Ukraine miners fight for back wages, raises, better conditions

Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018
After walking out of work Feb. 14, coal miners in Donetsk region of Ukraine, joined by family members, protest at company headquarters during strike demanding payment of back wages.

Wage arrears owed to working people in Ukraine reached a staggering 2.37 billion hryvnia ($88 million) as of Jan. 1, a 33 percent increase over the past year. About 80 percent is owed to workers in the mining and heavy…


W.Va. telecom workers strike Frontier to defend jobs

Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Some 1,400 members of the Communications Workers of America went on strike across West Virginia and in Ashburn, Virginia, March 4, when 10 months of negotiations for a new contract between the union and Frontier Communications broke…


Sankara: ‘The foreign debt is unjust, should not be repaid’

Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018

Below is an excerpt from Thomas Sankara Speaks, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for March. Sankara led the revolution in Burkina Faso from 1983 until his assassination in 1987. Workers and peasants in this West African country established a…


25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018

March 19, 1993 The big-business media and the FBI have used the explosion that shook New York’s World Trade Center February 26 to whip up a campaign against “terrorism.” Six days after the blast FBI agents and other cops arrested…


Workers celebrate victory in nine-month-long fight at Mears

Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018

MANCHESTER, England — After a nine-months battle, and more than 80 days of strike protests, the 180 housing maintenance workers employed by the contractor Mears won a 20 percent pay raise. Their main demand was to end the wage differential…


‘We can build unions that inspire workers to fight’

Vol. 82/No. 10 - March 12, 2018

NEW YORK — Some 4,000 union members rallied here Feb. 24 — and many more in actions in 27 other cities — two days before a U.S. Supreme Court hearing on whether government workers can opt out of paying union…


W.Va. teachers: ‘We’re fighting for all workers’

School workers’ struggle wins broad support in W. Virginia
Vol. 82/No. 10 - March 12, 2018
West Virginia teachers, school workers, miners and other supporters at Feb. 26 strike rally in Charleston. Fight won widespread solidarity, taking on aspects of broader social movement.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Chanting “We are united!” and singing “We’re not going to take it any more!” thousands of teachers, school workers and their supporters locked hands above their heads on the steps of the state Capitol here Feb. 26.…


Syrian rulers escalate war against toilers in E. Ghouta

Vol. 82/No. 10 - March 12, 2018

The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, backed by Moscow and Tehran, has intensified its murderous assault on the 400,000 people in the besieged Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta. Mass mobilizations against Assad’s dictatorship shook Syria in 2011. The regime struck…


Bosses attacks unravel miners gains against black lung

Vol. 82/No. 10 - March 12, 2018

“Black Lung Disease Comes Storming Back in Coal Country” read the headline in the Feb. 22 New York Times. They’re talking about a debilitating and deadly disease that had been pushed way back by a powerful battle waged by miners,…


Cuba’s literacy drive ‘changed society, made us revolutionaries’

Vol. 82/No. 10 - March 12, 2018
Griselda Aguilera, a volunteer in Cuba’s literacy campaign in 1961, tells workers learning construction skills at Casa de Maryland in Hyattsville how the revolution eliminated illiteracy.

WASHINGTON — “We made the revolution and began to change society. As we changed society, we changed — we became revolutionaries,” said Griselda Aguilera Cabrera, describing her and her generation’s experience as participants in revolutionary Cuba’s literacy drive in 1961…