Socialism 2025: Full Schedule

2:30pm CDT

Politics on the Job, Politics from the Job

Thursday July 3, 2025 2:30pm - 4:00pm CDT

The workplace is not a bundle of ‘issues’ but an effective terrain upon which organizers can practice politics. At this session, contributors to Long-Haul, a new quarterly magazine of worker writing, will draw on the basics of organizing for collective action and recount how they traced a political line of march from the workplace toward interventions in Palestine solidarity, immigrant defense, and against the appeal of the far-right.

Speakers

Jason Flynn

Jason Flynn, Amazon and UPS teamster rank-and-file.

Sarah Mason

Sarah Mason, Long-Haul editorial collective member, and member-organizer of UAW4811 Palestine strike.

Dylan Davis

Dylan Davis, Long-Haul editorial collective member.

Sponsors

Long-Haul magazine

Thursday July 3, 2025 2:30pm - 4:00pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

7:30pm CDT

Labor and Community Organizing Against the MAGA Billionaire Agenda

Thursday July 3, 2025 7:30pm - 9:00pm CDT

TBA

As workers we have the power to change the course of this country and the world. Unions and community organizations have the organizational muscle to shut down Trump’s attacks and smash the far right. Hear from labor leaders and community organizers on the front lines of the growing coalitions building the power to stop the MAGA billionaire agenda.

Speakers

TBD

Thursday July 3, 2025 7:30pm - 9:00pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

10:00am CDT

The Use of Political Education in Union Campaigns

Friday July 4, 2025 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

While the urgent needs of organizing and fighting the boss naturally take top priority for union organizers and committees, political education of workers in struggle is a crucial but hard to prioritize investment that can turn committee leaders into committed trade union or even socialist activists for the long haul.

Speakers

Dylan Maraj

Alvin Gaine

Ira Pollock

Ira Pollock has been working at and organizing at Amazon warehouses in the NYC area for 6 years. Ira was a leader in Amazonians United and now the Logistics Workers League, an organization of logistics workers and allies dedicated to bringing a class struggle perspective and political... Read More →

Sponsors

Logistics Workers League

Friday July 4, 2025 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

12:00pm CDT

Debt is a Labor Issue: Unions and Debt Abolition

Friday July 4, 2025 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

In this interactive session audience members will develop a robust analysis and critique of debt and discuss campaigns for debt abolition led by organized labor. Organizing for better wages and benefits is to organize against debt. To organize for debt abolition is to strengthen the power of the working class.

Speakers

Jasson Perez

Lindsey Muniak

Lindsey Muniak is an organizer with the Debt Collective, where she leads national efforts to abolish medical debt, interrupt patterns of financialization in healthcare, and bring those who have experienced the failures of our profit-driven healthcare system into the fight for its... Read More →

Jason Wozniak

Jason Wozniak is associate professor and Coordinator of the Transformative Education and Social Change program at West Chester University. He is a researcher and organizer with Debt Collective, and Founder and Co-Director of The Latin American Philosophy of Education Society (LAPES... Read More →

Jeannine Woods

Jeannine Woods has been an educator for over 20 years. She currently serves as a District Organizer and a Functional Vice President on the Executive Board of the Chicago Teachers Union. Jeannine is also a member of the Illinois State Educator Preparation and Licensure Board (SEPLB... Read More →

Sponsors

Debt Collective

Friday July 4, 2025 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

3:00pm CDT

Public Workers and the Public Good

Friday July 4, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

The Trump administration is carrying out a comprehensive assault on the public sector, with federal workers and their labor unions on the frontline. How do these attacks fit into much longer arcs of austerity, privatization, and the defanging of organized labor? This panel brings together public sector workers from several different areas who are organizing not only to fight the decimation of our existing public infrastructure, but to build and advance a vision of a civil society that actually works for the public good, with rank & file workers leading the way.

