With cases of the novel coronavirus continuing to rise and no plateau in sight, nurses in Massachusetts have found themselves fighting more than just the virus to keep themselves and their patients safe and healthy. Between the ineptitude and inaction of the government and the barriers to care created by hospital administrators and shareholders, the nurses are exercising their collective power and using the resources of their union to take control of providing supplies, support, and guidance to healthcare workers. The nurses’ actions clearly demonstrate the timeliness and effectiveness of the ...

Governments everywhere are pumping money into the world economy to keep it on life support. Followers of Keynesian ideas – of government stimulus and demand-side management – feel vindicated. But only Marxism offers a solution.

Hieronymus Bosch was one of the most remarkable and original painters of all time. His works were painted five hundred years ago, yet they seem astonishingly modern, anticipating surrealism. This is the art of a world in a state of turbulence, torn by contradictory tendencies – a world in which the light of reason has been extinguished and where animal passions have gained the upper hand. A world of terror, violence and plague: a living nightmare. In short – a world very like our own, particularly given the current pandemic. Alan Woods examines Hieronymus Bosch from the standpoint of historical materialism. Originally published 23 December 2010.

Last night’s speech by the Prime Minister has left everyone confused. But the main message was loud and clear: workers are expected to put themselves on the line for the bosses’ profits. The unions must fight for workers’ control.

The 2020 Summer issue of Lal Salaam(the Pakistani, Urdu-language quarterly magazine of the IMT), is available now on marxist.com in PDF format! Click the image below to read the full issue.

The Moroccan regime has detained over 500 political prisoners, according to the president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, Aziz Ghali. Amongst them are those imprisoned in the Hirak Rif protests and the Gerak Jaradah movement: trade unionists, bloggers, a journalist… pretty much everybody. Not a day goes by without social media reporting the arrest of new militants or ordinary citizens whose only crime, in the majority of cases, is having published a Facebook post critical of living conditions or of the state’s politics.

We publish an interview our Taiwanese comrades held with Kuo Chih-yen: one of the leading activists in Taiwan’s EVA Air Union. She played an active role in 2019’s historic EVA Air flight attendant strike that shook Taiwan’s society.

Ruthless British Airways bosses are set to cut thousands of jobs at the airline, using the pretext of the pandemic to undermine workers’ wages and conditions. The labour movement must fight for nationalisation and workers’ control.

Click below to read the latest paper of Lal Salaam, Pakistan Section of IMT, in the Urdu language. The latest issue has articles about the plight of workers in lockdown and tasks ahead after this May Day. It also has articles on the crisis of world economy, how a socialist revolution and a planned economy will solve all these crises, the political crisis of federal government and PPP in Sindh, the effect of the pandemic on the plight of women and much more!

We said from the very beginning that the Venezuelan opposition and the US administration were responsible for the attempted mercenary coup foiled in Venezuela on 3 May. As days go by, more details emerge which confirm that assessment.

The bosses are pushing ever harder for workers to return to work. And the Tory government is giving them free rein to restart the economy without the necessary safety measures. The labour movement must organise a fightback.

Lauded by the establishment for his ‘credible opposition’, Keir Starmer is also under pressure from workers to oppose reckless Tory measures. Instead of compromising with the government, Labour should be taking them to task.

In a report released on 29 April, the ILO forecast that 1.6 billion workers in the informal sector will lose 60 percent of their income after one month of the crisis. In the worst-affected countries, poverty rates among informal workers will increase to 84 percent. As the crisis bites, workers in insecure work will face disaster.

Watch our interview with Ben Morken, who discusses the situation in South Africa: the impact of COVID-19, the political crisis and the perspectives for class struggle.

The Red Workers’ Front organised an online May Day rally in which workers from all parts of the country expressed their views and condemned government policies, which are leading to more hunger and death for the workers alongside huge bailout packages for the rich and powerful.