Women, workers for freedom in Burma

July 5, 2022

Dedicated youth from the cities have joined the resistance in Burma (Myanmar), primarily from the urban working class. In the rural “heartland” of Upper Burma the People’s Defense Forces is a broader phenomenon–hundreds of thousands have rallied to the red banner, more all the time.

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Women, workers, hew new revolutionary path in Burma

June 4, 2022

Dedicated youth from the cities have joined the resistance in Burma (Myanmar), primarily from the urban working class. In the rural “heartland” of Upper Burma the People’s Defense Forces is a broader phenomenon–hundreds of thousands have rallied to the red banner, more all the time.

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The people of Myanmar unite against the military coup

May 8, 2021

Defying Burma’s coup has provided time for the forces of old revolutionaries, youth, workers and women to work out what they are fighting for, beyond deposing the military caste that has ruled them, and an opportunity to bridge long-time divisions between the Burmese-speaking majority and the peoples long fighting for self-determination.

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Unemployed workers organize and march, demanding relief

March 11, 2021

Newly organized as Northern California Unemployed Committee, people marched to draw attention to the disparities within capitalism exacerbated by COVID-19. They demanded the federal government stop taxing unemployment benefits and that it restore the $600 per week unemployment supplement.

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Fight for $15 and labor’s full potential

On Feb. 12, workers across the country marched in Fight for $15 demonstrations held to commemorate the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike and Dr. King’s visionary, multi-racial Poor People’s Campaign. It is a struggle to realize labor’s full potential.

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Knocking on Labor’s Door book launch

November 15, 2017

Report on the book launch on Oct. 14, 2017, at the Newberry Library in Chicago for “Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide,” by Lane Windham.

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Review: We were feminists once

September 6, 2016

Review by feminist Adele of Andi Zeisler’s book, We Were Feminists Once: from Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, exploring how a once revolutionary feminism is being taken over by “marketplace feminism.”

In 1995 Andi Zeisler

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Letter from Mexico: Meaning of Mexican workers’ struggles

March 18, 2016

Upsurge of workers’ struggles in 2015 in Mexico, from field workers in San Quintin, Baja California to maquiladora workers in Ciudad Juarez along with ongoing opposition to government educational “reforms” by teachers in the autonomous union CNTE, demonstrate workers’ resistance to the plans of capital and its state. How can organizations of activist-thinkers meet what workers have achieved in our own organizational response?

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Women WorldWide, March-April 2015

March 7, 2015

A roundup of short news of women including the death of Geraldine Blankenship, an activist in the 1936-37 Flint, Mich., sit-down strike against General Motors; the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation; and the opening of a Mother Jones Museum in Mt. Olive, Ill., in June 2015.

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WOMAN’S VIEWPOINT

January 28, 2015

In celebrating 60 years of publishing News & Letters we reprint an article from the first, June 24, 1955, issue written about what the “women’s page” in News & Letters should be.

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“NO WOMEN WANTED”

In celebrating 60 years of publishing News & Letters we reprint an article from the first, June 24, 1955, issue written by a columnist for the paper about her confrontation with a union official in her factory.

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Low-wage workers strike, reach for a new way of life

July 1, 2014

The recent wave of strikes at Walmart and fast food restaurants signals the discontent brewing among the growing number of low-wage U.S. workers. They give notice that the far-reaching restructuring of jobs that was accelerated by the Great Recession also has a subjective side of revolt.

A week of strikes and demonstrations at Walmarts across the country peaked with events in 20 cities on June 4 alone. Chants of “Respect! Now!” joined the official demands of “$25,000 per year and enough hours to support our families” and an end to retaliation against workers who strike or speak up.

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Egyptian strike wave topples cabinet

March 28, 2014

Workers in the state-controlled textile industry, mostly women workers, and public transport workers, sanitation workers, office workers, doctors, and even policemen launched a wave of strikes that caused Egypt’s Prime Minister and his entire cabinet to resign.

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Egyptian masses must determine the next stage of the revolution

July 4, 2013

The mass demonstrations that forced the removal of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3 were a call to continue and deepen the Egyptian revolution. Millions of people took to the streets in opposition to Morsi’s rule in demonstrations even larger than those that ousted former dictator Hosni Mubarak. They were a measure of the detestation the Egyptian people had come to feel at the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood through Morsi and his Freedom and Justice Party. It was this that forced the Egyptian generals to act, once again removing a president.

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Women as thinkers and revolutionaries

March 18, 2012

Editor’s Note: For International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we print below brief excerpts from Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1975-76 lectures on “Women as Thinkers and as Revolutionaries,” which were also excerpted in Women’s Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution: Reaching for the Future.

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I. Mass Creativity and the Black Dimension

What today we call Women’s [=>]

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Palestinian women discuss statehood

November 29, 2011

Palestinian women discuss statehood

Ramallah, Palestine—The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) organized a political discussion on the UN approach to Palestin­ian statehood. Mrs. Amal Khreishe, the general direc­tor, facilitated the meeting, which hosted Mr. Bassan Essalhi, the secretary of the Palestinian Popular Party, and Mr. Hanna Eissa, an expert in international law.

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Radium girls honored

November 28, 2011

Ottawa, Ill.—Madeline Piller became interested in the Radium Girls of Ottawa, Illinois, in 2006 when she was 12, for her class project. She talked to Ottawa leaders and helped raise money for a permanent memorial dedicated on Labor Day, which now sits on the site of the Luminous Processes Factory where the girls had [=>]

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Women World Wide, September-October 2011

September 28, 2011

by Artemis

Unite Here, a union for service workers, has filed charges against the management of Hyatt Hotels for turning heat lamps on hotel housekeepers picketing the Chicago Hyatt for safer jobs in July in near 100 degree temperatures. Nearly all hotel housekeepers are women and most are women of color and immigrants. After downsizing, they [=>]

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