By JEFF MACKLER Led by the dominant capitalist-imperialist nations, especially the U.S. and China, the system involves the capture and transfer of surplus value from workers in poorer countries to leading corporations in the advanced countries. Today, global value chain corporations that represent only 15 percent of all trading firms worldwide, capture some 80 percent of total trade.
Socialist Action newspaper for the summer of 2022: UKRAINE: NO TO THE U.S. PROXY WAR AND FASCIST COUP; and Women’s Rage: My Body, My Choice; May Day in Canada
By MARTY GOODMAN Workers in the U.S. may be on the cusp of a big labor upsurge. In 2021, petitions to hold union elections were up more than 50 percent over the previous year during the six months ending in March, on pace to reach its highest point in at least a decade. Successful organizing struggles at Amazon, Starbucks and other locations continue to grow. Angry younger workers in particular are stepping up to play militant leadership roles, many with Black Lives Matter protest experience.
By MARTY GOODMAN Protesters fighting for $15 per day were met with police repression from the U.S. backed dictatorship of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, including the police murder of a journalist.
By MARTY GOODMAN On Nov. 3, hunger striker and taxi worker leader, Bahravi Desai, shouted out to an exuberant crowd of taxi workers and supporters, “We won! We won!” as a deal was struck with the city to reduce loans on the artificially inflated cost of city-issued taxi medallions.
By MARTY GOODMAN Protesting Indian farmers were called “terrorists,” Sikh faith separatists, Maoists, and agents of Pakistan but their massive year-long mobilizations forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his far-right party to cancel its three pro-agribusiness laws first enacted in September 2020.
By MALIK MIAH Thousands of workers are on strike right now in the United States, in what is being dubbed “Striketober”. In some cases, bosses are using “replacements” (scabs) to cross pic
By MARTY GOODMAN An October 5 strike of 155,000 steelworkers by the rebel NUMSA union and working-class riots in July have shaken South African capitalism.
[We print below material on the recent Canadian elections from our sister party, Socialist Action/Canada. Editor] by Barry Weisleder To quote Yogi Berra, “It’s deja-vu all over again.” The 2021 federal election, which Justin Trudeau called just to gain a majority of seats, looks much like the 2019 election result. The same parties are in place, … Continue reading Canada: Election 2021: Results and Prospects
[The following is the July 27, 2021 presentation by Michael Steven Smith at a book party in New York City’s Lower East Side sponsored by the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild to celebrate the publication of Michael Ratner‘s memoir, “Moving the Bar: My Life as a Radical Lawyer. Smith is a lifelong socialist … Continue reading My Friend Michael Ratner
By Ann Montague The “Protecting The Right To Organize Act” (PRO ACT 2021) was recently called a “Game-Changer for Labor” by Sonali Kolhatkar in an article in Counterpunch. The most important fact apparently forgotten was that a muscular and empowered working class does not come from legislation. A basic look at union history in the … Continue reading The PRO Act Is Not a Panacea for the Union Movement
By James Fortin With the defeat of the unionizing effort at Amazon in Bessemer, Alabama, it is encouraging to witness the ongoing and undaunted efforts of nurses in Maine to join a union. Voting is now underway for the 1900 nurses who work at Maine Medical Center (Maine Med), in Portland, Maine, to decide whether … Continue reading In Bessemer Shadow, Maine Nurses Organize
By Ann Montague Grace Carlson was the only female member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) (predecessor organization of Socialist Action) to be convicted and sentenced under the notorious anti-communist Smith Act of 1940. She was sentenced to sixteen months in the Federal Correctional Facility For Women in Alderson, West Virginia. The trial and convictions … Continue reading Grace Carlson: Unsung Hero of the Early Trotskyist Movement
By Jeff Mackler The corporate media hoopla attendant to President Joseph Biden’s announced $2.5 trillion infrastructure proposal aims at putting Biden in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt New Deal-era crowd of “progressive” capitalist social reformers. The “centrist” Biden has been instantly converted to a “man of the people” whose legislative proposals are claimed to far exceed … Continue reading Fearing Radicalization, Biden Feigns Left
By Jeff Mackler and Mark Ostapiak When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall runThere can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sunYet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of oneBut the union makes us strong (From the trade union anthem “Solidarity Forever”) Would it be that the inspiration … Continue reading Behind Union Defeat at Amazon Bessemer
BY BARRY WEISLEDER Call it the growing gap. Actually, chasm might be a more apt term to describe the breach between workers’ aspirations and what most union leaders are willing to do to fight the concession demands of the boss class. Helping to close that chasm is the Canadian Union of Brewery and General Workers’ Local 325. The workers at … Continue reading Brewery Workers Resist Concessions
By Karen Schieve Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos is a very rich man, among the richest in the world. He owns numerous palaces and the Blue Origins rocket launching pad in Texas for private space travel and exploration. Mr. Bezos has become even richer from the profits of Whole Foods, an up-scale grocery chain, and from The Washington Post newspaper. … Continue reading Amazon Workers in Historic Battle for Union in Deep South
By MARTY GOODMAN De Blasio wants to balance the budget on the backs of workers. The money should be raised instead by taxing the rich!
By MARC ROME A new mass movement is questioning the very foundations of the US police system, including its role in perpetuating the inequality and divisions among workers based on race.
By ANN MONTAGUE In an opinion issued in the context of a mass movement demanding justice, equality and an end to discrimination, the Supreme Court immediately expanded job protections to LGBTQ workers in 23 states where none had existed.
By DON HARMON Workers at meatpacking plants are suffering extremely high levels of coronavirus infection, due to lack of protection, while the plants become hotspots for widespread outbreaks in their towns and cities.
By MARTY GOODMAN Over 130 New York City transit workers have died of COVID-19 with MTA doing little to protect the largely Black, Latino, and immigrant workforce. As one train conductor says, "We are not essential. We are sacrificial."
By BARRY SHEPPARD May Day saw significant actions by workers in essential companies serving the general public during the shutdown.
By MARTY GOODMAN On December 5th, French workers walked off the job in massive numbers to protest a proposed attack on pension rights by French President Emmanuel Macron. The proposal would change the age required for public workers to receive full retirement benefits from 62 to 64. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe bluntly told the … Continue reading Workers Shut Down France to Defend Pensions!
By DAVID JONES Some 47,897 United Automobile Workers (UAW) ended their six-week strike against U.S. auto manufacturing giant General Motors on October 31. Fifty UAW-organized plants were closed across the country with the union demanding increased job security, a gateway for temporary workers to become permanent, better pay and to retain healthcare benefits. The contract … Continue reading Courageous UAW strike ends with few gains
You must be logged in to post a comment.