Joint Statement of the Members of SFDU. Released Apr. 15, 2025.

Our socialist caucus came together in stages, not all at once. We began with a group of politically like-minded rank-and-file members of our union, United Campus Workers of Georgia (UCW-GA), organized around a positive political position. A loose network of supporters and advocates for solidarity with the Palestinian working class came together organically before there was any discussion of forming a caucus.

But it was the external pressure of opposition that hardened our informal group into a more effective and more organized force. When union leadership prevented us from organizing an educational forum about Gaza, our resolve to fight for all our core issues—workers’ democracy, fair wages, internationalism, anti-racism, anti-capitalism, abolition of the carceral state, etc.—was renewed with a vengeance.

It was then that one of our members wrote to the group proposing that we form a caucus. She wrote:

“This morning I find myself wondering whether democracy in our union and solidarity with Palestine are really such distinct issues after all. At this moment it appears to me to be all one and the same political conflict: namely, class struggle. Let's structuralize already, and articulate a Leftist theory of the case: democracy and Palestinian liberation are the same international struggle, class struggle. Let's show our union comrades that true working-class solidarity means radical democracy, internationalism, and worker power—and that to neglect any of these aspects of class struggle undermines our effectiveness by revealing us to be hypocrites and liars who mouth Leftist slogans but do not understand them.”

Our caucus, “Socialists For a Democratic Union” now meets regularly. We're attending labor education events together. We’re reaching out to potential coalition partners, including socialist volunteer organizations and parties. We’re doing our own political education. We’ve even unintentionally recruited new union members. We’ve had folks sign up as union members after attending caucus meetings as guests.

And we're organizing like hell right now, both in our union and with others throughout the labor movement, to build strength for the fights ahead.

Will our caucus be persecuted for the political beliefs of its members, who are democratic socialists, anarchists, communists, and class-struggle unionists? Will we suffer discriminatory harassment or retaliation in the workplace, or even be discriminated against within our union? This is unknowable in this precarious historical moment. But our courage, like our strength, is in our numbers.

The old social rules of the 20th century according to which any hint of “socialism” marked one as a pariah no longer apply. In 2016 we saw a socialist candidate for President win over 9.5 million votes in the Democratic Party primaries. We can come out. We should come out. And we must come out as socialists, IN OUR PLACES OF WORK.