With just one significant front-loaded wage increase and a taxable signing bonus, Unifor is trying to bribe autoworkers into accepting a three-year agreement that will ensure Ford, GM and Stellantis can carry out their electric vehicle transition at workers’ expense.
President Biden announced on Friday a plan to “join the picket line” on Tuesday in Michigan as part of arrangements with the UAW bureaucracy to contain the growing struggle of autoworkers against the UAW’s refusal to call all 150,000 members onto the picket lines.
Regardless of the prospect of a repeat of the catastrophic 2019‒20 bushfire season, virtually nothing has been done to mitigate the risks.
The union leadership is promoting the conception that “nothing can be done” in order to allow the plant to run without disruption and ensure the smoothest possible transition of workers onto the scrapheap.
In just two months, China’s foreign minister has been removed and the defence minister has been absent from public view for weeks. These unexplained events point to growing political tensions and infighting within the Beijing regime.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's appearance at the United Nations in New York underlined how aggressively German imperialism is behaving again, despite its historical crimes.
Polish officials’ statements reflect explosive international and class tensions unleashed by the escalating NATO war on Russia in Ukraine.
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.
Socialist Alternative does not even pretend that the Voice will solve anything for ordinary indigenous people. But despite this, the pseudo-left is aggressively pushing Labor’s policy.
Socialist Equality Party campaign teams are finding widespread distrust or opposition to the Albanese Labor government’s referendum, seeing it as a diversion from, and a cover for, for the underlying ruling class program of war and austerity.
McCarthy has put forward a continuing resolution that would fund the government at a sharply reduced rate through October to keep the government running while he works to hash out a budget deal with the Biden White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate. It does not include funding for the Ukraine war.
Locking hands with Republican anti-immigrant fascists, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday the deployment of an additional 800 US Army soldiers to the border.
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.
Workers recently voted by 99 percent to authorize a strike, decisively rejecting the hospital’s latest contract offer.
The episode at Boston University reveals—once again—the pecuniary, intellectually bankrupt, and essentially fraudulent character of racialist ideology.
An anesthesiologist at Emory University Hospital described the execution method as “death by asphyxiation. This is choking someone to death with a gas. Why anyone would think that would be something pleasant or painless is really beyond my understanding.”
China: Electronics factory workers in Guangdong province strike; Bangladeshi land port workers walk out over pay; Australia: Power generating workers in Queensland take industrial action; 1,000 Inghams poultry processing workers strike.
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.
The delegation led by AOC was aimed at lulling workers in the US and across Latin America while lending US imperialism a “democratic” face.
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.”
“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.”
While the inquiry compiled masses of evidence and produced an 800-page report—providing just a snapshot of the inhumane practices rife throughout a system for the imprisonment and deportation of the vulnerable—it does nothing to challenge this set-up.
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 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.
Amid a deepening military crisis triggered by the collapse of Ukraine’s spring offensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spent hours Thursday meeting behind closed doors at the Pentagon, as well as with US President Joe Biden, top Cabinet officials, the US Senate, and leading House lawmakers.
Workers at the Warren Truck plant back call for immediate membership meetings to demand an all-out strike by 146,000 GM, Ford and Stellantis workers.
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.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said that the White House will reinstitute the policy of sending Americans free COVID-19 rapid antigen tests.
It is unthinkable that Trudeau would have made such a charge without Canada’s security agencies having incontrovertible evidence of Indian government involvement in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an outspoken proponent of an independent Sikh state.
Emergency meetings should be called at locals, resolutions passed in favour of an industry-wide walkout, and preparations made for broadening the strike in the US and launching one at all Detroit Three operations in Canada.
The US Supreme Court allowed the execution of Anthony Sanchez to proceed despite numerous evidentiary inconsistencies in the case against him, including questionable DNA evidence and the possibility that his father had committed the murder.
The secrecy with which Unifor is operating in relation to the rank and file membership is the surest sign that a sellout is in the offing. Autoworkers must take action now to mobilize to defeat the tentative agreement with a powerful “No” vote this weekend.
On Monday, the online edition of the Berliner Zeitung, one of the most popular media outlets in the German capital, prominently reported on the student protest and the "sharp criticism of the president and professors of Berlin's Humboldt University" made by the IYSSE due to the "exhibition of grisly photos at HU.”
Once again, rank-and-file workers at the GM Silao plant are organizing to oppose the company’s efforts to shift production to Mexico if workers strike the GM plants in the US.
A UK-based steel industry is central to the geo-political designs of British imperialism, which is heavily involved in supplying the NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and preparing a rapid expansion of its own military to participate in the escalating conflicts with Russia and China.
