Working Groups
We are an intersectional organization with many areas of focus.
Communications and Editorial
We develop and publish content to various media, including our local journal Santa Cruz Left. We collaborate with other working groups to make sure they get the resources they need for getting their message out. We also manage communication within the group regarding upcoming meetings and actions.
email [email protected]
Ecosocialist
The Ecosocialist Working Group organizes to fight capitalism and build local power for climate, environmental, and multi-species justice. We work to spread an understanding that capitalism and imperialism must be fought against to cultivate the health of our planet and all of its beings, and we do so through public information campaigns, agitprop, literature, mutual aid, and direct actions. It is not enough to de-carbonize; we must also de-capitalize and decolonize.
In Santa Cruz, our work connects to a wide range of campaigns: working on housing justice (including for the unhoused), fighting against gentrification, and opposing the over-policing of the city is all integral to the environmental health of our city. Struggling for a Green New Deal, locally and nationally, means opposing a green capitalist future. We promote socialist ideas at Earth Day and climate strike events, and regularly hold radical education events.
email [email protected]
Electoral
The electoral working group is focused on doing work to influence election and policy outcomes via organizing around elections and direct action.
email [email protected]
Member Engagement (MEWG)
We are a working group aimed at recruitment, welcoming, retention, and engagement of potential and current members. All are welcome (even brand new members!). You are free to come just to see what we’re about too.
email [email protected]
Mutual Aid (a.k.a Love Boat)
The Mutual Aid Working Group meets weekly to distribute food, hygiene and first aid supplies to the unhoused community in Santa Cruz. Working from a theory of mutual aid, we aim to build networks of social solidarity between the housed and the unhoused to effectively combat anti-homeless politics and meet essential needs.
In the spirit of mutual aid, we seek not only to address the symptoms of homelessness but to confront its systemic causes. We devote time to organizing campaigns around issues that affect the unhoused community in group strategy meetings as needed.
Please email us if you are interested in joining our working group.
email [email protected]
Tenant Organizing Committee
Our goal is to support tenants in Santa Cruz county to create our own organizations to fight the power of landlords and the real estate industry. Our current project is a survey of DSA membership to learn about members’ living conditions and to support members in forming tenant organizations to better those conditions and gain power in their homes.
email [email protected]