Putin expands draft as Ukraine forces advance

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023
Protest at Times Square in New York City July 30 organized by Russian-born opponents of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

For almost a year and a half, Ukrainian working people have pushed back Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion aimed at subjugating their country. Putin is now expanding the age of conscription to replenish his battered forces, while taking further steps…


Strikes by actors, writers are a ‘fight for all the workers’

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Two weeks after members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists went on strike, joining the workers from the Writers Guild of America who walked out May 2, several unions and other workers…


Catherine Burks-Brooks helped launch Freedom Rides in 1961

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023
Above, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, left, speaks with Freedom Riders, seated from left, Charles Butler, Catherine Burks-Brooks, Lucretia Collins and Salynn McCollum in white waiting room in Birmingham, Alabama, bus station, May 17, 1961. Inset, Burks-Brooks smiles in mug shot after being arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, 11 days later.

The 1961 Freedom Rides were one of the watershed events in the Black-led working-class fight to overthrow Jim Crow segregation that changed social relations in the U.S. forever. Among those fearless, determined fighters involved in this moment in history was…


Discussions on unions, politics mark librarians’ conference

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023
Discussions of defense of constitutional freedoms, “woke” book bans, need for unions today, politics led to high sales of Pathfinder books at American Library Association conference.

CHICAGO — Nearly 16,000 librarians from public, school, prison and military-base libraries, along with publishers, authors and vendors, gathered here at the McCormick Place June 22-27 for the American Library Association conference. The gathering took place amid increased attacks on…


Rail workers fight for control of safety, working conditions

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023
Amtrak 2021 Montana derailment killed three, injured 49. NTSB found BNSF had not maintained the tracks and slashed the workforce, boosting workloads and causing fatigue.

LINCOLN, Neb. — There are thousands of rural towns across the U.S. crisscrossed by railroad tracks where trains pass through daily. Since the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment and burn-off of some 900,000 pounds of toxic vinyl chloride in East…



Canadian dockworkers’ fight for contract continues

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023
Canadian dockworkers’ fight for contract continue

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — In face of attacks by Ottawa against their right to strike, 7,400 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada at the 30 terminals run by the BC Maritime Employers Association on Canada’s West Coast…


International youth meeting in Cuba says ‘No!’ to US embargo

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023
Some 80 delegates from 30 countries expressed solidarity with the Cuban people and their socialist revolution in Havana May 27. They joined a bicycle caravan along the Malecón seafront boulevard protesting Washington’s trade and financial embargo against Cuba

HAVANA — “Your presence here encourages us and reinforces that Cuba is not alone despite so many attempts to isolate us,” Aylín Álvarez García, first secretary of the National Committee of the Union of Young Communists of Cuba (UJC), told…


‘Iranian government can never silence the retirees’

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023
Some 200 retirees and others joined protest in Rasht, Iran, July 23, one of many across country demanding government raise pensions to keep up with inflation.

On July 23, police in Rasht, Iran, 200 miles northwest of Tehran, attacked a demonstration of some 200 retirees and disabled people. They doused some protesters with pepper spray. Other recent protests of retirees have taken place without government interference.…


Union caravan brings solidarity to Wabtec strike

Vol. 87/No. 30 - August 14, 2023

ERIE, Pa. — Solidarity was the word of the day here July 29 as a car caravan brought strike supporters from Western Pennsylvania to join the strike picket line of United Electrical Workers Locals 506 and 618 at the entrance…