Union Power

Start/End Dates: (Thu Dec 01 2022 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) - ???)

Website

Links

Complete this interest form to get involved

Hashtag: #UnionPowerNYC 

Description

1. New Organizing: Workers at Starbucks, REI, Apple, Trader Joe’s, Amazon and beyond have won breakthrough organizing drives. Socialists have been involved in these organizing drives through EWOC, DSA, and other Left organizations, but in large part as individuals inspired to make change. The Left has yet to devote the full scope of its organization and resources towards this new organizing moment. We aim to correct that and offer support and engagement with newly organized workplaces, and workers seeking to join the movement.
2. Fighting for Pro-Worker Legislation: Unions operate in a political and legal landscape where the cards are stacked against them. DSA needs a political program for labor that works to change the rules of the game so that workers have more power and employers less. The Labor Branch is currently undergoing a process to identify a labor legislative campaign which will strategically build worker power in NYS. We will incorporate this campaign into the Union Power program, base its strategy in worker organizing, and involve the broader chapter in it.
3. Labor Solidarity: NYC-DSA members and branches have developed relationships with labor struggles that will be key in 2023, particularly the UPS Contract Campaign and Starbucks campaigns for recognition and contracts. We have identified these two struggles as priorities for Labor Solidarity campaigns. The UPS contract is the largest private-sector agreement in the country, covering 350,000 Teamsters, and expires July 31. The reform president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) has pledged to call a national strike August 1, 2023 if they don’t have a satisfactory agreement by then. Supporting the UPS contract campaign is key to helping make the decades-long rank-and-file reform effort in the Teamsters a success story, and has the power to inspire organizing across the industry, particularly at Amazon. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance the labor movement. Meanwhile, multiple NYC-DSA branches and countless members have helped build solidarity with unionizing Starbucks workers in the city. Scaling those efforts into a chapter-wide campaign will relate naturally to the new organizing component of Union Power. While we believe these two struggles are vital priorities for 2023, we will remain flexible to provide solidarity to others as they arise, especially at Amazon.
4. District Organizing for Worker Power: The election of our Socialists in Office has provided not only legislative power, but organizing opportunities through our District Offices. We will build a District Organizing Committee which can make district offices and constituent services into tools for workplace organizing.