To Build a Socialist Future, Believe in Future Socialists
A picture of the attendees at Unite & Win, the EWOC Organizing Conference.
In the wake of a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) 2025 National Convention that was marred yet again by bitter infighting, I feel compelled to offer, as an optimistic point of contrast, my experience at the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) conference earlier this summer. One reason why the national convention was more contentious than the EWOC conference is straightforward: the national convention is a decision-making body tasked with electing organizational leadership, and the EWOC conference was not. But there is another reason rooted in the day-to-day of our organizing practices, and a lesson to be learned from EWOC.
The EWOC Difference
EWOC, a joint project of DSA and the United Electrical Workers (UE), aims to foster new union organizing by building a nationwide network of experienced mentors. These mentors actively support worker organizers through processes like forming an organizing committee, employing pre-majority tactics to put pressure on the boss, and assessing options for union affiliation. In June 2025, EWOC hosted its first national conference at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, bringing together about 250 labor organizers from dozens of chapters across the country.
The mood at the Unite & Win EWOC Organizing Conference was jubilant. In and out of sessions spanning a diverse array of topics, including international solidarity, federal worker organizing, OC building, protecting immigrant workers, strike readiness, and multilingual workplace organizing, attendees talked excitedly about their campaigns, swapped organizing ideas, and built new friendships.
Seeing this triumphant atmosphere, the casual observer might be surprised to see the sobering statistics of EWOC’s organizing work: out of hundreds of campaigns nationwide, less than 20 undertake a successful collective action or have their campaign handed off to a union in a typical month, while several dozen shops go cold. For the majority of campaigns, work goes on slowly and quietly, one conversation at a time.
Why, then, are labor organizers so damn happy? Why isn’t there more frustration with our meager rate of converting initial contacts to successful contracts? Surely this means some organizers are doing something wrong, or should be doing something better, and, well, shouldn’t we be upset about that? Would it hurt to point a few fingers? After all, the stakes are no less than the lives and dignity of working people, and the very fate of the working class battle against capitalism. Are we ignorant of the reality of labor organizing, or worse, afraid to confront this reality?
To answer these questions, we have to consider the fundamental unit of union organizing, the worker, and how we relate to workers in our roles as union staff, volunteers, or rank-and-file organizers. Our relationship to workers begins with the belief that each worker has intrinsic power in the workplace, in addition to extrinsic power granted by labor law, and the power of the union to stand up against capital grows with each additional worker. There is no magic threshold of 51% to winning material gains, as the struggle between labor and capital is not democratic. Therefore, out of necessity, we seek to organize a unit with as many workers as possible and retreat from this vision only as a last resort.
“Our relationship to workers begins with the belief that each worker has intrinsic power in the workplace, in addition to extrinsic power granted by labor law, and the power of the union to stand up against capital grows with each additional worker.”
Our focus on the intrinsic power of each worker immediately engenders deep feelings of respect and optimism, encouraging us to continue our work even in the face of formidable obstacles: not only the overt forces of the boss, but also the internal struggles of workers who face discrimination and persecution, or, tragically, perpetuate discrimination and persecution of their coworkers. We choose to face these obstacles, rather than shy away from them, because we know that they are not permanent; in the end, when the misgivings and prejudices instilled by capitalism are stripped away, the intrinsic power of the working class remains.
“This mighty spirit, unseen yet present in every room, keeps fatalism firmly at bay.”
EWOC’s optimistic approach toward individual workers, remarkably, tends to percolate upward through the entirety of the organization. This mighty spirit, unseen yet present in every room, keeps fatalism firmly at bay. We are not yet the labor movement we need, but our power is growing. One conversation at a time, workers are learning to assemble their individual power into the collective power of organized labor.
The EWOC approach to union organizing, a distinctly democratic-socialist approach, is unfortunately far from universal. The norm in this country is the “service model” of unionism. This approach woos workers for their votes in the recognition election, then treats them as little more than dues-payers who passively receive the basic services of contract bargaining and arbitration from their unions. Crucially, the “EWOC difference” is not defined by the nature of the work, the demographics of the workplace, the union the workers affiliate with, or even, in many cases, the specific material gains the workers choose to fight for. The all-important difference lies in the nature of the relationship between union organizers and the workers they seek to organize, and in the vision of worker empowerment through class unity.
A Socialist State of Mind for Political Organizing
What, then, does a democratic-socialist approach look like in the context of political organizing? While the toxic service model remains a significant obstacle in the effort to transform the labor movement into a fighting force, it pales in comparison to the toxic liberal culture around political organizing that persists even in socialist spaces. The norm in political organizing of all stripes, much like the approach of service-model unionism, is to look at voters as potential consumers of a given political platform, not as people with agency to change their material conditions. There is an urgent need to develop a national model of political organizing that is democratic socialist on more than a superficial level.
I am not the first to suggest that democratic socialist political organizing must have some defining quality that sets it apart. At the DSA National Convention, delegates approached this topic from a variety of angles. Is the essential ingredient an independent party ballot line? A stricter definition of anti-Zionism? An elusive line that divides reformist reform from non-reformist reform? Or do we eschew reform altogether as a mere tool of the liberal establishment and organize for revolution?
“Just as in labor organizing, what defines democratic socialist political organizing is a radically optimistic approach to unorganized working class voters.”
These debates are not without merit, but they do not, in my opinion, move us closer to a useful definition of socialist political organizing. Just as in labor organizing, what defines democratic socialist political organizing is a radically optimistic approach to unorganized working class voters. This approach rests on the belief that we can and must build class consciousness through our political organizing and develop an organized movement of working class voters. It’s our job to deliver the substance that hollow liberal slogans lack — that the working class creates all wealth, and that we can claim that wealth together.
In one of the most depressing federal election cycles in recent memory, voters flocked to the polls for an administration that is now piloting a scorched-earth wave of capitalist destruction. It is enough to make any socialist feel a general sense of cynicism and despair. But we should resist the impulse to direct our cynicism toward the same working-class people we need to organize and develop into organizers. This impulse is a gift to the enemies of socialism, both in that it turns us away from the essence of socialism, and in that it reflects cynicism back into the core of our organization, rotting it from the inside out.
No one seemed surprised that the national convention of the largest socialist organization in the country served first and foremost as an arena for factional infighting while questions of how to hone a modern strategy for rank-and-file socialist organizing were pushed to the periphery. But we cannot accept this as inevitable. A better world is possible, and a better DSA is possible. The first step toward both of these things is a greater level of respect for the unorganized working class and the power it represents.
The positive values of optimism and respect for the working class have been on full display in New York City, where NYC-DSA volunteers for Zohran are crisscrossing many of the same neighborhoods that swung hard toward Trump not long ago. This approach is grounded in the knowledge that material conditions in NYC are ripe for socialism, in the necessity of fostering a broad socialist movement, and in the belief that the people in these neighborhoods will be part of that movement, whether it is their first time voting, or their first time voting for a socialist.
“Most of us were “future socialists” not so long ago, and the people we talk to today could be the great socialist organizers of the next decade and beyond.”
As we turn our attention back to local work, we should remain focused on our overarching goal to organize a majority of the working class around socialist political principles. We should seek to understand what messaging is effective in building broad support for socialism, and uncompromising in adapting and improving our messaging to outperform the messaging of the capitalist class. We should not shy away from the challenge of talking to working class people who are not yet socialists, but whose interests are aligned with socialism. Most of us were “future socialists” not so long ago, and the people we talk to today could be the great socialist organizers of the next decade and beyond. Our conversations with these people pave the road toward a socialist future.