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
Superior

Labor Movement

4:30pm CDT

How Veterans & Labor Are Fighting VA Union Busting And Privatization

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

Erie

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

Stuart Hall is a native of central Florida, a 22-year resident of Chicago, and a veteran of the United States Navy.As a Navy veteran, Stuart was a systems operator aboard the s3a Viking, a carrier-based anti-submarine warfare aircraft. His most significant area of operation was Beirut... Read More →

Dan Blough

Daniel Blough leads recruiting relationships as a member of Loyola University Chicago's Career Services. He works with non-profit and mission driven organizations, education, arts and culture, media, government, and law. Dan is a Loyola alum, earning his BA and MA in Philosophy here... Read More →

Grace Neudek

Grace Neudek is a union organizer with SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas (HCIIMK), where she works alongside VA hospital workers to build power and advocate for quality public healthcare. A graduate of Earlham College, she holds a master's degree in Peace and Social... Read More →

Lisa Dadabo

Lisa Dadabo is a Vice President at AFGE Local 789 at the Jesse Brown VA, (Chicago, Illinois) and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker/Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor who focuses on the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She also maintains a small private therapy... Read More →

Sponsors

Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute

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

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

Jackson Park A

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
Jackson Park A

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

Adler ABC

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
Adler ABC

Labor Movement

10:00am CDT

Labor at the Margins

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

Field ABC

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

Maya Tatum

Katherine Passley

Kim Kelly

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

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

Adler ABC

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
Adler ABC

Labor Movement

3:00pm CDT

Connecting with Coworkers to Form Your Union

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

Clark ABC

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

Dawn Tefft

Dawn Tefft works as a union representative and organizer, volunteers as a Lead Organizer and Advanced Organizer for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), and volunteers with the Federal Unionists Network (FUN). She has helped develop and facilitate labor trainings... Read More →

Araya Barnes

Araya is a trainer and organizer for EWOC and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. They most frequently work at the intersection of the labor and electoral arms of the DSA.

Rumin

Rumin supports trainings at EWOC that help workers launch efforts to organize their workplace. In her day job, she conducts public health research.

AK Alilonu

AK is a Southsider, an organizer with EWOC and one of the coordinators for its Chicago local, CHIWOC. He works as a union lawyer at the Illinois Nurses Association.

Atulya Dora-Laskey

Atulya was an organizing and bargaining committee member for the first-ever unionized Chipotle. She is now an EWOC volunteer and a staff organizer for the University of Illinois Chicago United Faculty. She is trying to read more.

Sponsors

EWOC

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

Labor Movement

5:00pm CDT

Who Moves America: Film Screening and Discussion

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

Clark ABC

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.

Moderators

Jesse Sharkey

Jesse Sharkey is the former president of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Speakers

Yael Bridge

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

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

Grant Park AB

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. 

TBD

Sponsors

May Day Strong

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

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

Field ABC

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
Field ABC

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

Jackson Park B

Rank-and-file movements in labor unions have shaped the terrain of labor struggle in recent years, with varying impact within union halls and on the shop floor. 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, now the leading voices of the left and right labor bureaucracy, respectively, represent the culmination of two prominent union reform movements in recent years. While their initial promises of increased militancy and new organizing were refreshing, their administrations have yielded mixed results and often reinforced existing old-guard forces within the labor bureaucracy and the U.S. two-party system. At a time of all-time low unionization rates and decreased strike activity, we need to evaluate how to build rank-and-file movements capable of confronting the state and capital on key questions of our moment, from fighting ICE and imperialist wars to organizing the South. We’ll discuss and debate strategies for socialists organizing to build class-struggle unions.

Moderators

Toni Gilpin

Toni Gilpin is a labor historian, author of The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland

Speakers

Andrew Bergman

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

Andrew Bergman is an assembly worker at General Motors, member of UAW Local 22, and UAWD Co-Chair

Nelson Lichtenstein

Nelson Lichtenstein is a historian of labor and capital, biographer of Walter Reuther, author of Why Labor Unions Matter (2026).

Luigi Morris

Luigi Morris is an immigrant worker, a labor journalist, and a member of Left Voice. He is a former UPS warehouse worker and a former member of Teamsters Local 804 in NYC.

Margie Thornton

Margie Thornton is a legal services worker in Colorado, steward in UAW Local 2320, UAWD Steering Committee member.

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

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

Field ABC

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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