what we stand for

For a New Political Party for Working People

  • For a mass workers party drawing together workers, young people, and activists from environmental, civil rights, and women’s campaigns, to provide a fighting, political alternative to the corporate parties.
  • Unions and other social movement organizations should stop funding and supporting the Democratic and Republican Parties and instead organize independent left-wing, anti-corporate candidates and coalitions as a first step toward building a workers’ party.
  • The complete failure of the Biden administration to make good on campaign promises to expand the social safety net and begin to address climate change is opening the door again to the right and the far right, and exposes the dire need for a new working class political party not beholden to big business interests.
  • No attacks on democratic rights! We need to fight against all attempts at racist voter suppression being driven through by Republicans.

JOIN SA

Socialist Alternative is an active organization with members across the country. Joining means basic agreement with our ideas and a commitment to putting them into action. Apply to join and a member in your area will reach out to you shortly!

BECOME A SUPPORTER

Your monthly contribution will help us strengthen struggles around labor rights, the fight against racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia, and build the socialist movement in the U.S. and around the world!

Rebuild a Fighting Labor Movement

  • Under capitalism, nearly every single workplace is a dictatorship of the boss. Unions are the key tool workers have to fight the bosses for things we desperately need. 
  • We need mass unionization campaigns across the country to organize the millions of non-union workers in the U.S. 
  • As working people see prices go up on everything, we need to fight for pay raises above the rate of inflation. We need to fight to end the bosses’ tyranny in the workplace and for a shorter working week with no loss in pay.
  • We need to build and rebuild radical fighting unions that are fully democratic and driven by active participation of rank-and-file workers. 
  • We need accountable leadership in our unions. Union leaders should accept the average wage of a worker in their industry and should answer first and foremost to their membership and the broader working class. To win, this means union leaders being willing to use every tool at our disposal, including militant strikes, to win our demands. 
  • Unions should take up the broader issues facing the working class and mount a struggle against evictions, poverty, racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression!  

Fighting for the 99%

  • Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, as a step toward a living wage for all.
  • Free, high-quality healthcare for all. Replace the failed for-profit insurance companies with a publicly funded single-payer system as a step toward fully socialized medicine.
  • No budget cuts to education and social services! Full funding for all community needs, via a major increase in taxes on the rich and big business, not working people.
  • Create living-wage union jobs for all the unemployed through public works programs to develop mass transit, renewable energy, infrastructure, healthcare, education, and affordable housing.
  • For rent control combined with massive public investment in affordable housing.
  • A guaranteed decent pension for all. No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!
  • A minimum guaranteed weekly income of $600/week for the unemployed, disabled, stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and others unable to work.
  • Shorten the workweek with no loss in pay and benefits; share out the work with the unemployed and create new jobs.
  • Tax the rich and big business to fund permanently affordable, high-quality public housing. Raise the corporate tax rate to at least 35%!
  • Make the child tax credit permanent and fully fund high-quality, universal childcare. Cancel all student debt! Make public college tuition-free. 
  • We need an immediate transition to single payer healthcare. Take for-profit hospital chains into public ownership and retool them to provide free, state-of-the-art healthcare to every American.
  • Fully fund public education! End school privatization and the focus on high-stakes testing. We need a national hiring program to bring on board hundreds of thousands of new educators and support staff to accommodate a permanent reduction in class size. 

Fight Racist Oppression

  • Black Lives Matter! Build a mass movement against police brutality and the institutional racism of the criminal justice system. Invest in rehabilitation, job-training, and living-wage jobs, not prisons! 
  • Arrest and convict killer cops! Purge police forces of anyone with known ties to white supremacist groups or any cop who has committed violent or racist attacks. 
  • End the militarization of police. Ban police use of “crowd control” weapons. Disarm police on patrol. 
  • Cut bloated police budgets by at least 50% to fund housing, education, and social services. 
  • Put policing under the control of democratically-elected civilian boards with power over hiring and firing, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena.
  • Defend immigrant rights! Immediate, unconditional legalization and equal rights for all undocumented immigrants.
  • End occupations, deportations, and violence at the border. 
  • Racial oppression is fundamental to American capitalism and can only be ended by a multiracial mass workers movement that ends the rule of the bosses.

Fight the Oppression of Women and LGBTQ People 

  • Fight for free, safe, legal abortion! All contraception should be provided at no cost as part of a broad program for women’s reproductive health.
  • Full reproductive rights means universal childcare, high quality public housing, fully funded public schools, Medicare for All, and drastic climate action to ensure a healthy planet for the next generation. 
  • Fight sexual harassment, violence against women, and all forms of sexism.
  • Fight discrimination and violence against the LGBTQ community, and all forms of homophobia and transphobia..
  • Our movement must fight anti-trans legislation and “bathroom bills,” and win guaranteed equal protections at work for LGBTQ workers.
  • For a mass movement to defeat the attacks of Republican legislatures and reactionary judges on the rights of women and LGBTQ people.

Socialism and Internationalism

  • We completely oppose U.S. imperialism and all other imperialisms around the world and stand in solidarity with the struggles of workers and oppressed peoples of all countries.
  • Biden and the Democrats hypocritically say they want to defend “democracy” around the world while doing nothing to stop the attacks on democratic rights here at home. In reality they are happy to help dictatorships who are “allies” and their policy is dictated by the interests of corporate America. End the dangerous military buildup in the Western Pacific and Eastern Europe!
  • Take into public ownership the top 500 corporations and banks that dominate the U.S. economy. Run them under the democratic management of elected representatives of the workers and the broader public. Compensation to be paid on the basis of proven need to small investors, not millionaires.
  • A democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment. For a socialist United States and a socialist world.

 

The Whole System is Guilty!

  • Capitalism produces pandemics, poverty, inequality, environmental destruction, and war. We need an international struggle against this failed system.
  • We need a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the planet. 

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