One-day national stoppage by public sector workers in Greece against anti-labour law criminalising picketing and removing limits to working hours; teachers in Portugal hold week-long strike over pay, contracts and for more staff; Iranian regime introduces draconian legislation as protests and strikes mark anniversary of death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of morality police; teachers in Plateau State Nigeria plan walkout over salary arrears but union have not set date
The following lecture was delivered by Eric London, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to the SEP (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
The overwhelming vote to continue the strike in New Brunswick, New Jersey, shows the nurses’ will to win, but victory will require the nurses to link up with workers at Kaiser Permanente, the auto companies and elsewhere.
The findings of the Workers Inquiry which we are posting for the first time have a direct bearing on the issues raised by the Voice referendum that seeks to strengthen the capitalist state and obscure the ruling-class agenda of war and austerity.
The United States used Tuesday’s meeting of the United Nations General assembly as a platform to launch a full-throated tirade against Russia, of the kind made by countries before they declare war.
While Republicans screamed and yelled about Hunter Biden, Democrats barely mentioned the far greater crimes of Donald Trump.
Steven Sund’s testimony before Congress confirms that the Democrats are covering up the complicity of military brass and police and intelligence officials in Trump's fascist assault on the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election.
“Developments in the US with UAW bureaucracy shows that irrespective of where they live workers face the same situation.” – Renault-Nissan worker
The televised leaders’ debate underscores that both the incumbent Labour Party and the opposition National Party are committed to strengthening New Zealand’s role in the US-led war drive against China and Russia, while slashing spending on public services amid the worsening cost-of-living crisis.
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 Fed wants the unemployment rate to rise, with projections by members of the FOMC—the so-called dot plot—putting the jobless rate at 4.1 percent next year, up from its present level of 3.8 percent.
The auto companies view the conclusion of an agreement at Hyundai, South Korea’s largest car manufacturer, as an important step to isolating and imposing similar deals on other sections of workers.
Autoworkers in Michigan are demanding an all-out strike and an end to the phony “stand up” strike by the UAW bureaucracy.
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.
Legal and democratic rights must be defended to put an end to the situation where public figures can be torn down on the basis purely of allegations.
The strike by 200 parts workers in Alabama shows the rank-and-file movement has tremendous potential power, but everything is being done by the corporations, the political parties and the UAW bureaucracy to hold the rank-and-file back.
The agreement is manifestly a sellout, aimed at blocking the development of a united struggle of the more than 19,000 Detroit Three workers in Canada and their 150,000 US counterparts.
The fact that all factions of the ruling class advocate terror against refugees underlines that workers and youth are confronted with revolutionary tasks.
A flagrant example of censorship occurred last month, when objections from police officers led to the abrupt closure of all art exhibitions at municipal galleries in San Mateo, California.
Autoworkers have responded with enthusiasm to the editorial written by the Pennsylvania Mack Trucks worker and socialist candidate for UAW president in 2021.
There are growing signs in the region that the eastern Libyan authorities are preparing a bloody crackdown against protests in Derna.
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.
Political warfare between Trump-aligned members of the House Freedom Caucus and Speaker Kevin McCarthy over proposed spending cuts is driving the government towards a shutdown at the end of the month.
To prevent a widespread turnout which would increase the likelihood of the contract’s rejection, the union limited in-person voting to during normal business hours, with workers having to drive hours to cast a ballot.
The United States launched a full-court press to promote the escalation of the war in Ukraine on Tuesday, with simultaneous appearances by US President Joe Biden at the United Nations and America’s top military leaders at Ramstein, Germany, who pledged to continue the war “as long as it takes.”
Nearly a week has passed since the contract for 150,000 Big Three workers expired last Thursday, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the “stand up strike” called by the UAW bureaucracy is much less a “strike” than a tactic aimed at weakening, dividing and isolating the rank and file to force through massive concessions.
Some 1,700 meatpacking workers overwhelmingly rejected a “final offer” four-year contract last Friday amidst an increasing wave of opposition from workers across the US.
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 strike by autoworkers against the Big Three automakers is part of a growing international wave of struggles against inflation, concessions and job losses.
The Bank for International Settlements has said in its quarterly review that “speculation is back,” based on massive leverage with the potential to set off a crisis.
As Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso develop ties with Russia, the danger is mounting that the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine will explode across Africa.
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.”
The CAMI plant in Ingersoll, where workers went through an extended shutdown in 2022 for retooling to build electric delivery vans, is set to be idle from October until spring time next year.
To defend jobs at VW, rank-and-file action committees must be set up, bringing together all VW workers who are serious about fighting. These committees must be independent of the works councils and IG Metall union.
