Australian union boss Sally McManus defends government attack on construction workers
McManus’ comments were a graphic display of the role of the entire union bureaucracy as an agency of the government and the major employers.
•Oscar Grenfell
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In massive repudiation of IAM bureaucracy, Boeing workers overwhelmingly reject sellout contract
The revolt is a massive repudiation of the IAM bureaucracy and the Biden-Harris administration, which has worked closely with IAM leaders to prevent a walkout at the key US aerospace and defense corporation.
•Bryan Dyne
On the history of Washington’s ties to the Ukrainian Banderites and their role in the war against Russia
Moss Robeson is a young, independent researcher in New York City who has run a prominent blog “Bandera Lobby,” about the history and contemporary political role of the movement associated with the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
•Clara Weiss
Total capitulation by US Federal Reserve on bank regulation
Proposed measures gutted after an intense campaign by major banks employing nearly 500 lobby groups.
•Nick Beams
Rail union BMWED releases details of sellout agreements with CSX, Norfolk Southern
BMWED’s proposed contracts are part of a broader effort by the rail union bureaucracies to force through pro-company deals across the industry before the expiration of the current contract on December 31, 2024.
•Bill Mertz
Authorizing NATO weapons strikes in Russia, US prepares major escalation of global war
The United States and its NATO allies are imminently preparing to announce that they will facilitate Ukraine firing NATO weapons deep into Russian territory, in the greatest escalation of the war with Russia to date.
•Andre Damon
Republicans continue racist anti-immigrant agitation after bomb threats force closure of Springfield, Ohio City Hall
Despite bomb threats and pleas from local residents to cease the racist attacks, Trump and his fascist allies continued to incite violence and terror against immigrants.
•Jacob Crosse
One month into mpox PHEIC: Redux of vaccine nationalism and pandemic profiteering
With life-saving mpox vaccines barely trickling into Africa, cases continue to rise rapidly, including in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC and home to 17 million people.
•Benjamin Mateus
I Saw the TV Glow: A life unfulfilled
Jane Schoenbrun’s film is an enigmatic, at times disturbing portrait of a socially alienated youth.
•Carlos Delgado
The threat of bird flu reaching Australia
While authorities are downplaying the dangers of the H5N1 virus, it can evolve very rapidly and every spillover event into humans heightens the possibility of a variant with human-to-human transmission.
•Frank Gaglioti
Canadian authorities keep a lid on the ravages caused by Long COVID
After months of insisting that the pandemic is over and dismantling what limited public health measures remained, all levels of government are now working to keep the public in the dark about an upswing in COVID cases and are keeping the lid on data that reveals the dangers of contracting Long COVID.
•Frédéric Charlebois
Shooter still at large after 5 motorists injured on Interstate-75 in Kentucky
A manhunt is underway in Daniel Boone National Forest after the alleged shooter took position on a ledge overlooking Interstate-75 and opened fire on motorists
•Milo Stevens
The AFL-CIA’s Solidarity Center expands operations in Latin America
The AFL-CIO is expanding its operations across Latin America to levels not seen since the 1970s, when it trained and sponsored thousands of union officials in support of CIA-backed coups and dictatorships.
•Andrea Lobo
Wildfires erupt across Southern California amid sweltering heat wave
Three large fires continue to burn across Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange Counties amid a heat wave that brought triple-digit temperatures over the weekend.
•Joshua Rodriguez
Germany’s “migration summit:” A booster for the far-right AfD
For weeks, Germany’s government and opposition parties have been competing with their proposals on how to turn back refugees, seal off borders and undermine the basic right to asylum.
•Peter Schwarz
Israel kills humanitarian workers, children and displaced people in spree of war crimes
The barely disguised reality is that Israel considers humanitarian workers “terrorists” and enemy combatants, working against its war aims of the extermination and expulsion of the Palestinian people.
