Groundwork Caucus

As of the 2025 DSA National Convention, Groundwork held more seats than any other caucus on the DSA’s National Political Committee with five.  ²

Background

Groundwork is a caucus within the Democratic Socialists of America. Groundwork claims that its main objective is to turn the DSA into a large, influential political party in the United States. Groundwork asserts that only an “unapologetic left can wage the popular ideological warfare” to “stop the fascist scapegoating of trans people, immigrants, women, and near everyone else, and point mass outrage where it belongs: capitalists.”  ¹

Groundwork claims it prefers to organize primarily through unions on labor issues as opposed through organizing and recruiting through political activism. Groundwork also states that its goal is to increase recruitment efforts by taking advantage of times of increased political polarization.  ³

Platform

Groundwork claims it wants to use “Left-Labor Power” to build the Democratic Socialists of America towards “the General Strike and General Election.” Part of Groundwork’s stated electoral strategy is to build coalitions of left-of-center unions to support and campaign for DSA candidates. Groundwork claims that “management has no right to exist” and declares that “Migrant and Trans Rights are Labor rights.” Furthermore, Groundwork advocates repealing right-to-work laws, particularly in the South, and repealing the Taft-Hartley Act that permits states to adopt them.  ³

Groundwork advocates for “abortion rights, women’s liberation, and trans people’s bodily autonomy,” further stating that what it describes as “traditional family” structure as the “foundation of reactionary notions of social order.” Groundwork claims these notions must be challenged to achieve the classless society. Groundwork also condemns what it describes as the “ancient” and “violent” oppression of “transmisogyny,” insisting that the DSA should be a leader in combatting “genocidal attacks on trans lives.” Groundwork supports legislation granting children the right to access sex-change procedures regardless of parental consent.  ³

The group also insists that transgender political candidates should be particularly recruited to run in areas where the DSA thinks they may have better chances of electoral success.  ³

People

As of 2025, Ashik Siddique, a member of Groundwork, was a national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and a member of the DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC), which the DSA describes as functionally its 25-person board of directors. He previously worked on Metro DC DSA’s Steering Committee from 2018 through 2019 and worked on the DSA for Bernie Sanders committee in 2020. He was first elected to DSA’s NPC in 2021.  ^{4  5}

Including Siddique, Groundwork had five caucus members on the DSA’s NPC, meaning that Groundwork was the caucus that held the most seats on the NPC after the 2025 DSA Convention.  ²

DSA

Groundwork is composed of members of the far-left Democratic Socialists of America, a political advocacy organization that claims to have over 80,000 members nationwide.  ⁶

The DSA asserts that the “capitalist economic system is the cause of violence, unemployment, and a climate crisis that poses an existential threat to life on earth.” As part of its platform, the DSA advocates that large businesses should be subject to government ownership and control.  ⁷

The DSA also demands taxpayer-funded public higher education and the cancellation of all student loan debt, an end to the “War on Drugs,” universal government-funded single-payer health care, the abolition of mandatory minimum sentences and cash bail, an end to all economic sanctions including those imposed on Venezuela and Iran, voting rights for noncitizens and those with a criminal conviction, and a reduction of the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review.  ⁷

Furthermore, the DSA advocates increased access to abortions and increased access to sex-change procedures. The group also advocates for unrestricted migration and access to social services for all migrants.  ⁷