A striking driver at an Amazon warehouse near Chicago speaks. We are demanding better pay, better working conditions, respect and to be treated as human beings.
strike
World in View: Thousands protest Argentina’s Milei
February 6, 2024Argentine President Javier Milei aims to privatize state institutions; eliminate regulations on businesses; prevent strikes; and seek full executive powers. Less than two months after taking office, he was confronted by a one-day mass general strike. What kind of society do Argentinians want to create?
Blue Cross workers demand end to outsourcing jobs
October 10, 2023Blue Cross workers walked out two days before the UAW began calling auto workers off their jobs on Sept. 14. “We have the same demands as they do,” one worker told News & Letters.
Editorial: Auto workers strike the Big Three
September 30, 2023Sept. 14 was Day 1 of the United Auto Workers’ Union strike against all Big Three automobile manufacturers. We are at a crossroads, where either the working class will push back the capitalist offensive with their own counteroffensive, or the capitalist class will keep taking more and more for themselves.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The African Revolutions and the World Economy
September 19, 2023The contributions and contradictions of the African revolutions of the 20th century speak to today’s very different situation. These excerpts from Dunayevskaya’s ‘Philosophy and Revolution, from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao’ aim not only to recapture the greatness of those revolutions, but also grapple with why they retrogressed after independence, so as to aid the creation of new beginnings now.
School workers strike across Canada
June 5, 2023School support workers in Halifax with Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 5047 have been out on strike for three weeks as of May 26. They are demanding more than the retrogressive 6.5% raise over three years they have been offered.
World in View: After Brexit come strikes
January 22, 2023Great Britain is in a cost of living crisis. Newspapers are publishing “Heat or Eat Diaries.” Brexit has been an important catalyst for Britain’s dire economic situation. Hopefully the labor militancy now taking place can show a way forward.
El régimen iraní teme la revolución, las mujeres lideran el camino
December 15, 2022El régimen iraní debería tener mucho miedo. Los gritos de: “¡Mujeres, vida y libertad!” “¡Muerte al hijab!” “¡Muerte al dictador!” llenan las calles. Las mujeres iraníes han inspirado al mundo y han advertido a los oligarcas de Irán que su régimen represivo está en grave peligro.
Congress breaks railroad workers’ strike
December 3, 2022Congress has done its best to become the nation’s strikebreaker by forcing a five-year contract on railroad workers who had been set to go on strike on Dec. 12. Union members in four of the 12 unions had voted to reject a tentative agreement that negotiators had reached with six major rail carriers in September.
Amazon Prime Day is for job actions
November 8, 2022On “Prime Day,” Amazon warehouse workers in Moreno Valley, Calif., filed enough signatures to schedule a union vote at their facility. On the same day, dozens of non-union Amazon workers walked out of warehouses in Stone Mountain and Buford, Ga., to rally for $24 per hour.
Iranian regime fears revolution while women lead the way to total change
October 22, 2022The Iranian hard-line regime should be very afraid. The cries of: “Women, life and freedom!” “Death to the head scarf!” “Death to the dictator!” fill the streets. Iranian women have inspired the world and put Iran’s oligarchs on notice that their repressive regime is in grave danger.
Iowa workers strike
September 11, 2022Workers on strike at the Ingredion plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, rallied on Sept. 1, marking one month since the strike began. Ingredion demanded the right to charge as much as $500 more for health insurance, freeze the two tiers of workers in place, and eliminate jobs.
War on teachers is a war on students
September 10, 2022In school districts across the nation all eyes are on 4,500 striking teachers in Columbus, Ohio, who agreed to return to the classroom after a three-day strike under a “conceptual agreement.” This army in red T-shirts sparked widespread parent refusal to log in to remote classrooms set up while the teachers were out.
World in View: Militant truckers strike in South Korea
July 12, 2022More than 7,000 truckers took part in an eight-day strike for better pay and fewer hours. A measure dubbed the “Safe Trucking Freight Rate,” which ensures minimum pay, is set to expire this year.
