This report was given by Eric London to the Seventh Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US) in support of the resolution titled “Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees! For a global counteroffensive of the working class!”
The report issued in advance of the conference in Davos details a series of deepening crises: the ever-worsening economic outlook, the intensification of geopolitical conflicts and tensions, the deterioration of health care, and the effects of climate change.
The announcement by Google that it is laying off 12,000 workers is the latest in the intensifying jobs bloodbath in the technology sector internationally and the spearhead of a drive by the financial elite to impose the inflation crisis on the backs of the working class.
Lehman’s written protest is an encyclopedic historical record of the election, comprehensively detailing every facet of the antidemocratic conspiracy by the entrenched bureaucracy to cling to power by suppressing the vote.
We are building a network of rank-and-file committees of workers in key industries and workplaces to stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives, and prepare for a political general strike.
The Autoworkers Rank-and-File Committee Network calls for workers at every factory to organize now to fight for an all-out strike. At each UAW local, meetings must be held involving the entire rank-and-file membership to discuss and vote on resolutions demanding all-out strike action.
We say to all our fellow autoworkers: an all-out strike is the only way for the auto companies to know that we’re not playing.
The Ford Action Committee in Sarrlouis has expressed solidarity with the workers of the big car companies in the US who have voted for a mass strike that could begin this week.
The following the founding statement of the USPS Rank-and-File Committee, which was established in a meeting held September 3 to organize a fight against the Postal Service’s attack on jobs and wages, and the collusion of the postal unions bureaucracy.
The behind-closed-doors talks represent a grave danger to the striking writers, who have made immense sacrifices over the course of more than 140 days.
After facing enormous backlash on social media and on the picket lines, talk show hosts Bill Maher, Drew Barrymore, and Jennifer Hudson announced they would temporarily pause returning to their talk shows after the Writers Guild of America confirmed on Monday that they would resume negotiations with the major studios on Wednesday in the hopes of getting a deal “as soon as possible.”
Film and television workers are determined to fight but must free themselves from the corporate-conciliatory strategy of the union.
Workers have shown enormous strength, at the same time the sacrifices are taking their toll, and outrage against the companies is growing.
There is growing discontent among workers following the announcement by UAW President Shawn Fain Friday that the UAW would only call out parts distribution centers at GM and Stellantis.
A decisive “No” vote must be the starting point for workers on the shop floor to seize control of their contract struggle through the construction of rank-and-file committees in every plant and the preparation of an industry-wide strike across North America to win workers’ demands.
“Let’s be clear on what Fain‘s announcement really means: These strikes will have no impact on production. These are parts warehouses that ship components to the dealerships, not suppliers of the Big Three.”
In a Facebook live video Friday morning, UAW President Shawn Fain announced that autoworkers at Big Three assembly plants must continue working, producing relief on Wall Street and frustration among rank-and-file workers, 97 percent of whom voted for an all-out strike.
The tens of millions of student loan borrowers who must begin making payments in October are confronted with confusion and lack of information from the privately-owned corporations that service their debts under contract with the US Department of Education.
The banks, hedge funds, investment companies and other Wall Street parasites are raking in billions of dollars in profits from the immiseration of tens of millions of student loan borrowers and their families—perhaps a third of the US population in all.
The student workers are demanding a stipend, but the union is ceding the initiative to the university’s administration.
The GEO/AFT, which is politically dominated by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), used the university’s threat to fire strikers who fail to return to work by the start of the fall term on Monday, August 28, to browbeat the student workers into accepting the university-dictated sellout contract.
UPS’ Chief Executive Officer said the sell-out contract was "really good" for shareholders, while the Chief Financial Officer said he was “pleased” with the deal.
The death of a young train driver near Paderborn in North Rhine-Westphalia is already the ninth fatal accident this year, significantly more than in previous years. The rank-and-file Rail Action Committee is placing the issue of safety at the centre of its work.
The Wickremesinghe government has launched a vicious campaign against the drivers, describing the walkout as an act of “train terrorism.”
The union is collaborating with the Adams administration to sabotage the struggle by thousands of school bus workers.
Workers recently voted by 99 percent to authorize a strike, decisively rejecting the hospital’s latest contract offer.
