IN the last few weeks, the current president of the United States has been striving to demonstrate that the crisis is yielding as a result of his efforts to confront the grave problem that the United States and the world inherited from his predecessor. Nearly all economists are making reference to the economic crisis that [...]
Egypt’s State-Controlled Unions Under Pressure With the authoritarian state excerting such efforts to manipulate and control the unions – by suspending all resemblance of internal democracy – the line between economic and political demands grows very thin. Any worker raising his or her voice against bad working conditions of low salaries is also engaging in [...]
Bourgeois and Proletarians (1) The history of all hitherto existing society[2] is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master[3] and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each [...]
Honduras’s three principal labor centrals, the Unitary Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH), the General Workers Central (CGT), and the Confederation of Honduran Workers (CTH) began an open-ended national strike on 6 August 2009. * * * Communiqué The three workers confederations of Honduras, CUTH, CGT, and CTH address the critical political situation that prevails in [...]
by Rick Wolff, 7 August, 2009 The media, academics, and politicians often speak and act as if government economic policies can or will “solve” or “end” or “overcome” capitalism’s crises. They don’t. They never have. The often-cited counter-example, FDR’s New Deal program in the 1930s, failed to get the US out of the Great Depression. [...]
India: A nation of working poor “The impact of the global financial crisis is already being felt in the country and the poor are worst affected. In the first half of the year the unorganised workers were pressed hard due to high commodity prices and after the global financial crisis they are hit by loss [...]
by Michael D. Yates [Excerped from the transcription of the Keynote speech (mp3) at the conference "How Unions Matter in the New Economy" in Toronto, 28-29 October 2005.] First, working people want and need good jobs and benefits, but the vision worthy of a struggle to achieve, they need that, too. People are likely to [...]
Speech of W.F.T.U. General Secretary Com. George Mavrikos at 98th ILC Plenary Session Geneva June 17th , Assembly Hall, Palais des Nations a. The economic crisis: the realistic and necessary targets. Dear Mr President, Dear colleagues On behalf of the World Federation of Trade Unions (W.F.T.U.) we believe that the worries, the thoughts and the [...]
A ten-step guide to workplace organisation from scratch. By Patrick Smith 1 Keep it quiet at first When faced with mistreatment in the workplace, it is tempting to respond angrily and spontaneously. It is much more effective, however, to step back and think strategically about long-term solutions. Dissent from an individual may result in that [...]
by Michael D. Yates “The “primacy” of organized labour in struggle arises from the fact that no other group, movement or force in capitalist society is remotely capable of mounting as effective and formidable a challenge to the existing structures of power and privilege as it is in the power of organized labour to mount. [...]