There is every reason to believe Unifor will declare an “historic victory” before the day is out and try to ram through a sellout agreement by week’s end. If they don’t, it will only because they fear that so blatant a “sweetheart deal” with Ford—at the expense of autoworkers in both Canada and the US—will fuel a rank-and-file rebellion and a movement for a North America-wide strike.
The UK government having to accelerate its booster programme in response to the spread of another concerning variant exposes the lies of the Conservative and Labour parties which proclaimed as far back as February 2022 that the pandemic was over, and all could “live with COVID.”
The aim of this shabby maneuver was to block a strike at the Ford Oakville Assembly Plant and two smaller engine plants in Windsor, which would have seen Canadian and US autoworkers on strike together for the first time in decades.
The Greens have stepped in to help prop up the Labor government, under conditions in which it is in a deepening political crisis.
Like the Voice plan, the 1999 republican referendum was a big business-backed project to strengthen the anti-democratic Constitution while presenting a false progressive image for Australian capitalism.
In the aftermath of the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the United States and NATO are moving toward open intervention in combat against Russian forces.
In a video statement posted Monday night, UAW President Shawn Fain said the union was setting a “new deadline” of Friday at noon for the auto companies to “work with us to make progress in negotiations” or the UAW would call more locals out on strike.
Dr. van Assendelft, a retired pulmonologist, was repeatedly rebuffed by medical authorities, governments and the media when he tried to alert the public to the central role of airborne transmission in the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
An average of 7,000 people continue to die each day above the pre-pandemic baseline, with the overwhelming majority either directly from COVID-19 or due to the myriad negative long-term health impacts caused by the virus.
One-half million government workers in Panama mobilized last week over poor pay and terrible conditions while 4,000 Loblaw grocery workers in Manitoba and British Columbia have authorized a strike.
This was the 15th workplace death in Western Australia since July 2022, and one of at least 110 worker fatalities recorded across the country since the start of the year.
The EU parliament, which is playing a leading role in coordinating European participation in the NATO war with Russia in Ukraine, has now joined in the campaign against Rubiales.
Amidst massive working class opposition to French Imperialism throughout the Sahel, Revolution Permanente presents the Gabon coup as a purely national conflict within the Gabonese bourgeoisie.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted on all charges in his impeachment trial by the Texas state senate in largely party-line votes.
For over two weeks, the world’s richest fascist has repeated some of the oldest and most vile antisemitic conspiracy tropes in repeated attacks against Jewish people and the Anti-Defamation League on Twitter/X.
On September 15, the city of Hopewell, Virginia issued a shelter-in-place warning after chemical manufacturer AdvanSix reported a leak of oleum at its massive 200-acre facility.
Recent remarks by Biden calling for a “win-win” contract for the companies and autoworkers raise fundamental questions about the distribution of wealth in the United States.
IYSSE members spoke to students and passers-by about the “Russian War Crimes“ exhibition, which was displayed in the foyer of the university’s main building for two weeks.
Postal workers spoke to reporting teams from the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) in response to the PWRFC statement “Reinstate all victimised reps and postal workers! End the CWU-Lord Falconer conspiracy at Royal Mail!” and the WSWS article “Postal workers in Scotland and London vote for action as CWU-Royal Mail partnership ushers in savage attacks”.
The UAW held a rally in downtown Detroit on Friday that featured Democratic Party politicians and was aimed at suppressing the growing opposition of autoworkers to the behind-the-scenes collaboration of union President Shawn Fain with the auto companies and the Biden White House.
The TUC’s war vote is also an indictment of the purported anti-war position of the British pseudo-left.
The future for young people is dominated by a series of crises, including: the escalation of the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, another surge of COVID-19 infections, the deadly consequences of climate change, and the rise of the far-right across Europe and attacks on democratic rights.
The decision of the Christian Democrats and Liberal Democrats to pass a law to lower the land transfer tax with the votes of the far-right Alternative for Germany is another step toward giving the fascists access to the levers of power.
While attendees were undoubtedly motivated by concern over the dire conditions facing indigenous people, the rallies had an essentially right-wing, nationalist and pro-government character.
To the extent that the purpose of the speaking tour was to undermine genuine socialist opposition to the war and bolster the official war propaganda, it can be characterized as a fiasco.
The vote by the Board of Governors to approve the cuts came despite almost unanimous opposition from the student body and faculty and marks a new stage in the assault on public education and the right to culture by the working class in the US and internationally.
Condolences from Obama and Biden cannot cover up their responsibility for the US-NATO war which devastated Libya and set the stage for the death of at least 20,000 in flood-ravaged Derna.
The World Socialist Web Site spoke with students, faculty and staff both before and after the hearing as to why they opposed the cuts and what needed to be done to fight them.
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.
