‘Help us put the Socialist Workers Party on the ballot!’

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021
Gerardo Sánchez, SWP candidate for Dallas City Council, talks with Valerie Pinales Jan. 20 on her doorstep about the party’s program. She signed the petition to put the party on the ballot.

DALLAS — Socialist Workers Party campaigners have gotten off to a solid start in the fight to win ballot status for Gerardo Sánchez, the party’s candidate for City Council District 1. They are extending the party’s reach and finding interest…


Rolls-Royce bosses back off plan to cut jobs at Barnoldswick plant

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021

BARNOLDSWICK, England — After nine weeks on the picket line, the Unite union Jan. 8 suspended strike action by Rolls-Royce workers here after the company backed off threatened job cuts. Mark Porter, Unite union convener at the plant, told the…


Oil workers strike against subcontracting, for safety

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021
Teamsters Local 120 members and supporters picket road to Marathon Petroleum refinery Jan. 23 in St. Paul Park, Minnesota. The union struck over unsafe conditions, subcontracting jobs.

ST. PAUL PARK, Minn. — Two hundred members of Teamsters Local 120 went on strike against the Marathon Petroleum refinery here Jan. 21 over subcontracting their jobs and unsafe working conditions. Marathon bosses own the majority of oil refineries in…


Workers win wage hike in NY produce market strike

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021
More than 1,000 Teamsters union members at New York’s Hunts Point Produce Market vote overwhelmingly to approve new contract Jan. 23, after one-week strike won wage increase.

NEW YORK — “I couldn’t be happier,” Marco Gonzalez told the Militant Jan. 23. “When you beat the owners it’s a victory. And my co-workers saw that we accomplish something when we stick together.” He was referring to the gains…


In struggle, workers advance unity, class consciousness

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021

Statement by Willie Cotton, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York City public advocate, released Jan 27. Socialist Workers Party candidates here in New York and across the country offer the only campaigns that are part of and champion struggles…


Fight for workers control of production, job safety

White House executive orders aim to hold workers in check
Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021
Chart shows steep fall in employment in 2020, even with partial recovery. Rate is falling again now. Workers need to be at work, alongside fellow workers, to fight attacks by bosses, gov’t.

President Joe Biden spent his first days in office churning out executive orders, avoiding debate or vote by Congress. He aims to put a stamp of “political correctness” on government agencies and much more. These measures are a danger to…


‘Building a new society is the work of creative human beings’

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021

One of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for January is In Defense of Socialism: Four Speeches on the 30th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution by Fidel Castro, its central leader. The triumph of the Cuban people on Jan. 1, 1959,…


Mass protests across Russia demand ‘Free Alexei Navalny’

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021
Protesters in over 100 Russian cities Jan. 23, including St. Petersburg, above, demand freedom for opposition leader Alexei Navalny, protest growing repression by regime of Vladimir Putin.

Despite a brutal police crackdown, tens of thousands rallied in over 100 Russian cities across the country Jan. 23 demanding freedom for Alexei Navalny, the most prominent bourgeois opposition politician in the country, who was arrested days earlier. It was…


Tunisian youth protest lack of jobs, police brutality

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021

“The people want the fall of the regime!” chanted hundreds of demonstrators at an anti-government protest in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, Jan. 23. Discontent over massive unemployment, rising inflation, lack of social services and police brutality have led to…


US gov’t pushes assault on rights, claims target is ‘domestic terror’

Vol. 85/No. 5 - February 8, 2021
Washington used the FBI, the capitalist rulers’ political police, to spy on and try to disrupt the Black liberation movement, including targeting both Malcom X, right, and Martin Luther King Jr., left. Democrats claim greater police powers are needed to counter “domestic terrorism.”

The new Democratic Party administration of Joe Biden is spearheading an assault on political rights, claiming that a few hundred conspiracy theorists and wannabe paramilitaries, followed by some supporters of Donald Trump, who entered the Capitol Jan. 6 represent a…