Socialist Workers Party champions desegregation fight

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019

A brief, but acrimonious, exchange about busing for school desegregation between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden at the June 27 Democratic Party debate in Miami received lots of news coverage but had little substance.   Neither Harris nor Biden are…


Ruling is gain for working class

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019

The Lorain County jury ruling in favor of the Gibson family in their legal challenge to baseless “racism” smears by the administrators of Oberlin College is a political victory for the working class. It is a break with years of…


Debs: ‘Our hearts are with the Bolsheviki in Russia’

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019
Eugene V. Debs speaks in Canton, Ohio, against imperialist war, June 1918, for which he was sentenced to prison. Inset, campaign button for Debs 1920 Socialist Party campaign for president from prison. He got almost a million votes, highest socialist vote in U.S. history.

The selection below is from Eugene V. Debs Speaks, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for July. Debs was a pioneer socialist agitator, railroad union fighter and supporter of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. He was jailed by the…


17,000 workers strike Walmart in Chile over wages, job security

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019
Walmart workers picket in Santiago, Chile, July 10, part of strike by 17,000 members of SIL union for better wages, and against job cuts and speedup. Sign reads, “No more abuses.”

Some 17,000 unionized workers across Chile went on strike against Walmart July 10. It is “the largest private sector strike in decades” in the country, Telesur TV News reported.  The strike vote was organized June 25-27 by Sindicato Interempresa Líder…


London train cleaners join 48-hour work stoppage

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019

LONDON — Chanting, “Low pay, no way!” 40 members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers picketed the North Pole Hitachi rail depot in northwest London July 9 and 10. Some 60 union members across two shifts…


California grocery workers rally for wage raise, more work hours

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019

LOS ANGELES — Over 300 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union and some supporters rallied in front of a Ralphs grocery store here July 9. “We work at different companies but we’re all fighting for better wages…


Amazon warehouse workers protest against speedup and harassment

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019
Workers picket on “Prime Day” outside Shakopee, Minnesota, Amazon warehouse July 15.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. — “I’m standing up to make things better for my co-workers,” Meg Brady told a protest outside the huge Amazon fulfillment warehouse here July 15. Dozens of Amazon workers were joined by some 300 supporters, many trade unionists…


‘Fight for amnesty for immigrants in the US!’

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019

The following statement by Lea Sherman, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New Jersey General Assembly, was released July 17. The New York Times  July 13 ran an editorial — “All Presidents Are Deporters in Chief” — admitting what the Socialist…


New stage in bakery’s fight against Oberlin ‘racism’ smear

Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019
Allyn Gibson Sr. tells stories to children outside his family-run bakery in Oberlin, Ohio. Bakery owners won lawsuit against Oberlin College after smear campaign libeling Gibson’s as “racist.”

The successful fight waged by Gibson’s, a family-owned-and-operated bakery in Oberlin, Ohio, against a mean-spirited smear campaign by Oberlin College officials that libeled them as “racist” has entered a new stage. The college is seeking to prevent the award of…


SWP campaigns among coal miners, workers in Kentucky

‘We need to break with the Democrats, Republicans’
Vol. 83/No. 27 - July 29, 2019
From left, Samir Hazboun, SWP candidate for Kentucky lieutenant governor, and Alyson Kennedy, SWP presidential candidate in 2016 and former coal miner, talk with Lita Melton, retired union miner James Melton, and farmer Jessica Ison at Whitesburg farmers market July 13.

HAZARD, Ky. — “The threats and sanctions against Iran and the wars the wealthy capitalist rulers carry out abroad are an extension of their exploitation and abuse of working people here in the U.S.,” Socialist Workers Party leader Alyson Kennedy…