Locked-out Marathon workers fight for safety at oil refinery

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021
Members of Teamsters Local 120 picket at entrance to Marathon Petroleum refinery in St. Paul Park, Minnesota, June 2. Company locked them out Jan. 22 after one-day strike. Workers say the central issue is safety for both the workers and the surrounding community.

ST. PAUL PARK, Minn. — Teamsters Local 120 members are in their fifth month picketing 24/7 at the Marathon Petroleum oil refinery here. They were locked out by the bosses Jan. 22 after a one day strike in a fight…


Alabama miners strike is in interests of all workers

Unionists demand raise, safe working conditions
Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021
June 2 rally in McCalla, Alabama, backs 1,100 mineworkers standing up to Warrior Met Coal.

MCCALLA, Ala. — “We now have $100,000 more in the strike fund to support Warrior Met miners,” United Mine Workers of America International District 20 Vice President Larry Spencer told the union’s weekly solidarity rally here June 2. “We’ve received…


Working people worldwide look to fight effects of rising prices

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021
Demonstration during Friday prayers in Taiz, Yemen, June 4, protesting devastating impact of inflation, deterioration of government social services and widespread official corruption.

Food prices and the cost of other necessities for working people are soaring worldwide, highlighting the urgent need for workers to join together to fight for jobs, higher wages and automatic cost-of-living adjustments on our wages and retirement pay. Millions…


25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021

June 24, 1996 CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Arsonists burned down a portion of an historic Black church here June 6. This is one of more than 30 fires set in Black churches in the South since early 1995. The attacks…


Back workers standing up to boss attacks, build solidarity

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021

“We think workers should support unionists standing up to the bosses’ attacks, like striking miners in Alabama, and refinery workers in Minnesota and Texas,” Socialist Workers Party member Samir Hazboun told truck driver Dale Robinson in Louisville, Kentucky, June 5.…


Scientific socialism grew with the working-class movement

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021
Karl Marx, holding Neue Rheinische Zeitung with Frederick Engels in 1848 German revolution, helped build Communist League, first modern working-class party. Engels wrote, “Com-munism is not a doctrine but a movement; it proceeds not from principles but from facts.”

The excerpt below is from one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for June, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels. Engels helped found the modern communist movement alongside Karl Marx. In this book, written by Engels with the collaboration…


The working-class road forward in tackling crime and cop violence

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021
SWP candidate for Minneapolis mayor Doug Nelson, inset. Campaign points to how 1964 Black rights protests led by Gloria Richardson, above, in Maryland built solidarity, cut crime.

MINNEAPOLIS — Supporters of Socialist Workers Party candidates Doug Nelson for mayor and David Rosenfeld for City Council in Ward 12 here had a successful weekend June 5-6 campaigning with workers on their doorsteps and collecting signatures to put Nelson…


Jewish and Arab workers join to advance class solidarity in Israel

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021

The brief wave of clashes in Israel in mid-May shows the challenges and the desire of Jewish and Arab working people there to come together to advance their class interests. Attacks against Jews and Arabs alike took place as tensions…