Red Hot Summer: Our Plan to Fight the Right & Win  

Trump 2.0 has manifested itself on our campuses in the form of censorship, austerity, and ICE terrorism of our classmates. To defeat the far right, we must build power on campus capable of confronting their challenge by organizing young people at every corner of the school. We know that labor organizing has been central to this fight, from the past and even as recently as the Palestine encampment movement when students and campus workers came together to demand divestment and to end university collaboration with war profiteers. Through that struggle, we learned that winning against administration requires deep organizing skills that can push even the most seemingly apathetic worker and student into action. 

Over the course of several decades, labor organizers have developed a robust tradition for how to deeply organize workplaces and communities.  From the CIO, to the Memphis sanitation strike, to Starbucks workers and campus unions today, these victories were won because ordinary workers built strong, democratic organizations capable of sustaining struggle over time and surviving repression. Organizations like Labor Notes have solidified this tradition and YDSA is carrying the flame to the campus. These skills and tactics, which we will refer to as “structure-based organizing,” have been developed to organize workers in droves and win even in the most difficult organizing conditions. Without structure based organizing we will not sustain our chapters nor win our demands with repression at an all time high. One of the most important ways we build power is by winning majorities at the classroom and departmental level.

This year’s RHS program is designed to give chapters the tools to deeply organize their campuses, strengthen their campaigns, and build strong YDSA chapters that are capable of growing over the long-term. 

Join Red Hot Summer to become the next generation of fighting socialist organizers!🌹🌹

By building structure and organization, we are able to connect to our classmates with common good demands, organize long-term power structures in and outside of campus workplaces, create a long-term organizing tradition on campus through systematic leadership development, and win BIG by identifying power structures and using that knowledge to pressure admin into conceding to our demands. 

Last Year Testimony 

“RHS has helped my chapter to improve my mentorship skills and led us to planning a regional conference in 2 months with NINE trainings!”

 – Deya R., UC Berkeley

“Starting the year with 40 official members and ending with over 110, YDSA at UMD used textbook organizing tools to recruit and begin to develop a cohort of passionate socialist organizers. In the summer of 2025, the chapter held 2-3 virtual meetings to brainstorm, deliberate, and vote on demands and plans for a sanctuary campus campaign. 

The chapter’s sanctuary campus petition received 1000 signatures in the first week, and over 160 students attended the kickoff meeting. The membership fleshed out a semester timeline, planning banner drops and town halls. The semester ended with a petition delivery rally, which forced a response from the university administration.

Chapters can achieve incredible growth through intentional summer work which builds organizational capacity for the fall semester, especially the critical first few weeks, and careful preparation to onboard the incoming cohort.” 

– Jack S, University of Maryland

“RHS gave my fellow organizers and I the skills we needed to launch our own union drive! Some of us stuck with the union and others prioritized our YDSA chapter, but we all used the lessons of RHS to develop a new generation of organizers and still use the skills we learned every day.”

– Michael A., Furman

Schedule of Trainings, What Will Be Covered

Please email ydsa@staging.y.dsausa.org with any questions. Solidarity forever!

More resources: 

• Get Student Worker Mentorship Here! 
• Start a YDSA Chapter 
• Join Y/DSA 
• Join a National Committee here!
• Trainings from YDSA labor