Steelworkers at ArcelorMittal, US Steel protest concession demands

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018
Steelworkers rally in Fairfield, Alabama, Aug. 30 against U.S. Steel demands for increase in health care costs and other concessions. Contract for over 30,000 ran out two days later.

FAIRFIELD, Ala. — “We don’t want this contract and we aren’t going to have it,” Lewis Parsons, who has worked at U.S. Steel’s Fairfield Works here for 28 years, told the Militant. “They have to come up with something better.…


SWP: We need independent working-class political action

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018
Alyson Kennedy, left, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, met Uber driver Jesus Alvarado on his doorstep in Grand Prairie, Aug. 20. He said he almost became homeless after losing his job in 2008. “Working people need to unify to fight bosses’ attacks,” Kennedy said.

Members and supporters of the Socialist Workers Party in the U.S. and sister Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. build their political activity around reaching out to working people on their doorsteps in cities, towns and…


Veterans fight delays in gov’t disability benefits

Thousands die while appeals drag on and on
Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018
Wounded war veterans who get physical therapy wait at Brook Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, in 2007. Veterans Administration has denied benefits to half a million veterans.

Hundreds of thousands of veterans filing disability claim appeals wait years, and sometimes a lifetime, for the Department of Veterans Affairs to rule on their cases. One in 14 veterans dies before getting a decision — or any badly needed…


‘Advance the revolutionary mobilization of workers’

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018

The following statement was issued Sept. 3 by Róger Calero, Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of New York. Ceaseless competition for markets, financial exploitation and profits among the bosses compels them to assault our wages, rights and working conditions,…


California protest demands ‘End solitary confinement!’

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018
Rally outside federal courthouse in San Francisco Aug. 21. Inside, four prisoners — Todd Ashker, Arturo Castellanos, George Franco and Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa — leaders of statewide fight against solitary confinement, attended meeting with prison authorities. Court had ordered prison officials to attend meeting to discuss more serious steps to dismantle abusive solitary conditions. Inset, Marie Levin, sister of Jamaa, speaks at rally.

SAN FRANCISCO — Supporters of the fight to end solitary confinement of inmates in California state prisons rallied outside the federal courthouse here Aug. 21. Their action was in solidarity with four prisoners — Todd Ashker, Arturo Castellanos, George Franco…


The history of the belated, bloody birth of US imperialism

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018
In 1898 Washington seized Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines and Guam from Spanish rulers, becoming the victor in world’s first imperialist war. Above, U.S. invasion force with bayonets drawn are ready to defend their camp in Puerto Rico, which remains a U.S. colony to this day.

The excerpt below is taken from a 1935 essay by George Novack that appears in America’s Revolutionary Heritage, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for September. Novack explains why U.S. financial capital came late to rule the roost in…


Letters

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018

Need cultural revolution! The more I read the Militant and get a greater understanding of its motives, political agenda, etc., the more I value those who have sacrificed, died or gone to prison to further the cause of the socialist…


25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018

September 20, 1993 NEW YORK — Cargo handlers and ticket, passenger, and reservation agents at Alitalia Airlines went on strike September 5 in response to a brutal company assault. On September 2, Alitalia broke off negotiations with the 308 workers…


Grenada Day participants hunger for revolutionary books

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018
Hundreds attend Grenada Day in Brooklyn, N.Y., Aug. 26. Inset, Socialist Workers Party supporter Gale Shangold, right, shows fairgoers Maurice Bishop Speaks, with speeches by central leader of 1979-83 revolution in Grenada.

NEW YORK — Many of the hundreds of participants at the annual Grenada Day festival in Brooklyn here were hungry for books by revolutionary leaders Maurice Bishop, Thomas Sankara, Malcolm X and others. Socialist Workers Party members and supporters fanned…


New Zealand bus drivers walk out over low pay, safety

Vol. 82/No. 34 - September 17, 2018
Bus drivers, members of FIRST Union, carried out one-day strike against Go Bus. They picketed transport center in Hamilton, New Zealand, Aug. 14, demanding equal pay for same work.

HAMILTON, New Zealand — Sixty bus drivers, members of FIRST Union, picketed the central city transport center here Aug. 14 as part of a daylong strike against Go Bus. The workers are demanding 20 New Zealand dollars and 55 cents…