•Thomas Scripps
Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa
Rail strikes across Italy over two days to protest low wages and poor work-life balance; cost-of-living strikes and protests continue across Iran, involving energy and telecommunication workers, teachers, farmers and retirees; confectionery workers at Premier Foods in Johannesburg, South Africa on indefinite walkout to demand living wage
•
Kenyan trade unions shut down aviation workers’ strike in one of Africa’s largest airports
The airport contributes more than $9.5 billion to the economy annually—around 4.6 percent of Kenya’s GDP. The unions, however, had no intention of fully leveraging workers’ power.
•Kipchumba Ochieng
After the Grenfell Fire inquiry: Where are the arrests?
People made decisions they knew risked working-class lives, and they were happy to do so because they considered those lives valueless next to the profits to be made.
•Thomas Scripps
Australian police rampage against protesters at massive weapons expo in Melbourne
The police operation, involving the use of rubber bullets and flashbang grenades, was an assault on the population aimed at criminalising the right to protest.
•Oscar Grenfell, Eric Ludlow
Mounting concerns in US-NATO circles over critical minerals and war with China
The United States and its European allies are increasingly concerned that efforts taken so far to stop China’s control over the global critical mineral supply chain are inadequate, complicating US-led preparations for war.
•Gabriel Black
Vote “No” on the sellout contract! Build the Boeing Workers Rank-and-File Committee to fight for workers’ control!
The mass protests over the past few days have shown our collective power. But this power must be organized so that Boeing workers can take control and countermand decisions that violate our will.
•The Boeing Workers Rank-and-file Committee
JVP/NPP leader in Sri Lanka pledges to impose IMF austerity
Buoyed by opinion polls showing its candidate as a frontrunner, the party is determined to demonstrate that it is a reliable and ruthless political tool for implementing the agenda of the capitalist class.
•K. Ratnayake
US, UK to announce expansion of NATO weapons strikes inside Russia
The United States and United Kingdom will imminently announce a major expansion of Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia using NATO weapons, the Guardian and Politico reported on Wednesday.
•Andre Damon
As over 1 million Americans continue to be infected with COVID each day, updated vaccines belatedly rolled out
Neither the FDA, nor the vaccine manufacturers, nor the capitalist politicians saw any urgency in protecting the public from the newly evolved SARS-CoV-2 strains.
•Bill Shaw
New details emerge about warnings before Georgia school shooting
Details have been reported based on text messages and phone logs from family members about an exchange between the mother of 14-year-old Colt Gray and a school counselor about an “extreme emergency” approximately 30 minutes before the shooting began at Apalachee High School on September 4.
•Kevin Reed
The Harris-Trump debate: A degraded exhibition of political reaction
The degraded spectacle of Tuesday’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris held a mirror to a political system in extraordinary crisis. Between the mad ravings of the fascist Trump and the empty-headed platitudes of the warmonger Harris, the debate presented the vicious face of American capitalism.
•Eric London
With closure of Ontario Science Centre, Conservative Premier Ford attacks science, education and the working class
Ontario Progressive Conservative Premier Ford’s snap decision to order the immediate and permanent closure of the Ontario Science Centre, located in a working class Toronto neighbourhood, has provoked widespread popular opposition.
•Carl Bronski
Boston University resident assistants strike, joining grad students striking since March
Boston University resident assistants struck August 31 over an impasse in negotiations with BU for better pay and working conditions. Three thousand BU graduate students, organized in the same SEIU local, went on strike in March for improved pay and benefits and still have not reached an agreement with the university, having been largely abandoned by the union apparatus.
•T.J. Garrison
Work accidents at Germany’s national rail operator Deutsche Bahn: “We don’t know how many there are”
The short film “Death on the Tracks” shown on broadcaster ZDF’s Frontal investigative programme highlights two fatal work accidents for which Deutsche Bahn management has still not provided an explanation or taken responsibility.
•Marianne Arens
UK Labour government cuts fuel allowance for 10 million pensioners unopposed by the “left”
Despite talk of a rebellion against Starmer's leadership, this time just one Labour MP, Jon Trickett, could bring himself to vote against a measure that will kill elderly people in their thousands. Only five of the seven suspended Labour MPs joined him.
