Inspired by W.Va. victory workers organize to fight

Victory of W.Va. teachers builds labor movement
Vol. 82/No. 12 - March 26, 2018
Teachers protest government attacks March 12 at state Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky.

BOONE COUNTY, W.Va. — The March 6 victory in the strike of teachers and all school workers in West Virginia came out of a powerful social movement, where union members took ownership of their struggle and won solidarity from coal…


Ky. teachers fight threat of government pension cuts

Vol. 82/No. 12 - March 26, 2018

Following the example of school workers in West Virginia, over a 1,000 teachers, retirees, other public workers and their supporters crowded the state Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, March 12, protesting a bill brought before the state Senate that would slash…


West Virginia school workers win strike!

Unity, solidarity show power of working class
Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018
Woodsdale Elementary teachers, Wheeling, West Virginia, celebrate strike victory March 6.

PUTNAM COUNTY, W.Va. — “I think this will start a movement across the country of working people rising up,” Phillip Eastep, a steelworker in Huntington, told Socialist Workers Party members when we joined him picketing with school bus workers outside…


Ukraine miners fight for back wages, raises, better conditions

Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018
After walking out of work Feb. 14, coal miners in Donetsk region of Ukraine, joined by family members, protest at company headquarters during strike demanding payment of back wages.

Wage arrears owed to working people in Ukraine reached a staggering 2.37 billion hryvnia ($88 million) as of Jan. 1, a 33 percent increase over the past year. About 80 percent is owed to workers in the mining and heavy…


W.Va. telecom workers strike Frontier to defend jobs

Vol. 82/No. 11 - March 19, 2018

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Some 1,400 members of the Communications Workers of America went on strike across West Virginia and in Ashburn, Virginia, March 4, when 10 months of negotiations for a new contract between the union and Frontier Communications broke…


Ukraine miners fight bosses, government over back pay

Vol. 82/No. 10 - March 12, 2018

Coal miners and their families in Novogrodivka, in part of Donetsk province outside Moscow-backed separatist control, rallied outside the bosses’ office there Feb. 14, blocking entrance to the building. The workers demanded payment of wages owed to them. When they…


NY cop who killed Deborah Danner is let off

Vol. 82/No. 9 - March 5, 2018

NEW YORK — On Feb. 15 State Supreme Court Judge Robert Neary acquitted Sgt. Hugh Barry of murder in the killing of Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old woman suffering from schizophrenia. Once again, the decision shows the difficulty in winning a…


IG Metall, Germany’s biggest union, makes a deal

Vol. 82/No. 9 - March 5, 2018

After a month of brief walkouts and a series of 24-hour protest strikes, IG Metall, Germany’s biggest union, has signed a contract covering 900,000 workers in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The same deal is likely to be rolled out for…


Workers in Finland pay for deal to make bosses stronger

Vol. 82/No. 8 - February 26, 2018

Thousands demonstrated in Helsinki Feb. 2 protesting laws that cut government aid to unemployed workers if they don’t seek jobs “actively” enough. This is the latest step in an ongoing “Finland First” campaign to strengthen the capitalists’ ability to compete…


Liberals praise FBI in fight over probe into Donald Trump

Vol. 82/No. 7 - February 19, 2018

“Trump Has Picked a Fight with the FBI. He’ll Be Sorry,” reads a headline in the Feb. 1 Washington Post. The headline expresses what the owners of the liberal media and the middle-class left wish to be the result in a…