An NHS consultant said, “Ideally, I’d like to be seeing more actions taken across professions. I’m very much interested in general actions. Whether it’s with the railway workers, the postal workers, these are problems that are being felt because of the cost-of-living crisis across the board. I don’t see these problems as being relegated to single domains, as if our interests were somehow independent of other professions.”
The unanimous decision by rank-and-file health workers is a powerful lead to all those seeking a socialist alternative to the racialist policies of the Yes and No camps and their pro-capitalist agendas of austerity and war.
The Awanui laboratory workers have joined a series of strikes by healthcare workers, who confront a worsening staffing crisis and soaring living costs.
Government cuts and hyperinflation have led to a drastic rundown of education facilities and the increasing inability of parents to pay for the education of their children.
Over the past week, Las Vegas students and parents have been organizing walkouts and rallies in support of teachers at the Clark County School District (CCSD), the fifth-largest school district in the US with over 300,000 students and 18,000 teachers.
The UAW bureaucracy efforts to prevent a strike at Columbia or Mount Sinai go hand in hand with its effort to prevent an all-out autoworkers strike.
The tens of millions of student loan borrowers who must begin making payments in October are confronted with confusion and lack of information from the privately-owned corporations that service their debts under contract with the US Department of Education.
The new starting pay at nonunion Amazon almost closes the gap with the new starting pay at UPS, further exposing last month's Teamsters contract there as a sellout.
An increasing number of major corporations are demanding that workers who were allowed to work remotely in the early stages of the pandemic now must return to the office in person at least part time.
The meeting was a farce. Amazon workers leaving their shifts nearby were not even informed the event was taking place.
The struggle of workers at Amazon’s JFK8 facility in Staten Island, New York, is at a turning point, and a different strategy is necessary to wage an effective fight against the trillion-dollar company.
Gusmão’s return as prime minister will see stepped up efforts to pressure the Australian government to back his campaign to construct pipelines from Greater Sunrise to Suai, in Timor’s south.
The family charges that the company stonewalled them and is seeking documents in connection to the accident.
Chemical workers at AdvanSix in Hopewell, Virginia were browbeaten into accepting a sellout agreement which they had already rejected three times.
Scott Higgins, a machinist who was nearing retirement, is the latest victim of the wave of deadly accidents in the US oil refinery and petrochemical industry.
The police investigation into the 2010 disaster that killed 29 mineworkers has been dragged out until at least the end of 2023, with no guarantee that anyone will be charged over the avoidable deaths.
The combined inaction of the federal and state governments has been condemned as “tantamount to industrial manslaughter.”
UMWA President Cecil Roberts has announced that pickets are authorized to return to work at Warrior Met; there is still no contract for the miners who have been picketing for nearly two years.
The tragic death of two young workers, Dylan Langridge and Trevor Davis, highlights the ongoing refusal of mining corporations, governments and unions to implement basic safety measures.
Striking London United bus strikers spoke to WSWS reports during their strike this weekend.
Last May, the union pushed through a 2.25 percent increase for a two-year agreement up to December 2021. Shepherds Bush was one of three garages that voted the deal down.
A driver from Norwood told WSWS, “It’s a really difficult time. Mortgages are going up and we have to work overtime to make ends meet. Without overtime you can’t survive.”
By Unite’s own admission, it has presided over four years of below-inflation pay deals. It now wants to impose another one.
The ICFI and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties are advancing this initiative to begin and develop a global counteroffensive of the working class against the homicidal policies of the governments controlled by the capitalist ruling class, which are responsible for the worldwide catastrophe.
This resolution was adopted unanimously by the membership of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States at its Sixth National Congress, which was held online from July 19 to July 24, 2020.
The characteristic of every great crisis is that it lays bare the contradictions that have accumulated and been suppressed for decades. All that is backward, anachronistic, corrupt, and, in the most profoundly objective sense, absurd and even irrational in the economic organization, social structure, political leadership and dominant ideology of the existing society is brutally and comprehensively exposed. The pandemic is such a crisis.
This lecture by David North examines the causes for the betrayals of the trade unions in their hostility to the class struggle and socialism, and reviews the historical conflict between the trade unions and revolutionary Marxism. It was re-published in the 2014 book, The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished 20th Century.
