We are publishing here the report to the Eighth Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US) given by Tom Hall. The congress was held from August 4 to August 9, 2024.
That the continuing significant upturn in strike activity has led to zero growth in union membership is an indictment of the right wing character of the corporatist US trade unions.
Fain has gone almost overnight from presenting himself as a so-called “militant,” “democratic unionist,” spouting slogans like “eat the rich” and denouncing Trump as a scab, to announcing his willingness to collaborate with the most right-wing government in US history.
Trump set himself above the bank and energy executives on the panel, who groveled, flattered and praised him. But like every dictator, he speaks not only for himself but for a social class.
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 Verdi leadership unreservedly supports the warmongering policy of both the outgoing and incoming federal governments.
The reports and discussions outlined the crisis in public education and emphasised the urgent need for educators to form independent organisations of struggle to counter the widening attacks on public education and democratic rights.
Postal workers, outraged at the betrayals of the trade unions, discussed what needed to be done now to protect jobs, which included unifying all sections of the working class in a common struggle against oligarchy and dictatorship.
USPS workers must link up with other sections of the federal workforce, with auto workers, logistics workers, and other sections of the working class, and with postal workers internationally facing the same threat of privatization.
The following letter was sent to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter on unsafe conditions at the Stellantis engine plant in Dundee, Michigan, and the collusion of United Auto Workers officials with management.
Like the UAW in the United States, Unifor is seeking to line workers up behind the global trade war, whipping up flag-waving nationalism and supporting tariff measures whose cost will be borne by workers in the form of job cuts and punishing price rises.
Fain attempted damage control over the UAW’s embrace of Trump under conditions of mounting rank-and-file anger over layoffs and attacks on democratic rights.
Over 20,000 auto and auto parts workers in the US, Canada and Mexico are potentially facing layoff as the impact of Trump’s tariffs begins to be felt.
The Key Bridge collapse led to the deaths of six construction workers and untold economic damages for the Chesapeake Bay region.
The central question addressed by the meeting was: How do we continue the fight against the Verdi union selling out our struggles for better wages and conditions?
The spontaneous reaction reflects not only the determined mood among workers at the facility, it expresses the seething anger among workers across the country, especially as the Trump administration carries out its war against the working class.
The Verdi leadership unreservedly supports the warmongering policy of both the outgoing and incoming federal governments.
ASMOF’s strike shutdown is a blatant violation of the intentions of doctors, made clear in the unprecedented turnout to rallies last week.
The central question addressed by the meeting was: How do we continue the fight against the Verdi union selling out our struggles for better wages and conditions?
A wage increase of 12 percent over three years was agreed to, essentially a cut in wages when adjusted for inflation. Several nurses commented their dissatisfaction with the contract on CRONA’s instagram page.
The ASMOF union never wanted the strike to take place, and then as soon as it was over, promised the Labor government that it would prevent any further stoppages.
New York City’s public education system is facing an impending crisis as federal, state, and local budget cuts converge with a deepening social crisis, threatening essential programs and the futures of hundreds of thousands of students.
The destruction of the Head Start program, part of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” would eliminate education and social services for nearly 800,000 children and result in the loss of a quarter of a million jobs.
Although the immediate cause of the students’ reaction is the exile of their teachers, there is mounting anger over the poor quality of education, lack of a future, growing social inequality and state repression.
Large sections of educators had no confidence that the Chicago Teachers Union would bring back a better deal, let alone lead a fight against Trump.
Director Laura Carreira repeatedly returns to the same settings of Aurora’s work and life, almost tableaus, to illustrate the repetitiveness and drudgery of her existence.
The spontaneous reaction reflects not only the determined mood among workers at the facility, it expresses the seething anger among workers across the country, especially as the Trump administration carries out its war against the working class.
Utterly opposed to mobilizing the social power of the working class against the giant corporation, the unions are promoting a diversionary consumer boycott, while urging workers to pressure Ottawa and Quebec City to intervene on their behalf.
If confirmed, the raid is an exposure of the Teamsters union, which covers workers at the facility and which openly backs Trump’s anti-immigrant racism.
The 250 striking workers were given just 48-hours notice to vote on a lengthy seven-year contract that failed to meet their key demands.
On strike for more than three months, Marathon workers called for joint action to stop the cutoff of their insurance on December 13.
The working class in the metro Detroit area must come to the defense of the more than 250 Marathon refinery workers who have been on strike for three months.
After more than 10 weeks on strike, workers at Marathon Detroit Refinery are determined to win improved wages and stop subcontracting, healthcare cuts and dangerous work schedules.
Last month, the Trump administration nominated mining industry association executive Wayne Palmer to head MSHA.
Tahmoor workers’ livelihoods are tied up with the fortunes of GFG Alliance, a company that is wracked with crisis on an international scale.
This is a revolting crime of South African capitalism. Comparisons are already being drawn in the country to the Marikana Massacre of 2012, where police under the command of the ANC killed 36 striking workers at the Lonmin platinum mine.
The 111-day walkout by coal miners, which began on December 6, 1977, was a major strategic experience for the American and international working class.
The lawsuit, launched by the ACLU in California, alleges that the summary banishment by the University of California Regents was illegal.
Suspensions, banishments, withholding of diplomas, and demands for letters of apology are among the weapons used to attack freedom of speech.
The significance of the strike, and the police-state measures used to end it, are that they anticipate an even broader and more explosive confrontation between the working class, which is being forced to pay the cost of war, and American and world imperialism.
The UAW apparatus is a critical instrument of the Biden administration, which is relying on the discredited labor bureaucracy to hold back opposition to US imperialism’s wars for global domination.
The union is facilitating the destruction of a portion of its membership. This is the logical follow-up to the sellout contract agreed to by SAG-AFTRA after a lengthy strike last year.
We recently spoke to stuntwoman-actress Michelle Shock about the SAG-AFTRA contract and the general situation in the film and television industry.
When only a little more than a third of the membership bothers to vote in such circumstances, this has to be considered a vote of non-confidence in the union leadership.
The Drescher-Crabtree-Ireland leadership and the national board as a whole have proven themselves to be conscious agents of the corporate predators.
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.
