment also emphasizes cross-union organizing training and outlines how DSA can support Labor For Arms Embargo through this paradigm. Finally, the amendment emphasizes the need for democracy in unions’ leadership and decision-making. Critics argue the amendment is not practical and understates the power of the process of struggle itself in turning workers into socialist militants. The amendment failed with just 47% of the vote. This alludes to growing appetite for partyist politics in DSA.
Referred to the National Political Committee
R04: For a Socialist Party in Years, Not Decades
Unfortunately for Michael Harrington, DSA is no longer much f the left edge of the Democratic Party. R04 exemplifies how much DSA and the national political condition has changed; there is popular appetite for DSA to build toward becoming its own independent political party. The resolution tasks DSA with building infrastructure to launch a political party by the end of the Trump presidency, or at least to get the wheels turning to do so. DSA’s NPC is to identify targeted left-wing institutions and reform caucuses and network to build a coalition for party building. National DSA will work with locals to identify and build potential candidates and campaign infrastructure, with electoral training materials. Finally, DSA will run a slate of at least 10 candidates in 2026 elections as an independent party, and the candidates must declare themselves as democratic socialists, form socialist caucuses if elected, and uphold DSA policies and programs.
There was not enough time at convention to vote on this resolution, which is shameful because it raises important points that DSA would benefit to seriously discuss: how to become a truly independent political force and the pursuit of that goal.
Chris Brady is a member of Boston DSA and contributing writer to Working Mass.
The post OPINION: 2025 DSA Convention – Socialists Set Sights On May Day 2028 and Left-Labor Power appeared first on Working Mass.
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