•Robert Stevens
CWU’s Martin Walsh wins endorsement at the TUC after Royal Mail betrayal
Walsh managed to cram in as much deceit and hypocrisy as was possible in his four-minute remarks on Monday, promoting the fraud that the CWU is engaged in a fight at Royal Mail to defend the postal service backed by “the trade union movement”.
•Tony Robson
Australia: Striking NSW health workers speak out against dire wages and conditions
“This is a fight that’s been a long time coming. We’ve been treated too unfairly for far too long.”
•Our reporters
Australia: Thousands of nurses strike across New South Wales against Labor’s wage cuts
Striking health workers brought hand-made placards denouncing the refusal of the Labor government to increase wages or address the increasingly catastrophic state of the public health system.
•Martin Scott
Philippine and Chinese vessels repeatedly collide in the South China Sea
Each resupply mission is being secretly conducted as a joint military operation between the Philippines and United States.
•John Malvar
World’s two biggest economies show recessionary trends
US labour market contracts and deflation spreads in China.
•Nick Beams
Key minister deserts unravelling Australian Labor government
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten is quitting, in a further signal of an historic crisis engulfing not just the Albanese government but the whole political establishment.
•Mike Head
Trump and Republicans spearhead fascistic campaign targeting Haitian immigrants
Ahead of the debate and November election, Republicans and their fascistic supporters are whipping up a pogrom atmosphere against immigrants to further Trump’s “stolen election” lies.
•Jacob Crosse
Ukraine launches largest drone attack on Russia yet as US moves to expand strikes with NATO weapons
Ukraine launched its largest wave of drone attacks deep inside Russia Monday night, including a deadly attack on the capital city of Moscow.
•Andre Damon
Washington state employees walk out as momentum builds against sellout Boeing contract
The walkout by 50,000 public workers shows the immense potential for broader movement of the working class.
•Bryan Dyne
With massive layoffs at Warren Truck less than a month away, autoworkers must organize a fight
if the layoffs at Warren Truck are allowed to go forward it will have a devastating impact on workers lives and open the floodgates to a tidal wave of job cuts across the auto industry
•Shannon Jones
UN report exposes Israel’s imperialist-backed “intentional starvation campaign against the Palestinian people”
A report by United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri has indicted Israel for using starvation as a weapon of war to exterminate the Palestinian people and seize their land. The document provides evidence of the genocidal intent of the Zionist regime and the complicity of the imperialist powers in war crimes unprecedented since World War II.
•Jordan Shilton
Venice Film Festival—Filmmakers powerfully denounce Israel’s genocide in Gaza
The Israeli genocide in Gaza was denounced by a number of leading filmmakers at the final awards ceremony of the 81st Venice film festival held last Saturday.
•Stefan Steinberg
Ukrainian youth speaks out in support of Bogdan Syrotiuk
This statement in support of Bogdan Syrotiuk was submitted to the WSWS by a Ukrainian youth who fled the war and is now working and studying in Germany.
•A Ukrainian youth in Germany
Defend all jobs at VW! Build rank-and-file committees!
The announcement by the VW Group that it is terminating the agreement on job security, cutting tens of thousands of jobs and closing entire plants and production sites is a declaration of war on all workers and marks the beginning of a new stage in the class struggle.
•Ulrich Rippert
After the far-right AfD’s election success, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats intensify their anti-refugee agitation
The establishment parties paved the way for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) by outdoing them from the right on their core issue: scapegoating refugees and immigrants.
•Peter Schwarz
Eyewitness report from the West Bank: “The Israeli army is now commencing major military operations to drive us out”
"The army is now starting major military operations to drive people out of the West Bank to Jordan. Israeli politicians are constantly talking about a ‘substitute solution’ for the Palestinians in Jordan. They want to take the whole country away from us."
