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 most basic lie in The Nation’s article is that it is possible to create a “progressive” nationalist politics which benefit the working class.
With Trump’s tariffs on auto parts set to begin May 3, the UAW has ignored or tried to downplay the mounting attacks on auto jobs.
More than two weeks since the fatal accident, the company, UAW and state safety agencies have not released any new information.
Workers need an international strategy to fight against Trump's trade war measures, which are already causing mass layoffs throughout North America.
The implications of multi-million dollar port fees will be nothing short of disastrous for workers inside the US and abroad.
As expected, the deal is a virtual copy of the concessions-filled agreement imposed earlier this year on city letter carriers through binding arbitration.
The latest negotiations result hardly differs from the previous arbitration proposal, which was an outrageous sham, and is miles away from our original demands.
The Key Bridge collapse led to the deaths of six construction workers and untold economic damages for the Chesapeake Bay region.
The first ever 24-hour strike by senior doctors is the latest in a rising struggle of medical workers against underfunding, under-staffing and low pay in the public health system.
The move affects essential workers in housekeeping, catering, portering, estates, and health and safety roles, many of whom are among the lowest-paid staff in the NHS.
Aping the rhetoric of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in the US, Labour’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting claims to be attacking “bureaucracy” and “waste” in the NHS.
ASMOF’s strike shutdown is a blatant violation of the intentions of doctors, made clear in the unprecedented turnout to rallies last week.
The attacks on education in São Paulo and around the world are part of the increasing shift of the world’s ruling elite towards war and fascism.
More than 1,500 student visas have been summarily revoked, including at least four at Wayne State University. Campus workers who have spoken out against genocide are having their jobs terminated at the University of Michigan.
On Monday, Harvard University sued the Trump administration and demanded an injunction against the government’s cutoff of over $3 billion in grants that are vital to the ongoing research and educational work of the oldest university in the US.
The US Department of Education, aiming to end federal loan support for students, has announced aggressive debt collection measures targeting nearly 10 million former students delinquent or in default on their college loans.
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.
