What is a DSA SF Priority Campaign?
A Priority Campaign is an intersectional and cross-chapter effort to achieve measurable goals in no more than three priority topics per year. With this focus, we are able to dedicate labor, money, and time to those areas we democratically determine are most important to winning socialism and advancing our Chapter’s work. Our Priority Campaigns for 2023-2024 are:
Extreme Dean
Email: electoral@dsasf.org
We are focused on furthering our relationship with our comrade Dean Preston, the Supervisor of District 5, and laying a mutually beneficial groundwork between the Chapter and Dean for his reelection campaign. This involves creating an understanding of shared values with Dean and his office about our unified work going forward and presenting this to the Chapter as part of a vote on an endorsement for Dean’s 2024 campaign.
The Priority is also focused on building new Chapter leaders and organizing new members through electoral work in the fight for socialism. Our Chapter knows that electoral work alone will not bring us to socialism, but we recognize the role electoral campaigns play in bringing people into our movement and winning meaningful reforms for working people.
The Electoral Board was elected by the Chapter to oversee, plan, and execute on this Priority. Our Chapter has a strong history of successful electoral work – including Dean Preston’s 2019 Supervisor race, 2018’s Prop F for a universal Right to Counsel, and 2022’s Props M and H. This year’s Priority follows in this vein of winning electoral campaigns that improve the lives of working class people and grow the socialist movement in San Francisco.
Mutual Aid Priority
Mutual aid plays an important role in the history of the socialist project, from the Black Panther Party’s survival programs in the 1960s, to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in the 1990s, to the Red Nation’s Indigenous socialist-led mutual aid programs in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mutual Aid continues to have a place in advancing the socialist horizon by helping to aid the mission of DSA SF, namely “to organize the people of San Francisco in order to establish and exercise collective power that can fight capitalism, combat inequality, and bring about real socialist change.”
The goal of the Mutual Aid Priority is to teach DSA SF members about the history and significance of mutual aid in the socialist project and to integrate mutual aid systematically as a tactic and muscle our chapter is well equipped to flex.
Here’s what we’ll be doing this year:
- Creating and running courses on the history of mutual aid and how to do mutual aid
- Mutual aid projects in collaboration with the Extreme Dean Priority
- Mutual aid projects in collaboration with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) Priority
- Identifying opportunities for mutual aid throughout the chapter
- Working on chapter recruitment and a communications/media strategy
Mutual aid immediately transforms the material conditions of those involved and is a direct path toward alternative forms of care where we as a society take care of each other, in the face of escalating state violence and dysfunction. Everyone’s input and participation is valuable, so come join us today!
Join our Slack channel at #priority-mutual-aid or email mutualaid@dsasf.org, and look out for our meetings and social potlucks on the DSA SF internal calendar. We can’t wait to connect with you!
San Francisco Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (SFEWOC) Priority
Email: labor@dsasf.org
The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is a national organization, jointly established by DSA and UE (United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers) in 2020 for the purpose of fielding inquiries from workers interested in organizing at their workplace. This priority seeks to revive the chapter’s direct organizing work to support workers, provide DSA SF members with a meaningful way to plug into labor organizing.
The establishment of a local EWOC in DSA SF provides the benefit of an already existing structure that can be imported to a formation within the Labor group. EWOC not only has established structures for finding organizing leads, it also has established support for training organizers and workers alike, and is currently supporting organizing at workplaces in San Francisco. This collaboration provides a mechanism for DSA SF and our members to plug into worker-led organizing, provide our members with an impactful place to learn, develop, and apply their organizing skills, and strengthen the connection between DSA SF and the labor movement.
To get involved, please reach out to us in the #labor Slack channel or at the labor board email.
We train new comrades! No experience necessary!