Myanmar junta extends crackdown, opposition continues

Vol. 85/No. 30 - August 16, 2021

Six months after ousting the elected government, seizing total power and putting down mass protests, the military junta in Myanmar announced Aug. 1 it was extending its state of emergency for two more years. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of…


Cecelia Moriarity: 45 years building communist movement

Vol. 85/No. 30 - August 16, 2021

SEATTLE — Cecelia Moriarity, a 45-year member of the Socialist Workers Party, died here July 23 after a prolonged illness. Moriarity built the party in cities across the country and served on the party’s National Committee for a number of…


Freedom Rides built fight to topple Jim Crow segregation

Vol. 85/No. 29 - July 26, 2021
Freedom Riders Ken Shilman, left, and Joe McDonald being escorted by authorities out of “colored waiting room” at Trailways bus station under arrest in Jackson, Mississippi, June 2, 1961. They were among hundreds thrown in jail. Inset, Jimmy Allen Ruth, who died last month at 83, was Trailways driver who volunteered to take Freedom Riders from Nashville, Tennessee, to Jackson.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, one of the high points of the Black-led proletarian civil rights struggle that overturned Jim Crow and decisively changed social relations in the U.S. Despite U.S. Supreme Court rulings in…


Puerto Rico turns electric grid over to Luma, attacks workers

Vol. 85/No. 28 - July 19, 2021
May 18 protest in San Juan by electrical workers against state privatizing management of public electric company to Luma bosses. Sign says, “Yes to a collective contract! No to Luma!”

On June 1 the government of Puerto Rico handed over management of the breakdown-plagued state-owned electric system to Luma Energy, a U.S.-Canadian joint venture. The electrical workers union, UTIER, and other opponents of the move organized protests across the island…


App-based UK Bolt drivers strike to be paid as workers

Vol. 85/No. 27 - July 12, 2021
London protest at Bolt, app-based cab hailing company, by 100 members of App Drivers and Couriers Union June 22. They logged off, called for passenger boycott in 24-hour strike.

LONDON — Chanting “Enough is enough!” and “Driver power!” 100 members of the App Drivers and Couriers Union protested outside the London offices of the app-based Bolt cab hailing company here June 22. The action marked the start of a…


Crimean Tatars protest Russian occupation, 1944 deportations

Vol. 85/No. 27 - July 12, 2021

Despite a brutally enforced ban by Moscow, which has occupied the Crimean Peninsula since 2014, Tatars did come out into the streets May 18 one by one. Many were holding signs commemorating the 77th anniversary of the mass deportation of…


South Carolina pushes for execution by firing squad

Vol. 85/No. 26 - July 5, 2021
Picket May 29 in Greenville, South Carolina, protesting two scheduled executions and forcing prisoners to “choose” between electric chair and firing squad. Right, firing squad execution chamber at Utah State Prison in Draper.

Hoping to jump start resumption of the death penalty, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill May 14 legalizing firing squads and making killings with the state’s 109-year-old electric chair the default method of execution.  No one has been…


Beijing control over family size is attack on women

Vol. 85/No. 26 - July 5, 2021

Worried that its population is aging and there won’t be enough young workers to exploit to maximize state profits, the Chinese government announced last month that it was raising the limit on the number of children a family is allowed…


Over 1,000 march in Texas to protest new anti-abortion law

Vol. 85/No. 25 - June 28, 2021
Rally at state Capitol in Austin, Texas, May 29, to protest law that would ban abortion at around six weeks of pregnancy, one of most restrictive in U.S. Marchers vowed to keep fighting.

Over 1,000 demonstrators marched from the Texas state Capitol in Austin to the Governor’s Mansion May 29 to protest the recently passed “Texas Heartbeat Act” that would ban most abortions in the state after six weeks of pregnancy. The “heartbeat”…


Workers give bosses’ ‘blood money’ bribes to build SWP

Vol. 85/No. 25 - June 28, 2021

As bosses everywhere try to boost their competitive edge and profits at the expense of workers, they sometimes feel compelled to hand out some bribes, hoping to buy workers’ acquiescence. Socialist Workers Party members call this “blood money” — production,…