New York rally backs striking Spectrum cable workers

Vol. 82/No. 15 - April 16, 2018
Hundreds of workers rally March 28 in New York to back Spectrum cable workers, members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, on strike for a year against concessions.

NEW YORK — Hundreds of workers rallied to back International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3 members on strike against Charter Communications/Spectrum March 28 outside the company’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The spirited demonstration marked the one-year anniversary of the…


Port workers in New Zealand strike for safety, pay parity

Vol. 82/No. 15 - April 16, 2018

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Some 90 dockworkers marched through the port town of Lyttelton March 22, day two of a five-day strike for pay parity with other port workers and against changes to working hours by the Lyttelton Port Company.…


Safeway workers in Manitoba push back concessions

Vol. 82/No. 15 - April 16, 2018

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Some 2,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 832 at Safeway in this province voted overwhelmingly March 25 to ratify a four-year agreement with Sobeys. Sobeys bought the Safeway grocery chain in western Canada five…


Rail, public sector workers protest gov’t attacks in France

Vol. 82/No. 14 - April 9, 2018
Hundreds of thousands of rail and public workers rallied in Paris and around France March 22 against government attacks on unions and two-tier system proposed for new hires in rail.

PARIS — Hundreds of thousands of rail and other government workers took to the streets in 180 cities across France March 22. Close to 25,000 rail workers — almost one-quarter of the workforce at the state-run SNCF (French National Railway…


Washington seeks deal with Beijing to end NKorea’s nukes

Vol. 82/No. 14 - April 9, 2018

President Donald Trump announced a 60-day “consultation process” prior to imposing tariffs on selected imports from Beijing March 22. The protectionist measures would target competitors from China, where the expansion of capitalist industry and trade over the past three decades…


Solidarity builds for locked-out Quebec aluminum workers

Vol. 82/No. 14 - April 9, 2018

BÉCANCOUR, Quebec — “We will fight for our rights. Through the struggle we have the opportunity to meet other workers and solidify the fight,” Danny Pilotte, a foundry worker, one of over 1,000 locked-out ABI Bécancour aluminum workers, told Communist…


25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

Vol. 82/No. 14 - April 9, 2018

April 12, 1993 LONDON — Three thousand British workers, one-third of them coal miners, marched and rallied here March 29 to protest pit closures. The demonstration, called by the Trades Union Congress, the British labor federation, coincided with a debate…


Socialist Workers Party in 1950: ‘US out of Korea!’

Vol. 82/No. 14 - April 9, 2018

Below is a July 31, 1950, letter from Socialist Workers Party National Secretary James P. Cannon to President Harry Truman and members of Congress demanding they end the U.S. rulers’ war against the Korean people. It is the first of…


Higher taxes or attacks on teachers? A fake trade off

Vol. 82/No. 14 - April 9, 2018

The victorious strike by teachers and other school workers in West Virginia, and the preparations put in place beforehand to effectively organize it, unified workers and built a broad social movement. School workers were inspired by the history of independent…


Kurds: ‘Atrocities don’t kill our quest for freedom’

Vol. 82/No. 14 - April 9, 2018

WASHINGTON — “Thirty years ago, on March 16, 1988, Iraqi aircraft attacked the people of Halabja with chemical weapons. Children were lost in the chaos that followed, families died, and thousands more were injured by poison gas. Today, we mourn…