•Dietmar Gaisenkersting
Strike by 17,000 AT&T workers across the southeastern US approaches one month
The CWA’s latest moves highlight the bankruptcy of the union apparatus which is desperate to shut down the strike by presenting a rotten contract that it can force down worker’s throats and pass off as a great victory.
•Kranti Kumara
Canada Post workers: Vote YES to strike! Prepare a political struggle against the corporatist alliance between Canada Post management, CUPW, and the Liberal government!
While they are making noises about a strike, the CUPW leadership is in fact conspiring with Canada Post to ram through a rotten contract. That is why they are saying nothing about how workers should prepare to counter the threat of a strikebreaking law or a CIRB-issued back-to-work order, although everyone knows that threat of state intervention is the linchpin of Canada Post’s “bargaining strategy.”
•Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (Canada)
UK unions campaign facilitates thousands of Tata Steel/British Steel job losses
This looming defeat for workers without any fight organised by the unions illustrates how the union bureaucracy operates as an arm of management and the government to suppress the class struggle.
•Simon Whelan
TUC Congress on message with Starmer’s right-wing Labour government
Various union leaders welcomed the new Labour government and made a show of encouraging it to enact a transformative pro-worker agenda—when its intentions are the opposite.
•Thomas Scripps
US officials demand stepped-up militarisation of Australia for war with China
The public statements were aimed at conditioning public opinion for Australia to play an even greater role in the US-led war drive against China.
•Oscar Grenfell
Australian Labor government’s international student cuts hit thousands of university jobs
Major public universities have had their enrolment numbers slashed for 2025, particularly targeting those with the highest numbers of Chinese students.
•Mike Head
Sri Lankan presidential candidates silent over the threat of WWIII
The Socialist Equality Party opposes the direct and indirect support of Sri Lanka’s ruling and opposition parties for the US-led imperialist war agenda and urges the working class to do the same.
•Saman Gunadasa
Boeing workers hold mass rallies against sellout IAM contract
One worker wrote to the WSWS, “Union sold us out, promised to stand by us and took us to the bank instead,” and commented, “I don't have faith in Boeing, IAM and president Jon Holden to bargain in good faith for members.”
•Bryan Dyne
Top Australian, Japanese ministers prepare for war against China
The joint communiqué reveals the advanced preparations not just involving these two key American military allies, but throughout the Indo-Pacific, for a US-led war against China.
•Peter Symonds
Maryland sanitation workers strike over working conditions, low wages
Sanitation workers are picketing in Anne Arundel County over working in hot weather, ill-equipped garbage trucks and with a lack of protective equipment.
•Pete Salmon
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentine pilots walked off the job for nine hours on September 6 to protest stalled wage talks while 10,000 United Airlines maintenance workers in the US held pickets to demand better pay, safety standards.
•
Vote “NO” on the Boeing sellout contract! Organize the rank and file against the sellouts in the IAM bureaucracy!
In bringing this contract to a vote, the IAM bureaucrats have declared they are not on the side of workers but of management, and behind them a government which does not want a strike at a major defense contractor.
•International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees
UN expert accuses Israel of “deliberate starvation” as a means of exterminating the Palestinians
The UN rapporteur’s report stands as an indictment not only of Israel but also of the imperialist powers, including the United States, UK, France, Germany and Canada, that have funded, armed and politically defended the genocide.
•Andre Damon
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis uses police to intimidate abortion petition signers
Officials in the DeSantis administration are spearheading efforts to invalidate signatures and drive the petition to overturn the six-week abortion ban off the ballot.
•Jacob Crosse
Noguchi Museum in New York City fires workers for opposing Gaza genocide
The museum has begun firing staff who wear Palestinian keffiyehs to work.
•Sandy English
Jacobin, DSA and Sanders promote lie that Harris is progressive
Of all the stage acts in the Democratic Party’s 200-year-old playbill of political deception, perhaps the most hackneyed is the sleight of hand the party conducts at election time to paint its candidates as progressives, even as they move ever farther to the right.