Strike threat wins
May 11, 2022Porters, doorpersons, superintendents, concierges and handypersons in more than 3,000 New York City high rise buildings were able to avoid a cutback in benefits by insisting they would rather go on strike.
U of Illinois faculty threaten strike
University of Illinois, Springfield, faculty members have been working since Aug. 16, 2021, without a contract and on April 21 filed an intent-to-strike-notice.
Threatening a strike wins it
April 30, 2022Porters, doorpersons, superintendents, concierges and handypersons in more than 3,000 New York City high rise buildings were able to avoid a cutback in benefits by insisting they would rather go on strike.
Kellogg workers stood firm in strike
February 3, 2022Kellogg’s workers held a 78-day strike over the company’s two-tier wage system. Reported from Battle Creek.
Workers, from union to gig, reject rules that bosses try to reimpose
November 9, 2021Workers in the U.S. have made 2021 a year that ought to panic giant corporations and small store owners alike. The wave of strikes and other job actions this fall have exploded and not just in numbers.
Colombia in Repression and Revolt
May 12, 2021In Colombia there is an ongoing rebellion against the neoliberal, authoritarian government of Iván Duque, who has unleashed his military and police against the unarmed population. Here we print translated excerpts from a May 9, 2021, interview with Afro-feminist Bety Ruth Lozano, a Colombian social leader living in the city of Cali, the epicenter of the revolt and also of the repressive cruelty that has resulted in deaths, disappearances, rapes and hundreds of injuries.
World in View: Historic mass strike of India’s farmers
January 30, 2021An estimated 250 million Indian farmers have been on strike since last September in opposition to a series of new laws, proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Readers’ views, November-December 2020: part one
November 28, 2020Election battles, reaching for the future, and the pull of the past; Sabotage of the post office; Food recycling workers strike; Anti-labor statue downed; Oil and biden; COVID-19: where’s the vision?; Racism and fascism; Polish women’s revolutionary moment; News & Letters is back in print!
Detroit teachers vote safety strike
August 29, 2020The Detroit Federation of Teachers voted to authorize a safety strike, which means they will not teach face-to-face but are willing to work remotely. Most parents, students, and educators want to return to classroom learning, but COVID-19 forces everyone into choices unthinkable six months ago, choices that could mean life or death.
Miners fight against strikebreakers
August 28, 2020Grupo México, the largest Mexican-owned mining company, ruthlessly exploits miners and contaminates water, disregarding health and safety. Miners, their families, and communities have been fighting back.
Pandemic as battlefield
March 30, 2020The battle against the COVID-19 pandemic is a battle over how society will change, mirroring the battle over how to confront and adapt to the climate and extinction crisis. Strikes are erupting across the world.
COVID-19 Detroit dispatch
March 21, 2020Most Detroiters are adjusting to new habits of sanitation and social distancing required because of the coronavirus, but the response of city government has been mixed.
Workers strike Aptiv!
March 4, 2020More than 18,000 workers at the U.S. company Aptiv’s maquiladora plants in Mexico walked out because, after a 120-peso wage increase, Aptiv withheld much more than that for taxes.
Honda workers sit in
January 21, 2020Report on the strike by Honda workers in Faridabad, India, in opposition to the company’s demand for signing a good conduct bond before entering the factory.
CTU’s partial victory
Report on the partial victory of the Chicago Teachers Union’s 11-day strike in mid-November.
CTU teachers strike!
November 17, 2019Chicago teachers went on strike to end their terrible working conditions.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2019, Part One
Readers’ Views on youth climate strike; Socialism and ecology; counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East; auto and teacher strikes, and Brexit and labor
GM strikers fight capital’s drive to impoverish workers
October 30, 2019A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the 40-day strike by the autoworkers at General Motors and its ramifications for the labor struggle in the U.S. and abroad.
