Not a Single Soldier for the Criminal War!

Cancel the debt, or let the Bretton Woods group profit from climate disaster, writes Farooq Tariq.

At the time of writing, more than one-third of Pakistan is under water. Flash floods, generated by abnormal monsoon rains have so far claimed the lives of  1350 people . One million residential buildings are totally or partially damaged, leaving more than  50...

As a retired member of UAW Local 600 and longtime activist, I was present at the 2022 UAW Convention with guest status. Here are my thoughts on the Convention. The points of view in this article are my own, not those of any organization. As a socialist, my goal is both to celebrate the rank-and-file successes at the Convention and to look soberly at their limitations to help determine next steps.

A battle of ideas

Unlike any UAW Convention for decades, the 2022 Convention was a battle of ideas,...

Tim Schermerhorn—subway train operator, rank-and-file activist, union militant and officer, socialist, troublemaker, Labor Notes board member, son, husband, father, grandfather, and my dear friend and comrade—died this week.

Tim was hired by the New York City Transit Authority in 1982. As a founder of the Hell on Wheels newsletter in 1984, and later the New Directions caucus, he was central to building the confidence and organization of the generation of transit workers hired after the...

EVERYONE KNEW IT was coming: the unhinged Alito Supreme Court ruling that trashed a half-century of Constitutional abortion rights was leaked on May 2, seven weeks ahead of time. The grassroots reproductive rights movement began mobilizing immediately to confront the crisis — from outraged street protests, to expanding clinics to meet the desperate needs of interstate traveling patients, to mobilizing for a sweeping reproductive rights state constitutional amendment in Michigan.

On August 2,...

Solidarity joins the many civil liberties, progressive and anti-racist voices expressing outrage over the July 29, 2022 raid on the African Peoples Socialist Party. It is astonishing that this brutal invasion and theft of APSP’s property and organizational records has been practically blacked out in corporate media coverage, including mainstream and liberal news outlets. Along with others, we demand the immediate return of what was seized from the APSP, its supporters, and cancellation of any pending...

The 38th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW), held July 25-28, 2022 in Detroit, saw the most organized opposition to the rule of the Administration Caucus (AC) since the days of the New Directions caucus thirty years ago. It was also the first convention since the two most recent UAW presidents — Gary Jones and Dennis Williams — were convicted of embezzling union funds. Just a couple of days before the convention they were released from prison and will serve the...

One change in organizing for the opposition at the Convention this time was the use of a WhatsApp chat list during the proceedings. It was used so much it was hard to follow the chat and the proceedings. But it helped the delegates elected by Unite All Workers for Democracy ( UAWD ) to feel less isolated from each other on the convention floor. The floor is loaded with appointed reps who try to intimidate delegates.

At past conventions, everything was decided in advance by the Administration Caucus...

The rare planetary alignment in mid-June was accompanied by the equally rare alignment of the AFL-CIO convention and the Labor Notes conference . It’s not often there is the opportunity for such direct comparison of the top leadership and activist base of the labor movement.

The AFL-CIO met from June 12-15 in Philadelphia. The theme of the convention was “Organize and Rise.” Delegates elected a new leadership (Liz Shuler as president and Fred Redmond as secretary-treasurer), held discussions...

Workshop on Class Struggle Unionism

Joshua DeVries

The panel “Class Struggle Unionism” featured Joe Burns, author of the new book of the same title, Ryan Haney from the Dallas Teamsters, Krystal Gardner from AFSCME Council 31 in Illinois and Patrick Korte with Virginia CORE. Burns launched the session by drawing distinctions between the main school of labor unions, drawing attention to the fundamental difference in how they look at the employment relation. Business unionism holds high the motto,...

To be scrupulously fair to Joe Biden: No one who may have expected that Biden’s presidency would represent a new direction in U.S. policies toward Palestine or the region’s dictatorships can claim they were deceived — any such hopes were only self-delusion.

Nothing in his record, his rhetoric, or his endless political campaigns suggested any progressive content in Biden’s attitudes regarding the Middle East. Why would that somehow change after this veteran political hack was elevated to...