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All over the world the trade unions, including those which were founded through bitter struggles led by socialist-minded workers, now play the leading role in enforcing the dictates of management.

In this lecture, delivered in Sydney, Australia in January, 1998, WSWS international editorial board chairman David North explains this profound transformation through an historical examination of the trade unions themselves.

The Soviet literacy campaign remains the largest and most successful in world history. It serves as an enduring demonstration of the extraordinary possibilities for reorganizing society in the interests of the working class on a planned, socialist basis.

This two-part article is a critique of the Democratic Socialists of America’s narrative of the teachers strike wave in 2018-19. It reviews the role of the teachers unions from West Virginia to Arizona, exposing the claims of “victory” by the unions and the DSA. It also assesses the DSA’s opportunistic “dirty break” with the Democratic Party and their role in collaborating with the unions to divert teachers by pressuring the powers-that-be.

This article reviews the significance of the Janus vs. AFSCME Supreme Court case. As an AFSCME’s lawyer warned the ruling elites during oral arguments, the collection of “agency fees” is routinely traded for a no-strike clause in union contracts. He warned, “Should those clauses disappear, employers will have chaos and discord on their hands.”

In line with the identity politics promoted by the Democratic Party and the pseudo-left, “abolitionist teaching” foments divisions among teachers and students based on race.

The origin of the term ethnomathematics is attributed to Brazilian postmodernist Ubiratan D’Ambrosio (1932-). It emphasizes “power relationships” and cultural relativism, downplaying “objective knowledge.”

After Trump provocatively called educators “loser teachers preaching socialism,” the AFT made no comment. Far from defending teachers against red-baiting, union president Randi Weingarten (annual salary above $500,000) agrees that “socialist” teachers have no business in the classroom. This report looks at some of the long and ugly history of the union’s anticommunism.