OUR CAMPAIGNS

YDSA and DSA members are always fighting important battles for the working-class.

Here are some examples of our work:

College for all

YDSA is nationally organizing for College for All to cancel student debt, guarantee universal higher education, and end the crisis of unaffordable higher education.

You can find our "WHAT DOES COLLEGE FOR ALL MEAN" graphic explainer to the right, engage with us on our social media pages, or ask our members (we're tabling weekly)!

You deserve to be at WOU, and you shouldn't have to go into debt for the majority of your life to do so. Despite billing itself as the most affordable university in Oregon, 79 percent of WOU students graduate with student debt, the most of any Oregon university. Our Provost makes upwards of $500,000 and WOU spent $2.7 million to purchase an unecessary building in Salem last Fall. Do these seem like smart expenses when our student body is drowning in debt and WOU is already facing financial hardships? We don't think so. This isn't fair and it will end, but we need your help.

What would you do if your student debt disappeared? How would that financially help your family? Would less economic anxiety mean better grades? Are you pleased to know that 79 percent of WOU graduates have debt for the majority of their lives? That Provost Winningham makes half a million dollars a year? That WOU spent $2.7 million in Salem, instead of on students in Monmouth?

Email us at ydsawou@gmail.com to tell us, tweet us @ydsawou, or find us on Facebook at "YDSA WOU" and we'll fight with and for you. This is our fight, we deserve this, and we will win.

Medicare For ALl

YDSA chapters across the United States are organizing for an end to our barbaric healthcare system, the only in the industrialized world to not guarantee healthcare to all its citizens. Thousands of Americans die every year because they cannot afford healthcare, hundreds of thousands more slip into homelessness due to crippling healthcare costs, with the rest of the working-class on high alert due to the general economic anxiety of life under capitalism.

Every other industrialized nation in the world offers a universal healthcare system to its residents, and you shouldn't believe anybody who says we can't. The history of social change is radical movements fighting for that change. Power concedes nothing without a demand, after all.

As young people, we are acutely aware of the exorbitant costs of healthcare. Most of us will age out of coverage under our parents' plans in the coming years and be forced to fend for ourselves on the open healthcare market. Nobody should worry about how they will pay for health insurance. Nobody should profit off of those worries. When we win Medicare for All, we will all have access to the high quality healthcare that we all deserve to afford us the basic standard of living that human rights and human dignity promise. Nothing less. No middle ground.

campus labor

YDSA is committed to class struggle, and our strongest weapon in that fight is the collective power we build by unionizing. As socialists, we explicitly fight for unions and always stand in solidarity with their fights against the bosses.

Last year, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members at all seven Oregon universities voted to authorize a strike if their administrations did not concede to the demands of the union, who represents many workers who earn so little that they qualify for public assistance. We might not have been around then, but we will fight like hell for our comrades on campus and across Oregon if they reach that impasse again. Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong.

abolish ice

It is easy to forget that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has only existed since 2003. Both Republicans and Democrats agreed to the necessity of “border security,” and the separation of children began under Obama.

In its 15 years, ICE has done nothing but harm. If the news and images of the past few months have made you angry, if you now feel like a line has been crossed, know that the only thing that has changed is that you are finally hearing about it.

ICE has already commited crimes that meet the United Nations definition of genocide and is on track to exceed the worst atrocities in American history. Thousands of people are missing, familes are torn apart, and hundreds have died in ICE custody.

ICE is little more than a xenophobic bully force, showing no regard for human life and fulfilling the objectives of the worst death squads throughout the history of fascism. ICE is beyond hope for reform, it must be destroyed before it destroys anymore Black and Brown Lives.

Each generation before us fought to end the injustice they saw in their lifetimes. It is now our turn, we must abolish ICE.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From "2020 Has Shown Us the Future of Democratic Socialism" by Co-Chairs Ty K. and Soleil Smith of Knox College YDSA:

If we are to say that our mission as DSA and YDSA is to liberate America from capitalism, then we must recognize that America is not capitalist and racist, but capitalist because it is racist and racist because it is capitalist. Racism and capitalism exert their control over our lives together, as two parts of one whole. Ignoring one only remakes the other. Therefore, it is only together, as one whole, that we can hope to destroy them. We must recognize that the system of racial capitalism maintains its control primarily through the so-called law enforcement and criminal justice institutions. Then, we must do all that is in our power to tear these institutions down and replace them with a novel approach to justice that is restorative, transformative, and community-oriented.

socialism, usa

DSA FIGHTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY

THE people's bailout for ny

The NYC DSA chapters are building a coalition around the People's Bailout for NY, a COVID-19 response that puts people before profit.

Our comrades in New York are organizing for a response to the Coronavirus pandemic that:

  1. Makes COVID-19 testing and treatment free

  2. Protects and expands Medicaid

  3. Keeps workers safe and secure

  4. Cancels rent and protects tenants' homes

  5. Cancels debt payments

  6. Houses the homeless

  7. Decarcerates for public health

  8. Reduces policing to protect public health

  9. Ensures immigrant communities' safety and health

we stand in solidarity with the following local organizations and groups fighting for working people and oppressed groups: