The Little-Known Democratic Socialist Plan to Reshape the American Left Through Labor Unions

The Democratic Socialists of America is quietly building a network of activists to influence unions that are central to the Democratic Party.

The organization’s plan encourages young socialists to select jobs where they can either unionize or join existing unions and move them further to the Left. While most Americans are aware of DSA-backed officeholders Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani, the strategy of placing members in unions may actually yield more important dividends to the organization’s long-term goals.

The Rank-and-File Strategy

From 2018 to 2021, the Young Democratic Socialists of America adopted a “rank-and-file” strategy as a national priority, emphasizing that “socialists must enter the labor movement on the shop floor as rank and file members of labor unions.”

The goal, as the group explained it, was “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.”

“We aim to turn the unions we join into strong, militant, democratic organizations that can win major gains for workers, by workers,” the rank-and-file project’s website stated.

Why infiltrate the unions? To leverage them for the Left’s omni cause, the group explicitly stated.

“We want to forge real alliances between unions and other social movements, like the climate justice movement, the racial justice movement, the movement for Palestine, and the movement for LGBTQ+ rights,” the website states. “And we think unions must serve a vital role in forging a political alternative to the hard-right, authoritarian Republican Party and the fake, corporate-friendly ‘progressivism’ of the Democratic Party.”

The YDSA added that it was organizing members to enter “strategic industries—such as logistics, education, and health care.”

DSA released a pamphlet titled “Why Socialists Should Become Teachers,” urging socialists to enter the teaching profession not just to make more schools join unions, but to shape how teachers’ unions make their demands. It presented as a test case a socialist group of West Virginia teachers. The union had demanded higher wages, but the socialists within urged leaders to make a more explicit demand: not just to pay teachers more, but to raise taxes on corporations and fossil fuel companies in order to finance it.

In the socialists’ vision, unions don’t just advocate for higher wages, they use those demands to shape government policy—sometimes on completely unrelated issues.

In 2020, the YDSA voted to build a pipeline to prepare students for these sort of strategic jobs.

Why Infiltrate the Unions?

America’s largest unions don’t just mobilize workers to fight for better wages and benefits. Many of them operate as hubs of leftist advocacy and engines for the Democrat Party.

As I documented in “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” America’s largest unions back Democrats and oppose Republicans.

The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrialized Organizations spent approximately $5.5 million supporting Democrats in the 2020 cycle and $1.15 million opposing Republicans. The Service Employees International Union spent $13.4 million supporting Democrats and $2.54 million opposing Republicans. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees spent $15.5 million opposing Republicans and $4.7 million supporting Democrats.

The National Education Association, America’s largest teachers union, gave $2.44 million to Democrats and only $64,830 to Republicans in 2020. The American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers union, gave $2.54 million to Democrats and $7,002 to Republicans.

These unions also funnel millions of dollars to leftist nonprofits such as the Center for American Progress and the Human Rights Campaign, and to the Left’s dark-money foundations that bankroll a host of leftist causes.

If the DSA can dominate these unions, it will enjoy a massive organizing base—not just to win elections but to shift the entire apparatus behind the Democrat Party and the so-called Progressive movement.

Unlike many activist groups, unions enjoy organizational advantages, such as permanent membership roles, stable funding streams, paid staff, political influence, and the ability to mobilize large numbers of people. That’s why unions provide powerful organizing infrastructure—often for the Democrat Party.

Furthermore, the rank-and-file strategy’s website features a “case studies” page outlining historic attempts to mobilize and radicalize union members.

The case study into Teamsters for a Democratic Union outlines how a small number of radical union members fought for political dominance inside the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. This history shows how political battles within unions prove helpful training grounds for socialists as they prepare to enter mainstream politics.

DSA members running for public office have already garnered some support from local unions.

Zohran Mamdani received the endorsement of DC 37, New York City’s largest public-sector union, in August 2025. DC 37, an AFSCME affiliate that represents 150,000 city workers, had previously backed establishment Democrats. Socialists have praised the endorsement as a victory for “rank-and-file organizing,” though it seems that effort was separate from the rank-and-file project.

As the DSA turns its sights to unions, its influence on the Democrat Party will increase, and it will train up a new generation of political organizers.

Americans should pay close attention to these efforts.