“MASS WORK”—WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Mass work refers to a specific kind of organizing that is focused on organizing alongside working class people to fight directly against the everyday aspects of capitalist exploitation and domination, and against social structures that hold back the potential for mass action of the working class. As we see it, mass work does the following: 

1. Engages in a form of organizing work that breaks barriers between different kinds of working class people.
2. Brings working class people into an organization as active participants, not as passive members guided by professionals.
3. Engages in a practice of politics that, taken together, can shift the balance of power more in the favor of the working class. 
4. Builds the power of working class people in their everyday lives through their own organizations, not simply as a constituency relating to the larger political system.
5. Develops DSA members organizing abilities and transforms our movement into a tribune for diverse working class concerns and fights. 
6. Lays down organizational infrastructure through fighting against real instances of exploitation and domination, and therefore that makes socialism synonymous with solidaristic fightbacks. 

The move towards mass work can help solve current problems in our organization. Many DSA chapters are defunct and have fallen into inactivity. Many others are not sure what they should be doing to grow their membership and build momentum. National campaigns that are pre-manufactured to work “out of a box” have not grown our capacity as a movement or helped anchor chapters in their local working class fights. 
We envision an organization that can self-consciously understand DSA members who are organizing in their neighborhoods against landlords, in their union against defunct leadership, or in their worksites against bosses as active, core members of the organization. Mass work means changing how we understand socialism as a practice.