March builds support for Bath shipyard workers strike

Vol. 84/No. 31 - August 10, 2020
Shipyard workers on strike in Bath, Maine, and supporters march July 25 against company demands to expand subcontracting, cut back seniority rights and raise health care costs. “This is not about greed on our part,” said striker John LaPointe. “It’s about dignity,” and knitting together generations of workers.

BATH, Maine — Over 300 spirited strikers, family members and supporters of the Bath Iron Works Shipbuilders strike gathered outside the International Association of Machinists Local S6 union hall, across the street from the shipyard here, for a rally and…


Fighters for Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain rally together

Vol. 84/No. 31 - August 10, 2020

Two of the most publicized cases where cops shot and killed people and haven’t been indicted — the killings of emergency room technician Breonna Taylor in Louisville and Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colorado — came together in Kentucky July 24.…


Teachers need workers control for schools to open safely

Vol. 84/No. 31 - August 10, 2020

A debate is raging among the capitalist candidates over whether schools should be opened this fall or students consigned to desocializing “learning-at-home.” But the real question isn’t whether they should be open. It’s how they can be opened to be…


Events mark 1953 opening of the Cuban Revolution

Vol. 84/No. 31 - August 10, 2020
Cuba’s ambassador to New Zealand, Edgardo Valdés speaks in Auckland July 25.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand—Cuba’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the solidarity its medical workers have extended to countries worldwide are part of “the fight to make a better world possible for everyone,” Cuba’s ambassador to New Zealand, Edgardo Valdés López,…



Unions in Mauritius fight for equal pay for immigrants

Vol. 84/No. 31 - August 10, 2020

The Confederation of Workers in the Public and Private Sectors (CTSP) in Mauritius, backed by other unions, is campaigning for the largely immigrant workforce in the textile and garment industries to get the national minimum wage of 9,400 Mauritian rupees…


Letters

Vol. 84/No. 31 - August 10, 2020

Decades helping build SWP Fred White, a longtime supporter of the Socialist Workers Party, died June 10 in Atlanta following a heart attack. He was 77 years old. Fred was born into a working-class family in Connecticut and, like other…




Capitalist rulers seek to paper over growing frictions in EU

Vol. 84/No. 31 - August 10, 2020
Public power workers contingent at June 2011 protest in Athens against government attacks on unions, layoffs demanded under terms of Berlin-led EU “bailout.” Growing capitalist crisis today, worsened by pandemic, is deepening rivalries and rifts among Europe’s capitalist rulers.

While millions of workers in countries across Europe confront rapidly rising unemployment, continuing outbreaks of coronavirus and attacks on wages and working conditions, the leaders of the European Union agreed to put together a 750 billion euros “recovery fund” ($880…