Canada: Tactics for victory on the picket line We’ve seen disgruntled public service workers taking action all over Canada in the last year or so – whether it be teachers in Québec, twenty-thousand Newfoundland public sector workers, Ontario’s Hydro One workers, or the members of the Hospital Employees’ Union. The increasing labour unrest culminated this summer when private sector workers stepped onto the scene in a major way with the victorious Truckers’ strike.
The property of the white rich comes before the lives of the poor African Americans A comment on Katrina from a reader in the USA, who highlights how in the list of priorities of the US authorities, the defence of private property came before helping the working class African Americans.
Revolutionary Jamaica awakens again Last week riots erupted in several cities on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. According to the Jamaican newspaper Jamaica Gleaner, the riots began after the island’s national electricity provider announced a rise in electricity tariffs. However, the protests were also directed against decaying public infrastructure such as roads and sewage, low wages, and the increasing violence on the island.
Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana: the United States is now the "Third World" A comment on the glaring class contradictions that Hurricane Katrina has thrown up. While the poor are accused of looting, the rich loot legally by profiting even from this disaster.
While Bush prevaricates, Venezuela offers help to US poor Venezuela was the first country to offer help to the United States in dealing with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Chavez has offered money and personnel to help in the relief operations. The answer of an unnamed "senior State official" was that “unsolicited offers can be counterproductive." They would rather some of their own people died than have the people of the USA see Venezuela for what it is, a country where its people are challenging the very capitalist system upon which so much poverty and devastation is based.
The New Orleans Disaster: The Real Face of "Capitalism of the 21st Century" Hurricane Katrina will be remembered for years to come as an important turning point in the USA. Thousands, tens of thousands of poor people have been left to fend for themselves, many dying dehydrated, in what is the richest country in the world. People are noting that the Bush administration, very quick to mobilize a huge army to invade Iraq, has been painfully slow in helping the people of New Orleans. The class question is emerging clearly and this will have profound effects on the whole of US society.
Partial victory of the Cipla and Interfibra workers in Brazil Back in April the judicial authorities issued threats to imprison the workers and militants occupying the Cipla and Interfibra factories in Joinville, Brazil. Now at last the campaign we played a big role in promoting has at least achieved a partial victory. Serge Goulart wrote to us explaining the present state of play.
An international call for solidarity in support of the workers at the Garrahan Hospital Following the declarations of the Minister of Health, Gines Gonzalez Garcia, where the ancilliary workers were accused of being “public health criminals practising terrorism”, various social and political organisations have begun to mobilise in support of the workers. This call is a way of showing solidarity. We ask you to send it to those that you know in our country, Argentina, and abroad.
Solidarity with the workers of Garrahan, a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina Last Thursday we published material in Spanish about the struggle of the Garrahan hospital workers in Argentina. We are publishing some of that material today in English.
Canada: The Telus workers declare they’ve had enough! - The Telecommunications Workers Union members hit the picket line across BC and Alberta Telus workers across BC and Alberta have been on the picket lines since Thursday July 21st, making it clear that they will not roll over and take the offer that the company is trying to impose. In five years without a contract, the members of the Telecommunications Workers Union have put up with Telus stalling, conniving, and repeatedly bargaining in bad faith, in a blatant attempt to break the union.
Canada: Victory for the Telecommunications Workers! Re-nationalize telecommunications! Fightback calls for the nationalization of telecommunications under democratic workers’ control, as the only solution to the problems of poor management at Telus.
Picket in solidarity with Cipla/Interfibra workers in Vienna On Thursday, July 14, a group of Young Socialists and representatives of the Editorial Board of Der Funke organised a picket in front of the Brazilian embassy to protest against the threatened repression of the Cipla and Interfibra workers who have occupied their factories to defend their jobs.
Chavez announces expropriation of closed factories – Venezuela debates socialism In his weekly Alo Presidente TV programme, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that some 136 closed factories are being surveyed with the aim of expropriating them. Within the workers’ movement this has been enthusiastically received. The main discussion now is what is meant by socialism, how to apply “co-management” and what the role of the workers is in the revolutionary process and in the economy.
Editorial from the American Socialist Appeal The recent terrorist attacks in London only confirm the volatile position the world finds itself in at the beginning of the 21st century. Bush and Blair’s war on terror and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have done nothing but further destabilize the situation. In the United States, the mood is finally turning against the war. This is the editorial of the latest issue of the American Socialist Appeal.
The Bush Tax Cuts & Class Division in America Titanic sums of money - the taxes paid in mostly by the working class - have been spent by the Bush Administration primarily on two things: the continuing slaughter in Iraq and the further enrichment of the top 10 percent of Americans. Millions of working people in the United States continue to worry about whether or not they will have a job two months from now or even next week. And how does the ‘compassionate conservative’ in the White House soothe the nation’s anxiety? By handing out billions of dollars to the modern-day robber barons of Capital.
