February-March strike by West Virginia teachers, above, was “the most important labor battle in U.S. in decades,” Socialist Workers Party leader Mary-Alice Waters said at Militant Labor Forums Oct. 21 in Sydney, Australia, left, and in New Zealand two days earlier. “It showed the nascent power of the working class.” She also said, “Nowhere is it more apparent than in the Asia-Pacific region that the entire post-World War II imperialist order put in place by Washington and its allies is being pulled apart at the seams.”