•Eric London
Michigan carnival company ordered to pay back wages and travel expenses to H-2B visa workers
The Standish, Michigan-based carnival firm, T.J. Schmidt & Company, settled with the US Labor Department and agreed to pay $72,253.85 in back wages and travel expenses it defrauded 32 temporary migrant workers in 2021.
•J. M. Palmer, Kevin Reed
Strike wave erupts across Kenya despite trade unions’ attempt to strangle it
The working class is confronting a supposed “broad-based” government—a newly installed coalition of President William Ruto and his United Kenya Party and the main opposition party—that is committed to IMF austerity and enjoys the backing of the bureaucrats who run the Central Organization of Trade Unions.
•Kipchumba Ochieng
Neo-fascist RN gives its marching orders to the incoming French government
Top National Rally (RN) officials, who held back-channel talks with Macron, do not hide that they intend to dictate the policies of the incoming Macron-Barnier government.
•Kumaran Ira
Mass protests oppose Macron’s naming of far-right government in France
Mélenchon’s strategy of uniting with Macron in the name of blocking the rise of the far right proved disastrous for the working class, paving the way for the forming of a far right government.
•V. Gnana, Alex Lantier
Mpox cases on the rise in Canada
Amid the World Health Organization’s declaration of a public health emergency of international concern, officials in Canada are hoping that existing therapies combined with targeted vaccination of at-risk populations can limit the spread of the disease.
•Omar Ali
Postal workers speak ahead of Sunday’s rank-and-file Zoom meeting: “The CWU puts management’s agenda front and centre”
Royal Mail workers around the country have been taking up the statement by the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee for its next Zoom meeting this coming Sunday: “A rank-and-file fightback strategy for Royal Mail workers.”
•Our reporters
Bankrupt Thames Water demands rate hikes as UK waterways flooded with sewage
Lack of investment driven by the thirst for ever-increasing profits has led to a situation where the basic sanitation infrastructure introduced by the Victorians is at breaking point—which a Labour government will not reverse.
•Margot Miller
Australia: NSW nurses to strike against Labor government’s wage cuts
Under the direction of the NSWNMA bureaucracy, the rallies will be about nothing more than allowing nurses and midwives to let off steam, clearing the way for a union-government sellout.
•Martin Scott
Missouri health officials report first bird flu case in adult without previous known animal contact
The laissez-faire attitude of international and national public health agencies to emerging pandemic pathogens, which threaten human populations and the well-being of animal life in general, is nothing short of criminal.
•Benjamin Mateus
Groundbreaking study uncovers mechanism of blood clotting caused by COVID-19, points to possible treatments
A pivotal study published in the journal Nature elucidated the pathogenesis of COVID infections.
•Bill Shaw, Benjamin Mateus
Workers furious after IAM announces sellout contract at Boeing
The World Socialist Web Site urges Boeing workers to reject this deal by the widest possible margin. Workers must organize independently of the IAM bureaucracy to impose the democratic decision made in July to strike.
•Bryan Dyne
Australia: Asylum seekers protesting Labor’s anti-refugee policies speak to the WSWS
“Labor promised us a lot of things, that they will help refugees. But we haven’t seen any improvement, we don’t know when this is going to end.”
•Max Boddy
SMART-TD announces concessions contract with Norfolk Southern, responsible for East Palestine, Ohio disaster
The fact that NS is the first to reach a full agreement with the conductors’ union adds insult to injury to the attempt to quietly ram through new deals to pre-empt a repeat of the 2022 rebellion.
•Erik Schreiber
Following challenge from Democrats, Nevada Supreme Court removes Green Party’s Jill Stein from ballot
In a 5-2 decision the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that even though the Green Party collected nearly three times as many signatures as required, the party would still not appear on the ballot over a technicality that was facilitated by the Democratic Secretary of State.
•Jacob Crosse
An election dominated by the threat of war and dictatorship
The corporate-controlled two-party system offers only the alternatives of would-be dictator Donald Trump and warmonger Kamala Harris.