Iran workers jailed
September 1, 2019Abbas Goya denounces the incarceration of Esmaeil Bakhshi, leading figure of the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane factory strike, along with Ali Nejati and worker-journalist Sepideh Gholyan and the editors of Gaam, a pro-worker paper in Iran.
Amazon workers organize cross-border solidarity
June 27, 2019Excerpts of a talk by Polish Amazon worker/organizer Agnieszka Mróz, on a U.S. tour seeking cross-border solidarity among Amazon workers worldwide.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2019
May 6, 2019Readers’ Views on: Socialism and a philosophy of revolution; Sudan in revolt; Iran vs. Iranians; Flint, Mich., play captures voices; Notre-Dame and fracking on native land; gun control debate; labor strikes; debate on fascism; Trump and DeVos; and voices from behind bars.
Uber and Lyft drivers strike against pay cuts
April 27, 2019Uber and Lyft drivers held a 25-hour strike in Los Angeles to protest pay cuts.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The economy and dialectics of liberation
April 23, 2019Raya Dunayevskaya’s archives column explores taking “a further look into the [1976] economy, to measure the depth of the recession, not for statistical purposes, but for the relationship of dialectics of liberation to economic ills.” It bears striking relevance for what is happening in 2019.
California Uber/Lyft workers strike!
April 4, 2019Ex-Lyft driver reports on the strike of Uber and Lyft drivers in California and explains the hell that ridesharing businesses are foisting on their workers, the environment, and their customers.
Oakland, Calif., teachers strike!
March 14, 2019On Feb. 22 over 3,000 Oakland teachers went on strike, demanding better wages, smaller class sizes, more nurses and counselors and a stop to school closings. Many students and their families showed up on the picket lines.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 1
March 11, 2019Readers’ Views on: workers strike back, genocide and Facebook, Mauritius victory, Syrian Revolution under fire, “55 Steps,” debating yellow vests, women’s struggles, and why read News & Letters.
Editorial: Fighting gun violence
March 6, 2019New passions and forces alive in the U.S. ensured that the toll of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year would not fade into the political ether.
Editorial: Is nuclear war on the horizon?
The retreat from even modest efforts to control nuclear weapons has brought humanity closer than ever to annihilation. President Donald Trump’s suspension of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Vladimir Putin’s Russia gins up an already accelerating new arms race.
Unity in Los Angeles teachers’ strike
January 24, 2019Activist and teachers’ strike supporter Basho reports on the Los Angeles teachers’ strike which is also a strike against charter schools and for better education for Los Angeles’ children.
First ever charter school teachers’ strike
December 16, 2018Teachers speak about why they struck Chicago’s Acero charter schools on Dec. 4-9, expanding the wave of teacher strikes to the first charter school strike in the nation.
‘Striking to Survive’ in China
December 14, 2018Report on a talk in Oakland by worker-activists from China, including Fan Shigang, author and editor of “Striking to Survive: Workers’ Resistance to Factory Relocations in China.”
Iran strike solidarity
Workers at Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane in Iran have been on strike for most of November. This is the latest of their walkouts this year over unpaid wages.
Nurses on strike
Licensed practical nurses and supporters rallied at the University of Illinois Hospitals during their unfair labor practices strike.
Women WorldWide, September-October 2018
September 28, 2018Pimps target incarcerated women in the U.S. for prostitution; the death of Maria Isabel Chorobik de Mariani, a founder of Argentina’s Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo; the organization World Without Exploitation; nurses at the University of Vermont Medical Center strike for themselves and their non-union coworkers as well.
Chicago hotel workers on strike
September 27, 2018Striking hotel workers by the thousands traded their picket line duties for a rally and march through downtown Chicago on Sept. 13, 2018. They were striking over health insurance among other demands.
Why teachers strike
May 1, 2018Public school teachers, historically underpaid as “women’s work,” have been striking or threatening strikes from West Virginia and New Jersey to Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado and Arizona.