The authors argue for amendment R13-1 to build connections between YDSA and the Rank-and-File Project and develop a pipeline from YDSA into strategic sectors of the labor movement.

The Rank-and-File Strategy

In 2022 and 2023 the Young Democratic Socialists of America voted to adopt the Rank-and-File Strategy (RFS) as our orientation to the labor movement. Centrally, the rank-and-file strategy aims to reconnect the labor movement to the socialist movement in order to strengthen the militancy and class consciousness of the multiracial, multigendered working class to fight capitalism. To accomplish this vision, the rank-and-file strategy asserts that socialists must enter the labor movement on the shop floor as rank and file members of labor unions.

On the shop floor, our objective is to engage in class struggle with our co-workers, exposing them to our analysis of capitalism and building unions which are run bottom-up by rank-and-file members. Accordingly, the rank-and-file strategy pushes against business unionism and “permeationism.” 

Business unionism is an orientation of the union bureaucracy which sees the union as a business whose customers are the rank-and-file. This leads to collaborationism between the union and management instead of the promotion of class struggle through actions such as strikes. 

Correspondingly, permeationism contends that socialists should get jobs as staff in unions, permeating militancy and consciousness within the union from the top down.Staff are limited in their ability to create change in unions. The rank-and-file strategy believes that rank-and-file workers are more equipped to reform their unions and foster militancy through struggling and organizing with their co-workers on the shop floor. Socialists who have industrialized into the labor movement have helped to build reform caucuses in their unions which advocate and fight for militancy and democracy. 

For example, Unite All Workers for Democracy—a now dissolved reform caucus within the United Auto Workers (UAW)—was started by rank-and-file workers, including many DSA members, which defeated the corrupt Administration Caucus in UAW’s first direct leadership election. Subsequently, the union went on an unprecedented targeted strike against the “Big Three” automakers and achieved significant economic gains for workers. Along with this historic victory, UAW is now organizing new workplaces across the United States and making political demands such as calling for a ceasefire in Palestine.

Over the past few years, YDSA, specifically the Youth Labor Committee (YLC), has been building the “rank-and-file pipeline,” linking our organization and the labor movement by encouraging and organizing YDSA members to industrialize into strategic industries—such as logistics, education, and healthcare—through providing political education and mentorship. “Strategic” industries are defined by factors such as centrality to the economy, size, and the militancy of its workers. Currently, the YLC works with DSA’s Workers Organizing Workers (WOW) to funnel YDSA members, particularly graduating students, into the labor movement through mentorship for members who are salting or industrializing.

This year, the YLC has proposed R13: Rechartering the Youth Labor Committee. This resolution reaffirms YDSA’s commitment to labor work, particularly building student worker unions and, to achieve this, advocates a strong mentorship program. Critically, this resolution mandates the YLC to “utilize the Workers Organizing Workers (WOW) committee and other NLC resources to build a cohesive and comprehensive pipeline between YDSA, DSA and the broader labor movement.”

However, this resolution does not explicitly instruct YDSA to build a rank-and-file pipeline for our members. Amendment R13-1 states, “YDSA will encourage students to get jobs in one of the RFS’s three strategic industries—teaching, nursing and logistics—to build lifelong organizers.” Building this pipeline and motivating young socialists to commit long-term to the labor movement and organize on the shop floor as rank-and-file leaders is an integral step to re-linking the labor movement to the socialist movement. In establishing this connection, we are able to grow powerful and militant class-struggle unions which can win big against the capitalist class, while simultaneously spreading socialist consciousness within the working class. This amendment also directs the YLC to “utilize the Rank and File Project (RFP) for YDSA members in East Bay, New York, and Philadelphia who are able to attend sessions in-person and be supported by local organizers.”

What is RFP?

The Rank and File Project (RFP) is an explicitly socialist organization with the goal of rebuilding and politically groundingthe layer of skilled, experienced, and politicized class-struggle unionists in the labor movement. It functions as a political education and support network similar to how Labor Notes supports the militant section of the labor movement, but with more emphasis on rebuilding the militant section entirely. RFP recruits young radicals to join the labor movement, and supports them in building democratic, militant, and solidaristic unions through mentorship, political education, and support networks. While some networks are newer, many of them have been developed by previous, or still current, rank-and-filers who have built them over the years.

Thus far, some of RFPs work has included: helping people relocate to new cities in order to take jobs in specific industries, creating mentorship relationships with many of the rank-and-filers who built Labor Notes and have transformed their unions, and increasing the level of activity in strategic sectors. As RFP grows, it seeks to figure out how to sustain and increase the level of militancy that its members can help imbue in their unions, and how to find new and creative ways to fight the management. The task of transforming the workers movement and merging it with the socialist movement is not easy, nor is it always explosive with activity; it takes a lot of work, much of it unglamorous and unforgiving. But this is the goal of RFP, as it seeks to be a significant part of building a future workers’ party with socialist politics in the United States.

A note on RFP and its relation to socialist organization/WOW

As mentioned, RFP exists as an explicitly socialist organization—but it is not an organization that is akin to DSA. RFP’s purpose is to play the very specific role of re-cohering the militant wing of the labor movement to transform our unions, merge the workers’ movement with the socialist movement, and to aid in the organization of workers alongside other institutions, such as Labor Notes, that is not explicitly socialist, and DSA/YDSA, which are. 

After RFP was founded, a subgroup was created within DSA’s National Labor Commission (NLC)- Workers Organizing Workers (WOW). WOW primarily focuses on salting in new industries, more recently expanding into recruitment for strategic sectors.  Both RFP and WOW aim to help people  industrialize, but the two have laid emphasis on different aspects of this work.

Many founders of RFP had experimented with this rank-and-file  pipeline, but leaders of the DSLC (the predecessor to the NLC) and various local chapter labor working groups realized more than a pipeline was needed. There needed to be an entirely new organization with its own infrastructure to complement the socialist organizing in DSA. 

Today, WOW largely focuses on recruiting for salting at Amazon, a strategic industry of exponentially growing importance. Where WOW’s emphasis has been on salting to build the Amazon recruitment pipeline, RFP’s emphasis is on long-haul industrializing and helping the members they get into rank and file jobs choose how and where to intervene. RFP helps members analyze the circumstances of their industries and their geography; they are particularly active in larger cities where there are high concentrations of workers to leverage their power. As part of this analysis. RFP is also reflecting on the successes and failures in the history of union reform in the US to inform our future work. 

WOW and RFP continue to discuss how to best work together to harness the breadth of activists and cohorts popping up in cities all across the country just two years after RFP’s conception.

R13-1. Rank-and-File Strategy Amendment to Rechartering the Youth Labor Committee

In order to build the rank-and-file pipeline which critically re-links our growing socialist movement to the labor movement, we encourage delegates to vote yes on R13-1, committing YDSA to the Rank-and-File Strategy as our guiding orientation for labor organizing. As YDSA, we must continue to encourage socialist students to pursue careers in strategic industries of our economy, organizing on the shop floor to help build a militant labor movement from the bottom up. To accomplish this, we must use every resource at our disposal, including organizations such as WOW and RFP, so that we can grow our capacity to support students and young people who are industrializing.