Socialism 2026: Full Schedule

2:30pm CDT

Friday September 4, 2026 2:30pm - 4:00pm CDT

Are you interested in organizing your workplace? Join Jaz Brisack, co-founder of Starbucks Workers United, for an inside look at the skills, tactics, and practices that make inside organizing most effective, and gain hands-on practice in mapping a workplace and untangling workplace dynamics.

Speakers

Jaz Brisack

Jaz Brisack is a union organizer and the co-director of the Inside Organizer School, which trains workers to unionize their workplaces. They have worked on campaigns at companies ranging from Nissan to Starbucks to Tesla to Ben & Jerry's. They are the author of Get on the Job and... Read More →

Friday September 4, 2026 2:30pm - 4:00pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

4:30pm CDT

How Veterans & Labor Are Fighting VA Union Busting And Privatization

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT

TBA

The murder of VA nurse member Alex Pretti drew national attention to federal worker resistance to Trump. On this panel, a VA care-giver, VA patient, and healthcare activist will report on labor/community campaigning to keep our best working model of socialized medicine from being privatized and dismantled.

Speakers

Stuart Hall

Dan Blough

Grace Neudek

Lisa Dadabo

Sponsors

Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

4:30pm CDT

Unveiling the Prophet: Anti-Labor Secret Societies and Their Activist Enemies

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT

TBA

Every December, St. Louis elites crown one of their daughters the Queen of Love and Beauty in a ceremony that celebrates the breaking of strikes and the enforcement of racial hierarchies. The Veiled Prophet Society has shaped the course of American history, and is an important example of how shadowy elites organize themselves against working-class power. Join Devin Thomas O’Shea as he explores the history of the secret society that has controlled St. Louis for over a century, and the lessons learned by the local activists who have pushed back against its power.

Speakers

Kim Kelly

Devin Thomas O'Shea

Devin Thomas O’Shea is the author of The Veiled Prophet: Secret Societies, White Supremacy, and the Struggle for St. Louis. His writing has appeared in The Nation, Slate, The Iowa Review, Jacobin, Boulevard, and elsewhere.

Friday September 4, 2026 4:30pm - 6:00pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

10:00am CDT

Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World's Most Powerful Industry

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

As tech bosses fall in line with the right, tech workers are fighting back. Join Clarissa Redwine and JS Tan as they explore the history and lessons of the tech worker movement that has been taking on their own employers since the early 2020s, drawing crucial insights from this inspiring workers' movement and analyzing the rise of the hostile labor politics that define Silicon Valley today.

Speakers

Clarissa Redwine

Clarissa Redwine helped organize the Kickstarter union and cofounded the tech organizing conference Circuit Breakers. Her organizing work has been featured in The New York Times, the BBC, The Guardian, The Verge, TechCrunch, and elsewhere. She is co-author of Against Tech Oligarchy... Read More →

JS Tan

JS Tan is getting his PhD at MIT and formerly worked in tech. His work has been featured in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, Dissent, Jacobin, Foreign Policy, The Baffler, and The Guardian, among other outlets. He is co-author of Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance... Read More →

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

10:00am CDT

Labor at the Margins

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

While union representation in the US remains at an all time low, labor organizing is resurgent. But as the US economy shifts from an industrial to a high-tech and service economy, and as the working class confronts intensified forms of criminalization, the sites of worker agitation have expanded beyond the factory floor. In the process, workers traditionally at the “margins” of the labor movement—such as sex workers and formerly incarcerated workers—are reshaping the struggle for worker power and deepening our understanding of how capitalism exploits and punishes workers in the twenty-first century. Moderated by journalist Kim Kelly, this panel will hear from Maya (Sex Worker Organizing Project—Chicago) and Kat (Beyond the Bars) about their organizing and the ways the wider labor movement can learn from labor at the “margins.”

Speakers

Katherine Passley

Kim Kelly

TBD

Saturday September 5, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

12:00pm CDT

Rank and File Lessons from a New York Nurses Strike in the Mamdani Era

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

Hear how the rank-and-file leaders of the longest nurses’ strike in NY history defeated multimillionaire hospital CEOs on the freezing picket lines by defying concessionary agreements from their own leadership and using open bargaining strategies to build unity, to win pay raises, staffing/workplace safety standards and protections against ICE.

