Teamsters show ‘with proper leadership, workers can overcome’

Vol. 84/No. 51 - December 28, 2020
In May 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters rout cops, special deputies from bosses’ Citizens Alliance that were sent to break their strike. Class-conscious leaders organized workers defense to win.

Teamster Bureaucracy, by Farrell Dobbs, is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December. It is the last in a four-volume series on how a class-struggle union was forged in Minneapolis and across the Midwest trucking industry in the…


‘Decisive battles for future of humanity will be fought in the US’

Vol. 84/No. 50 - December 21, 2020

The Struggle for Socialism in the “American Century”: Writings and Speeches, 1945-47 by James P. Cannon is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December. In the face of the U.S. rulers’ swaggering claim to global domination following their…


‘Cuban Revolution is sustained in power by working people’

Vol. 84/No. 49 - December 14, 2020
Fidel Castro presents Second Declaration of Havana to million-strong assembly, Feb. 4, 1962. Cuban working people transformed themselves through the fight to take political power, making first socialist revolution in the Americas and defending it from U.S. aggression ever since.

Fidel Castro: Nothing Can Stop the Course of History, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December, is a wide-ranging interview given by the central leader of the Cuban Revolution in 1985. His interviewers were Jeffrey M. Elliot, a…


How US combat troops turned against the Vietnam War

Vol. 84/No. 48 - December 7, 2020
Over 500 active-duty GIs joined San Francisco protest against Washington’s war in Vietnam, Oct. 12, 1968. GI opposition to the war, disintegrating morale was a key factor in U.S. defeat.

Out Now by Fred Halstead is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for November. Halstead, an active participant in and leader of the international movement against the U.S. war in Vietnam, visited and talked with GIs at a U.S.…


Workers need fighting program for jobs, protection from inflation

Vol. 84/No. 47 - November 30, 2020
1937 sit-down strike at GM in Flint, Michigan, won union recognition and pay raise. The 1930s labor upsurge posed fight against twin scourges of unemployment and high prices. “The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based on exploitation.”

The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution by Leon Trotsky is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for November. The excerpt below is from the document “The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International.” In drafting…


Build support for Dominion workers strike in Canada

Vol. 84/No. 44 - November 9, 2020
Dominion workers picket Oct. 26 at Weston’s bakery in St. John’s, Newfoundland. “See us, hear us, because we’re not going anywhere,” said Unifor Local 597 President Carolyn Wrice.

“Those of us standing on a picket line for nine weeks, we’re here to say that we are fed up with this company taking our full-time jobs away,” Dawn Hanames told an Oct. 22 rally of striking Dominion grocery workers,…


Federal cops charged in 2017 killing of Bijan Ghaisar

Vol. 84/No. 44 - November 9, 2020

WASHINGTON — A grand jury in Fairfax County, Virginia, filed manslaughter charges Oct. 15 against Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard, two U.S. Park Police officers, who shot and killed Bijan Ghaisar on Nov. 17, 2017. The cops chased Ghaisar after…


Organizing the South remains a key challenge before labor

Vol. 84/No. 43 - November 2, 2020
Steelworkers Local 8888 victory demonstration at Newport News, Virginia, shipyard in 1979. Drive led by Black workers to organize 18,000 there showed possibilities for organizing South.

One of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for October is Labor’s Giant Step — The First Twenty Years of the CIO: 1936-55 by Art Preis. Preis, a participant in labor battles in the 1930s, became a staff writer for the…


Canadian Dominion grocery workers strike wins solidarity

Vol. 84/No. 42 - October 26, 2020
Rally at nonunion No Frills supermarket, Paradise, Newfoundland, Oct. 8. Some 1,400 Unifor Local 597 members have been on strike against Dominion grocery store bosses since Aug. 22.

After more than six weeks on strike at Dominion stores in Newfoundland, Canada, more than 100 pickets from Unifor Local 597 and their supporters rallied in the rain Oct. 8 in the parking lot at a nonunion No Frills supermarket…


‘Imperialism is an arsonist setting fire to our forests’

Vol. 84/No. 40 - October 12, 2020
Burkinabe women building terrace to prevent spread of the desert, 1986. Revolution led by Thomas Sankara mobilized peasants, workers, women to take control of their lives, country.

Thomas Sankara Speaks is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for October. Sankara was the exemplary leader of a revolution in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa, from 1983 to 1987. His speeches explain how the…