An August 14 article in Politico, based on an internal memo, details the plans of New York City DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) to “penetrate” some of the city’s major labor unions. Union leadership should be happy that so many young people want to help build and strengthen the labor movement, which needs all the help it can get. But not everyone feels this way. NYC Central Labor Council president Vinny Alvarez, for one, accused the DSA of sowing “seeds of disunity . . . with plans for infiltration and disruption.” And the Hotel Trades Council has sent spies to DSA Labor Branch meetings (a fact Politico does not report).

Old guard unease aside, taking union jobs, strategically helping to build the organizations, and, in the long run, shaping their political presence, is exactly what DSA should be doing.

There is no better way to fight capital — and, in the public sector, austerity — than by using our own power as workers: forming unions, making demands, and, most saliently, threatening to withdraw that labor and sometimes going on strike. This work goes on all the time, without socialists; we are far from the only (or even the best) people to do it. But we need to be involved.