Moderators

Lindsey Muniak

Speakers

Kathryn Zamarrón

Margaret Palmquist

Loreen Targos

Colin Smalley

Sponsors

In These Times

Friday July 4, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

5:00pm CDT

I Didn't Come Here to Lie: The Life and Legacy of Karen Lewis

Friday July 4, 2025 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

TBA

In 2012, Karen Lewis led the Chicago Teachers Union to a historic strike, challenging the city’s powerful mayor and paving the way for an unprecedented wave of teacher strikes in the decade that followed. Join us for a discussion and celebration of Karen's legacy and monumental impact on the labor movement today.

Speakers

TBD

Elizabeth Todd-Breland

Elizabeth Todd-Breland is the author of the award-winning A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s and an associate professor of history and affiliated faculty member in Black Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is a scholar... Read More →

Friday July 4, 2025 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement, Intro

5:00pm CDT

Workers Deserve More: DSA's National Labor Program

Friday July 4, 2025 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

TBA

In 2024, DSA members joined their coworkers on the picket line for major labor actions across the University of California, and at Amazon and Starbucks nationwide. Along with these campaigns, we are organizing worker networks and fighting back with federal workers in the midst of broadside attacks on the working class. Join us to learn more about these efforts!

Speakers

TBD

Shay

Shay (they/them) is a barista in Cleveland with Starbucks Workers United and a member of DSA's National Labor Commission. They were hired and joined their store's organizing committee in December 2021, and their store at University Circle unionized in July 2022. DSA's Solidarity is... Read More →

Sarah Hurd

Sarah Hurd is a co-chair of three Democratic Socialists Of America’s National Labor Commission. She is a staff organizer for the Illinois Nurses Association where she has specialized in guiding healthcare workers through contract negations and member driven strikes.

Sponsors

DSA

Friday July 4, 2025 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

10:00am CDT

Flores Magón, Workers Centers and Direct Action

Saturday July 5, 2025 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

The ideas of Ricardo Flores Magon of direct action, workers councils and more inform one of the most active workers center in Chicagoland, tactics which have been used in struggles against Nestle, Hello Fresh, Hearthside and beyond

Speakers

Cristobal Cavazos

Cristobal Cavazos, the son of migrant workers, was born in Chicagoland in 1979. The executive director of Casa Dupage Workers Center, Cristobal is active in the Chicagoland immigrant rights and labor movement. A revolutionary socialist, Cristobal is also an active journalist and... Read More →

Gaby Hernandez Chico

Gaby Hernandez Chico, from Mexico City, is the Co-Director of the Casa DuPage Workers Center. Gaby as leader of Casa Dupage is one of the leading women in the Chicagoland Labor Movement, and has a passionate for public speaking, popular education, poetry and feminism.

Sponsors

Casa Dupage Workers Center

Saturday July 5, 2025 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

3:00pm CDT

How Worker-to-Worker Unionism Can Transform America

Saturday July 5, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

At a bleak moment in US politics, the labor movement provides a rare source of hope. What are the main lessons of the bottom-up unionization surge that has swept the United States since 2021? And how can this grassroots labor momentum be continued under the new Trump administration?

Speakers

Eric Blanc

Eric Blanc is a co-founder of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, the author of the monograph, "We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big" (UC Press, 2025), and professor of labor studies at Rutgers University.

Jasson Perez

Sponsors

Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee

Saturday July 5, 2025 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

7:00pm CDT

UNION: Film Screening and Discussion

Saturday July 5, 2025 7:00pm - 8:30pm CDT

TBA

Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embark on an unprecedented campaign to unionize their warehouse in Staten Island, New York. UNION is the award-winning, feature-length documentary that tells their story. Join us for a screening followed by a conversation facilitated by Eric Blanc. *Please note: this session will be two hours*

Speakers

Eric Blanc

Connor Spence

Connor Spence is the president of ALU-IBT Local 1, formerly Amazon Labor Union. He has been an Amazon worker since 2017 and started organizing at Amazon during the pandemic in 2020. He was a founding organizer of the successful union campaign at Amazon’s JFK8 fulfillment center... Read More →

TBD

Saturday July 5, 2025 7:00pm - 8:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement