Lac-Mégantic: Profits before people’s safety — once again

Vol. 83/No. 36 - October 7, 2019
July 6, 2013, day of train derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people. Upper left is Tafisa, largest particle board plant in North America. Plant depends on tracks that were rebuilt through center of town weeks after explosion and fire, while town center was razed.

LAC-MÉGANTIC, Quebec — “This is proof once more, that we are not safe in Lac-Mégantic,” Robert Bellefleur, spokeperson for Lac-Mégantic Citizens Coalition and Organizations for Rail Safety, told CBC News after two train derailments took place here Aug. 24. They…


Wake up Puerto Rico, it’s time!

Vol. 83/No. 36 - October 7, 2019

It brings tears to my eyes to sit in prison locked down and to read about how my island is being destroyed. Its own government is selling our own people out. We don’t need the U.S. interfering in our affairs.…


25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

Vol. 83/No. 36 - October 7, 2019

October 10, 1994 FLINT, Michigan — Nearly 12,000 members of United Auto Workers Local 599, the largest General Motors local in North America, walked out of the 25 plants that make up GM’s Buick City complex September 27. The strikers…


Support GM strikers, Ky. coal miners!

Vol. 83/No. 36 - October 7, 2019

At the heart of the strike by United Auto Workers at General Motors is workers’ determination to push back the concessions the bosses have imposed on workers with “two tiers” of wages and on growing numbers of temp workers with…


‘FBI disruption violates constitutional rights of SWP’

Vol. 83/No. 36 - October 7, 2019
SWP suit against FBI proved government spying and disruption is unconstitutional. Above, GM and Aramark strikers picket GM Parma plant near Cleveland Sept. 16. Recent FBI “corruption” raids on UAW union officials are aimed at weakening strike and the union.

FBI on Trial: The Victory of the Socialist Workers Party Suit Against Government Spying is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for October. In July 1973 the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance filed a lawsuit against the…


NY construction workers protest deaths, nonunion sites

Vol. 83/No. 36 - October 7, 2019

NEW YORK — More than 200 construction workers, most coming straight from nearby job sites, rallied outside the offices of New Line Structures in midtown Manhattan Sept. 17. New Line, one of the top 10 construction firms in the city,…


Washington tightens squeeze on Cuba’s revolution

Vol. 83/No. 36 - October 7, 2019

“Cuba will not give in to slanders and blackmail,” from the U.S. government said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Sept. 20 at a press conference in Havana in response to Washington’s latest measures aimed at blocking Cuba’s supplies of oil…


‘There will be a clash between the oppressed and the oppressors’

Vol. 83/No. 35 - September 30, 2019

Malcolm X Speaks is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for September. Malcolm broke from the Nation of Islam, headed by Elijah Muhammad, to become the outstanding leader of the struggle for Black liberation in the United States in…


GM workers, Blackjewel miners, fight for all of us

Vol. 83/No. 35 - September 30, 2019

The following statement by Helen Meyers, Socialist Workers Party candidate for St. Paul City Council, was released Sept. 18. The nearly 50,000 autoworkers on strike against attacks by bosses at General Motors are fighting not just for themselves, but for…


Coal miners at Blackjewel ‘stand up for what’s right’

Vol. 83/No. 35 - September 30, 2019

CUMBERLAND, Ky. — Miners laid off and robbed of their wages by Blackjewel coal bosses July 1 are keeping up their encampment they set up July 29 to block the railroad track. They organized the protest on the tracks leading…