Candidate Statement: Katy SS. - At Large

I’m running for At-Large on the Bread & Roses slate in order to lead based on a strategy of mass movement building. In early 2019, I began work on our chapter’s Bernie campaign. I led the Big Canvass Team and trained dozens of new organizers. I’m currently a Co-Chair of the 2020 Committee (Electoral Committee), and a member of the Endorsements Subcommittee. Prior to the Bernie campaign, I helped to write the “Let’s Own PG&E” website, and worked on the 2018 Jovanka Beckles and statewide rent control campaigns. Outside of DSA, I work as a State employee to regulate insurance companies, where I’m a steward in my union. I live in Oakland and am a proud lesbian.

This coming year will be a challenge for our chapter and for the world at large. COVID-19 is exacerbating the preexisting structural inequalities in our system. Due to these conditions workers are fighting back, so we must prioritize supporting worker militancy. We should do this through embedding socialists in the rank and file, and through external support for labor actions (such as strike support campaigns, and the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee). At the same time, we need to campaign for class-struggle candidates who will amplify workers’ struggles, and push for policies that materially aid the working class.

We should remain an externally focused organization that is committed to diversifying our socialist movement and rooting it in the multiracial working class. Our chapter brought in hundreds of new activists through our Bernie campaign, and reached tens of thousands of people in the East Bay. We should help these new activists develop, and work to bring in those who we reached through canvassing. I will aim to make sure our chapter is a welcoming space — one which prioritizes mentorship of organizers, political education, and comradely political debate.