Bob Cantrick, communist cadre for over 5 decades

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020
Above, Steve Penner, organizer of Communist League in Canada, speaks at Dec. 5 celebration of political life of Bob Cantrick held in Montreal. “Bob was won to the communist movement in the late 1960s under the impact of the Black rights, women’s liberation, anti-Vietnam War movements, and the Cuban Revolution, which points the way forward toward humanity’s socialist future,” Penner said. Inset, Cantrick working at Marley Cooling Tower in Kansas City, Missouri in 1990.

MONTREAL — Thirty-two people attended a Dec. 5 celebration here of the political life of Bob Cantrick, a member and supporter of the communist movement in three countries for more than 50 years. Participants came from Toronto, Hamilton and Montreal.…


India farmer protests grow in fight to stop gov’t assaults

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020
Tens of thousands of farmers in camp near Indian capital New Delhi protest government assault on their livelihoods. Inset, car caravan in Montreal Dec. 12 in solidarity with farmers’ actions.

Tens of thousands of farmers continue their protest blockade around New Delhi, the Indian capital, demanding Prime Minister Narendra Modi withdraw new agricultural laws that will drive down the prices farmers receive for their crops. They’re fighting to defend their…


Family leads protests for arrest of cop who killed Casey Goodson Jr.

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020
Protest Dec. 11 demands arrest of cop who shot and killed Casey Goodson Jr., in Columbus, Ohio. Inset, Tamala Payne, Goodson’s mother, tells crowd, “We’ve all got to stand up!”

Demanding authorities prosecute a sheriff’s deputy who shot dead laid-off truck driver and Gap employee Casey Goodson Jr., hundreds took to the streets of Columbus, Ohio, Dec. 11 and 12. Goodson was gunned down on his grandmother’s doorstep in the…


Walmart workers give ‘blood money’ bribes to build SWP

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020

“With great satisfaction I put the $141 in ‘blood money’ from Walmart bosses toward building the Socialist Workers Party, the vanguard party of the working class,” wrote Maggie Trowe from Louisville, Kentucky. “The billionaire owners made record profits from exploiting…


US executes two more federal inmates, three others scheduled

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020
Dec. 10 protest outside federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where U.S. gov’t carries out executions. Socialist Workers Party member Samir Hazboun, second from left, talks with Indiana University students. “Use of death penalty is a bipartisan attack on the working class,” he said.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Rallying across the street from the federal prison here Dec. 10, 40 people protested the execution of Brandon Bernard before the U.S. government put him to death. The following day federal inmate Alfred Bourgeois was also…



Protests across Kurdistan demand unpaid wages, jobs, services

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020
Public sector workers protest in Sulaymaniyah, demanding unpaid wages from Kurdistan Regional Government Dec. 11. Actions expanded across the region, fueled by lack of jobs and services.

Teachers and other public employees, fed up with working for months without being paid, protested demanding back wages Dec. 2 in the city of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. When they tried to march again the next day,…


Holiday greetings to workers behind bars

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020

The Militant  sends holiday greetings to fellow workers behind bars! We will continue to tell the truth about the conditions you face and to fight to ensure you can receive our paper and news about the struggles of working people…


Rolls-Royce jet engine workers strike to defend their jobs

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020

BARNOLDSWICK, England — “They have given us no choice but to fight,” Dennis Constable said Dec. 5 at the end of a rally and car caravan organized by Rolls-Royce jet engine workers and their union, Unite, in support of their…


Teamsters show ‘with proper leadership, workers can overcome’

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020
In May 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters rout cops, special deputies from bosses’ Citizens Alliance that were sent to break their strike. Class-conscious leaders organized workers defense to win.

Teamster Bureaucracy, by Farrell Dobbs, is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December. It is the last in a four-volume series on how a class-struggle union was forged in Minneapolis and across the Midwest trucking industry in the…