Socialism Needs to Walk not Talk: The Case for Student Unions

SFSU YDSA leader Char Bennet makes the case for student unions as a key strategic site for campus organizing.

What is socialism? Each of us in YDSA have an answer for this question. We may disagree on details but for the most part agree that it is an economic system that allows laborers to have dignity and sovereignty over their labor. That everyone deserves and is encouraged to have a voice in decisions that are being made that affect them, and to work in community with one another to address any and all problems that may/will arise. 

Student unions, like YDSA, believe that students deserve that same dignity and sovereignty over our education; however, YDSA can never represent the whole student body when calling for larger organized actions like a strike or an encampment. A student union can and has throughout history.

 The Black Student Union and Third World Liberation Front strike of ‘68 gave San Francisco State University the first college of ethnic studies in the United States. They demanded “Relevant Education Now!” an education that was focused on their histories, the complex confluence of concurrent actions that sought to deprive their communities of the necessities of life. Those demands were won because of the unified efforts of the first Black Student Union and their allies. That is the legacy we seek to honor while building our student union.

Today on our campus and across the California State University system we face extreme class cuts that are forcing many students to take extra semesters or a full year to finish their “four-year degree,” a 34% tuition increase over the next four years that has already pushed a dear friend of mine out of SFSU, dilapidated buildings, and rat infested dorms, that often crumble before our eyes. Meanwhile, the administration building gets another face-lift and a new multi-million dollar A.I initiative has been launched across all CSU campuses without any desire from the student body.

From my experience in the SFSU Student Union, our work starts within our departments, engaging with our classmates inside our classrooms! We then hold meetings, discussing and voting on actionable next steps to meet our needs as students, pinpointing who actually holds the power to meet our demands. We gather at socials so that people can meet one another within this time when we desperately need each other. We work collectively each step of the way. We work with one another for one another. 

Within YDSA we have a vast array of people willing to build a socialist party leading towards a socialist revolution and way of life. However, too many students do not consider themselves socialists and are even antagonistic to the idea. So we must build a space where students can voice the issues they face as students and human beings. They must be met with an organization that seeks to solve their deeply felt issues. We need to expose people to socialist ideals through practice, not theory. To show how engaging with their peers towards common goals is the way we can create genuine change.

The socialist movement needs socialists to move. We can no longer converse amongst ourselves wondering which campaign will attract the most traction on our campuses. We must be brave and social, meeting people where they are—literally in our classroom. The relationships we need to grow our strength and confidence as a movement are sitting next to us, silent and isolated within our classrooms. 

We need to show people, no matter how they orient, we are willing to fight for them. Our door, which is the same door we walk through getting to class, must be accessible to all students. Not altruistically, but because when we fight to better the conditions of anyone, it benefits us as well. Solidarity is a verb, we need to put it into practice. The more people that can be shown how mass action gets the goods, how communities can be organized, how people coming together and listening benefits everyone. More people will join our larger movements and calls to action when we engage meaningfully with them.

A student union is not a class-based organization. Class, however, is never invisible when talking to students about the conditions they face. The intersections of oppression are not invisible on college campuses. We know through the relationships we develop, through listening to one another, the challenges our peers face, and explain how they are not alone in wanting more for themselves, and their community. A student union creates space for people with differing perspectives and experiences, whether socialists or not, to be in the same room together fighting for the same things. 

Students are not simply consumers of educational services, but deeply entrenched members of a rich community of people dreaming of a better world and using education as a means to actualize their dreams for themselves. Students are on campus to better their lives, introducing them to a radical union that fights within every department to better their learning conditions and for common good demands. This teaches people through practice how to work together in a union, and to have political disagreements but not ruin relationships.

The student union allows for students to participate in movements from where they spend the most time, within their departments. Much like organizing on the shop floor in a labor union, students within common majors and departments have the same requirements. So when one of my upper level courses gets cut I know that there are many people agitated by the actions of the administration. So we start conversations and build relationships in the classroom that are relevant now. 

A student union that benefits the student body through practice introduces YDSA’s larger goals of socialist ideals in a tangible way, where people understand their role in creating much needed change for themselves and their community. 

Students are naturally on a short clock, we graduate and join the workforce within a few years. YDSA itself is a transitory organization that seeks to build empowered leaders for the ongoing battles for a better world. Wouldn’t it be great if we could join the workforce alongside our classmates that have been fighting collectively for the betterment of our education? If each graduating class has a multitude of primed union organizers that know how to fight for the betterment of their conditions. They can bring that lived experience to whatever workplace they end up in. This work that we do within the student union compliments the larger mission of YDSA to build the foundation of a radical socialist party. 

Our loyalties as socialists should be primarily to fight for a better world, not only to any one party, including YDSA. Student unions focus on fostering communities of trust. When larger political moments occur, like the encampment at SFSU, people already trusted the leaders because of the relationships that were already built.

YDSA is essential to compliment the work of the student union. Our explicitly socialist organization grounds the actions and organizing of the student union in its current political moment. It is YDSA’s role to explain how the conditions on campus are rooted in capitalism and the neo-liberal attempt to turn education into vocational training. Our job is to explain how Trump got into office and how we can fight back! We socialists need to show a deep understanding of the conditions of our environment so when we make connections to Palestine, people understand how and why we are connected. How living within the imperial core affects the people in our occupied states like Guahån and Puerto Rico, how our corporations exploit the Philippines, Guatemala, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, how militarism and “our” thirst for oil has had generational impacts in the Marshallese Islands, Iran, and Afghanistan. This grounding is essential to any movement we wish to be a part of. We must educate ourselves as well as our peers on how we got to now and how we move forward. Instilling the knowledge of when we fight here in our communities, we have a lasting effect across the globe.

Student Unions build radical socialists through practice beyond theory, so that they can carry on the fight when they graduate and join the work force already aware of how to build demands, have organizing conversations, build and foster a resilient community that has the power to fight against the boss, or state. This work builds the foundation of a party that will be able to enact genuine structural demands across our communities, states, and the country at large.

Socialism needs to walk before it can run. Socialist ideals need to be tried and tested in our current world. Student unions are a fantastic place to start. In whatever idealized fantasies we have of a socialist Turtle Island, Student Unions do exist. Student unions function in that dream as a united democratic front of students that advocate for the desires of the students.