There has never been a better time for students to join the labor movement. Across the country, thousands of student workers have organized into fighting undergraduate unions and are winning transformative demands. Starbucks workers have won one of the biggest victories in modern labor history by forcing Starbucks to the bargaining table. Meanwhile, young people on dozens of campuses are standing up to demand an end to genocide in Gaza in the biggest student organizing wave since the 1960s. On-campus labor is the next step for bringing our campuses to the table and ending their investments in apartheid!
These movements are fundamentally intertwined, and we need you in the fight! Through Red Hot Summer you will learn the organizing skills and strategies you need to organize your workplace, mobilize your campus, get what you deserve from your boss and your university. This program is led by student leaders who have successfully organized new unions and who will provide crucial insights and lessons as you begin your own organizing journey.
Hear from last year’s participants
David L., University of Oregon
“Red Hot Summer has helped teach me the skills needed to organize for power, whether it’s a certification campaign for our 4000-member student worker union or a 25-day Palestine Solidarity Encampment to win Sabra Hummus Boycott & Ceasefire Statement.”
Allen D., Texas State
“Red Hot Summer has helped my chapter continue off from our campaign to raise the wage to $15 for student workers. We won departmental increases while having learned that actively organizing our workplaces is how we build lasting power.”
SBWU organizer and YDSA member
“The RHS program has been extremely beneficial in helping me learn strategies for engaging rank and filers at Starbucks throughout our contract campaign!”
“Two years ago, I was an incoming freshman with no union organizing experience interested in being a part of the labor movement, but not knowing how. Now, two years later, I am a co-founder of our wall-to-wall 1400 worker union at Macalester College (MUWU), have helped organize our full-time dining staff and won us a contract, and have started a network of midwestern unionists who are interested in organizing their workplace. All of that would not have been possible without the training and mentorship that came out of Red Hot Summer and YDSA.”
Here are a few things you’ll be able to do after completing Red Hot Summer:
- Have successful one-on-one organizing conversations with your coworkers
- Map out your workplace to identify existing power structures
- Build an escalating campaign to ramp up pressure on your boss
- Develop new leaders in your union to make sure your power lasts
Training Schedule
| 8/21 5pm PT/8pm ET | Forming your Organizing Committee, Salting the workplace, Developing Leaders |
| 8/28 5pm PT/8pm ET | How to talk to your co-workers |
| 9/4 5pm PT/8pm ET | Finding the issues, Escalating your Campaign, & Mapping your Workplace |
Please email ydsa@dsacommittees.org with any questions. Solidarity forever!
More resources
YDSA is partnered with EWOC (the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee), a group of organizers who provide one-on-one support to workers. If you want an experienced labor organizer to help you unionize your workplace during and after Red Hot Summer, sign up for direct mentorship here.
YDSA is also partnered with RFP (the Rank & File Project), an organization supporting and mentoring young radicals who want to fight for working class power and build a labor movement by taking union jobs in locally strategic industries. RFP is recruiting for their East Bay and New York City/New Jersey cohorts right now with a plan to expand to more regions. If you are interested in getting involved with RFP organizing or joining a cohort, you can learn more and apply to join their project here.
Trainings from YDSA labor: If you’re interested in accessing our trainings, go here and use them!