Category: Labor

The International Food Crisis and Proposals To Overcome It

By ERIC TOUSSAINT and OMAR AZIKI [Editor’s note: We reprint this article by the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM). In 1989, the Bastille Appeal was launched, inviting popular movements throughout the world to unite in demanding the immediate and unconditional cancellation of the debt of the so-called developing countries. This crushing debt, along with neo-liberal macro-economic reforms imposed on the global South, has led to an explosion of worldwide inequality, mass poverty, flagrant injustice and the destruction of the environment.

Capitalism’s World Economic, Political and Social Crises and the Road to Fight Back

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.

Amazon Workers Electrify Labor

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.

Canada: Election 2021:  Results and Prospects

[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 →

My Friend Michael Ratner

[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 →

The PRO Act Is Not a Panacea for the Union Movement

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 →

In Bessemer Shadow, Maine Nurses Organize

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 →

Grace Carlson: Unsung Hero of the Early Trotskyist Movement

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 →

Fearing Radicalization, Biden Feigns Left

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 →

Behind Union Defeat at Amazon Bessemer

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 →

Brewery Workers Resist Concessions

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 →

Amazon Workers in Historic Battle for Union in Deep South

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 →