•Patrick Martin
Sri Lankan SEP presidential candidate speaks at official media briefing
In opposition to all the pro-capitalist parties and candidates, the SEP is fighting to build an independent political movement of the working class based on socialist policies.
•Our correspondents
Audi workers in Brussels strike against jobs massacre across the VW group
The attacks on the Belgian Audi workers are part of a broad international strategy by the Volkswagen Group.
•Gregor Link
Two Delta Airlines workers killed and one injured at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport
Two workers, age 58 and 37, we killed at a repair facility operated by Delta Airlines at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
•Patrick Smith
Australia: Two workers killed in separate incidents at Queensland mine
Two deaths during August at the Byerwen Coal Mine brought the official number of miners who have lost their lives in the state of Queensland’s mining sector during the past decade to 26.
•Mark Wilson
This week in history: September 9-15
This column profiles important historical events which took place during this week, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 75 years ago and 100 years ago
•
SAG-AFTRA continues to sabotage video game strike, signing 80 interim agreements
The corporations are determined to wipe out entire crafts and professions. “Informed consent” means nothing when all the power is in the hands of conglomerates.
•Hong Jian
125,000 march in London in 18th national protest against the Gaza genocide
As Socialist Equality Party members argued among the protesters, no amount of moral pressure will force Starmer and his imperialist co-conspirators to withdraw their support from Israel, and their plans for a war against Iran. They will have to be stopped in their tracks, which requires the intervention of the working class, paralysing states supportive of the Israeli regime and bringing down their governments.
•Our reporters
Holocaust survivor and other protesters speak at London Gaza demonstration
WSWS reporters spoke to some of those attending Saturday’s national rally against the genocide in Gaza, including Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos.
•Our reporters
Violent attacks on asylum seekers in Dublin, Ireland continue
Asylum seekers in Ireland face violent attacks, deportation, fascist agitation and homelessness.
•Steve James
Macron’s naming of a right-wing government in France and the bankruptcy of Mélenchon
By allying with Macron and falsely promoting him as an enemy of neo-fascism, Mélenchon’s New Popular Front created conditions for Macron to assemble a government backed by the far right.
•Alex Lantier
Trial of “Uhuru 3” begins in Florida as US government accelerates anti-Russia campaign, war drive
As four members of Black nationalist groups in the US are facing potentially 15 years in prison for advancing positions in opposition to the Ukraine war, the Department of Justice claimed on Wednesday that Russia and Iran were “interfering” in the 2024 election.
•Jacob Crosse
Washington presses regional governments to secure Maduro’s ouster in Venezuela
The Venezuelan crisis has exposed all bourgeois nationalist governments of the Latin American pink tide and their pseudo-left apologists as instruments of US imperialism.
•Andrea Lobo
Australia: Ousted CFMEU leaders seek to bury workers’ opposition to administration in drawn-out legal challenge
With tens of thousands of workers looking for a way to fight the Labor government’s attack, the ousted CFMEU bureaucracy is trying to convince them that no fight is needed.
•Martin Scott
One month of Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region
President Vladimir Putin, whose government failed to prevent the first seizure of Russian territory by an imperialist-backed army since World War II, is attempting to manage the debacle by downplaying the crisis in Kursk.
•Andrea Peters
Sri Lankan president appeals to Muslim voters with apology over forced cremation
Ignoring the opposition of the Muslim community, which always buries its dead, the government of former president Gotabhaya Rajapakse ordered the cremation of all bodies at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
•Wasantha Rupasinghe
US citizen killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces
Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head and killed on Friday as Israel Defense Forces fired on protesters who were defending Palestinians against Zionist settlers in the West Bank.
•Kevin Reed
The banning of X/Twitter in Brazil and the authoritarian drive of the capitalist state
Brazil’s supreme court has suspended access to X/Twitter, a platform used by tens of millions of Brazilians.
•Eduardo Parati, Tomas Castanheira
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra doubles down against British-Australian pianist Jayson Gillham
The law firm defending MSO censorship is prominent in the barrage of legal action against artists, journalists and other public figures opposing Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
•Richard Phillips
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