Speakers

Roxana Garcia

Roxanna Garcia has been an active a member of NYSNA, throughout her 14 year career as an RN and NP. During the January 2026 strike, she served on the Contract Action Team and as a Strike Captain, acting as a liaison between members and leadership, supporting colleagues, and helping... Read More →

Beth Loudin

Beth Loudin is a NYC Union nurse who specializes in cardiac neonatal intensive care while leading her local bargaining unit as president of NYSNA at NYP. Beth lives in Brooklyn with her husband and toddler.

TBD

Saturday September 5, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

3:00pm CDT

Connecting with Coworkers to Form Your Union

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

Trying to organize your workplace? Want to learn how to have conversations that move people to action? Join the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) for a training on tried and true methods of organizing: how to build relationships, ask good questions, and bring your coworkers in to join the campaign.

Speakers

AK Alilonu

Araya Barnes

Atulya Dora-Laskey

Rumin Sarwar

Dawn Tefft

Sponsors

EWOC

Saturday September 5, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

5:00pm CDT

Who Moves America: Film Screening and Discussion

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 7:00pm CDT

TBA

As the deadline for a historic strike looms, UPS workers across the country navigate the challenges of building solidarity with their 340,000 co-workers. Feature documentary Who Moves America joins Teamsters in New York, California, and Kentucky. Join us for a conversation with Teamsters organizer Antonio Rosario.

Speakers

Yael Bridge

Saturday September 5, 2026 5:00pm - 7:00pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

10:00am CDT

The General Strike and How to Build a Stronger, Bolder, and Bigger Pro-Democracy Labor Movement

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

TBA

For the last several years, May Day has been a touchstone for deepening relationships among unions and labor activists, building powerful local and national actions. As we look toward 2028’s “General Strike” moment, this discussion situates this organizing within a larger framework of election protection, Labor Day actions, and more necessary steps to strengthen the labor movement.

Speakers

Sean Fulkerson

Griffin Mahon

Griffin Mahon is a DC-based union organizer and a cochair of DSA's National Labor Commission. 

Jessica Tang

Sponsors

May Day Strong

Sunday September 6, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

12:00pm CDT

The State of Worker Organizing in the South and the Southern Workers Assembly

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT

TBA

The level of organization of workers in the U.S. South is at a crossroad. This crossroad meets at the current motion of workers who are finding ways to wage struggle alongside various social movement formations and the necessity of building a unified front. The unification of these movements into an advanced worker’s movement is necessary. This session will explore the role of the Southern Workers Assembly within this struggle.

Speakers

james pope

Abdul Alkalimat

Destiny Blackwell

Mike Goldfield

Sponsors

Southern Workers Assembly

Sunday September 6, 2026 12:00pm - 1:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

3:00pm CDT

Radicalizing Labor Unions: A Balance Sheet of Reform, Class Struggle, and Rank-and-file Movement-Building

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA

Rank-and-file movements in labor unions have shaped the terrain of labor struggle in recent years. Some have served primarily as “reform” vehicles for a wing of the union bureaucracy, while others have anchored rank-and-file struggles on the shop floor with a reinvigorated class-struggle vision. UAW President Shawn Fain and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien represent the culmination of two prominent union reform movements in recent years, but their promise of increased militancy and new organizing has yielded mixed results. How can we build class-struggle unions capable of confronting the state and capital?

Speakers

Andrew Bergman

Co-Chair, Unite All Workers For Democracy (UAWD)

Nelson Lichtenstein

Luigi Morris

Margie Thornton

Sunday September 6, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
TBA

Labor Movement

5:00pm CDT

The Strike that Shook the Bay: San Francisco’s Historic 2026 Educator Strike and the Coming California Strike Wave

Sunday September 6, 2026 5:00pm - 6:30pm CDT

TBA

Earlier this year, United Educators of San Francisco led six thousand members out on the first SF public school strike in half a century. In a city seemingly dominated by big tech capital and real estate, and against the opposition of the leaders in the SF and California Democratic Party, UESF won a historic contract for teachers and the community. Join us for a discussion of how this strike was built through years of organizing, a big democratic bargaining team, and bold left-wing politics, and what’s next for California educators.

Speakers

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