Working people need our own party, a labor party

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020
Socialist Workers Party 2020 candidates set example for working people, joining labor struggles, including, above, striking shipyard workers in Bath, Maine. Inset, SWP presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy, left, talks with dispatcher Janet Sanchez at D.C. truckers’ protest against low rates, onerous regulations May 13. Workers need to build a labor party to advance our struggles.

Working people need our own political party, a labor party, that we can use to defend our interests, independent from and politically opposed to the Democrats and Republicans, the twin parties of the capitalist rulers. Alternating in office for decades,…



Teachers union supports SWP disclosure fight in Washington

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020
Members of AFT Local 1789 organized a walkout in 2016 during contract negotiations at Seattle Central Colleges. The local’s executive board wrote to support Socialist Workers Party’s fight to stop Washington state officials from publicly disclosing names and addresses of SWP electors. The union has been fighting its own battle against attempts by a notorious anti-labor group to use state disclosure laws to gain access to personal information on campus workers.

The Socialist Workers Party’s recent success in preventing disclosure of the names and addresses of its presidential electors in Washington state continues to hold. And additional support for the fight to prevent disclosure keeps coming in. On Nov. 9 Annette…



Thousands in Indonesia protest new anti-labor law

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020
Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Indonesia to protest new anti-labor law passed Oct. 5. Sign at left reads, “Reject the Omnibus Law,” which makes it easier for bosses to fire workers, avoid paying holiday pay.

SYDNEY — Hundreds of thousands of workers and students took to the streets across Indonesia Oct. 5 to protest the passage of anti-labor legislation that day. Dubbed the “Omnibus Law,” it amends more than 70 existing laws, including ones that…


Atlanta solidarity vigil with protests in Nigeria

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020
Atlanta solidarity vigil with protests in Nigeria

ATLANTA — “We’re here to honor the lives lost in Nigeria,” Victor Bomi told a protest outside the Nigerian Consulate here Oct. 30. “Even one Nigerian life lost is too many — too many killed by SARS, by the police,…


Pennsylvania nurses strike over patient safety, wages

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020
Pennsylvania nurses strike over patient safety, wages

Nearly 800 nurses, members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals union, began a two-day strike Nov. 17 at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, over inadequate staffing levels, patient safety and low wages. The union…



Dominion strikers in Canada ratify pact, end 12-week strike

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020

The over 1,400 workers at Dominion grocery stores in Newfoundland, who belong to Unifor Local 597, voted to end their spirited 12-week-long strike. Voting on what Loblaw, Dominion’s parent company, called its “final” contract proposal was conducted on the picket…


Brutal gov’t killing spurs new protests in Belarus

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020
Thousands in Belarus lined streets of Minsk, above, and across country Nov. 13, forming solidarity chains in memory of Roman Bondarenko, art teacher and former soldier, who died after brutal beating by government cops. Workers organized minute of silence outside factories.

Thousands gathered at Minsk’s Square of Change and elsewhere across Belarus Nov. 15 to demonstrate against the cop killing of Roman Bondarenko. He had been one of the hundreds of thousands protesting the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko and his…