For decades, the auto bosses have waged war against workers and made life hell for the people of Detroit—one of the most segregated and poorest cities in the U.S. Right now, the city’s population is on edge and has its eyes sympathetically set on the UAW’s next moves. At a basic level, everyone knows that a victorious outcome in this battle against the auto bosses would be a victory for them, too. Municipal services like street lights and garbage collection have been slashed, and whole chunks of the city’s infrastructure and housing are completely crumbling. Factories that could provide thousands of jobs stand empty and in ruin, while basic human needs like food, housing, medical care, transportation and education go unfulfilled, all because it is not profitable for the bosses. The UAW strike cannot afford to be limited to just an economic struggle, as Fain is doing. It must be a battle for all of Detroit and the whole Michigan region!

The bosses’ war against the workers and the oppressed extends well beyond Wayne County—from shuttered auto plants across the Midwest to Dow chemical spills in Midland to drugs and poverty in Saginaw to poisoned water in Flint. The situation is dire and someone needs to fix things. Workers must take matters into their own hands, rebuild the Midwest and make the bosses pay for it. To win this strike, the UAW needs to organize the masses of Detroit, all Wayne County and beyond on the front lines with them. It is necessary to call on all workers and the black community to join the UAW in a general strike to end tiers, reindustrialize and fight for black liberation. Shut down Motor City! (read more)

« Nous faisons face à un mur » dit le Front commun syndical des employés du secteur public (Info-négo, 11 septembre). « Les conditions d’exercice d’emploi sont épouvantables » a résumé Magali Picard, présidente de la FTQ. En effet : salles de classe bondées, urgences qui débordent, manque de garderies, listes d’attente partout ; bas salaires, temps supplémentaire obligatoire… Tout le monde le sait : la structure des services publics issue de la Révolution tranquille tombe en lambeaux, et si rien ne change ça va juste continuer d’empirer. Les « solutions » de Legault et de ses ministres, qui semblent tous sortir d’un film d’Elvis Gratton, consistent à augmenter encore plus les charges de travail et de couper dans les dépenses, tout en tentant de changer de sujet et de créer de l’hystérie collective contre les groupes vulnérables comme les immigrants et les personnes trans. Quant à elle, l’« opposition » parlementaire est on ne peut plus pathétique et à date rien ni personne ne se présente comme une alternative sérieuse.

Les 600 000 membres du Front commun, de la FIQ et les profs de la FAE ont démontré leur désir de se battre, et la population dans son ensemble peut et doit être mobilisée pour leur cause. Des augmentations de 20 %, défendre la caisse de retraite, l’amélioration des conditions de travail sont des demandes minimales on ne peut plus justes ; se mobiliser dans le plus grand Front commun en 50 ans est certainement un bon point de départ. Mais comment gagner cette bataille ? Même si la CAQ navigue présentement de crise en crise, le gouvernement anti-ouvrier et antisyndical de Legault ne va rien céder à moins de risquer de tout perdre. Alors la lutte actuelle du Front commun doit viser ni plus ni moins qu’à renverser la vapeur et à casser ce gouvernement rétrograde !

The bosses gutted the auto industry and left the workforce to die. For decades, once major industrial hubs have seen populations plummet and poverty rates soar. Remaining workers live in crumbling cities, working longer shifts in more dangerous conditions, while real wages stagnate and fall. Job loss and deindustrialization destroyed Midwest metropolises like Detroit and Flint and made life a living hell for their majority-black populations.

Now the UAW contract has expired, and a strike is underway to fight for what UAW president Shawn Fain calls “audacious” demands. He says he wants an end to tiers, restored benefits, a huge pay raise and lots of other things workers desperately need…but he’s already backtracking. He lowered the wage demands, and now has shut down only a few plants. This “strategy” is a dive that weakens the strike, minimizing the impact on the bosses. The question is: What strategy is necessary to win and why is Fain backing down?

What Fain said he’d fight for sounds good, and if the UAW wins it, it’ll be a victory for workers everywhere. But winning the things Fain promised will require a hard battle that strikes at the core of the American economy while the U.S. ruling class is desperately trying to restore its economic dominance, and the car companies are struggling to compete internationally. The bosses won’t give up easily. In this context, the fight to significantly improve workers’ living standards must be organized for what it is: a fundamental clash of class interests. (read more)

For the longstanding “crime” in racist capitalist America of a black man getting too close to a white woman, six Mississippi cops, self-labelled the “Goon Squad,” inflicted on two black men hours of perverse racist sexual assault and torture reminiscent of the KKK lynch mob “tarring and feathering” that terrorized black communities in the South a century ago. In an attempt to cover for their grotesque crimes, these cops did what cops normally do: they planted drugs on their victims. Earlier this month, in what seems like an anomaly to most, the six white cops pled guilty to assaulting Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker.

Make no mistake, it’s not a matter of a few bad apples, rogue racist cops or isolated instances confined to the “red states” of the South. The entire capitalist state is the goon squad for the racist capitalist rulers and commits crimes like this on a regular basis. Recall that it was five black cops that tortured and murdered Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Two weeks ago, cops of various backgrounds were busted in Antioch and Pittsburg, California, for hunting down and siccing dogs on black people and others for “fun.” The same Fulton County Jail in Georgia where Trump’s mugshot was taken is notorious for the many gruesome deaths of mainly black prisoners. These and countless other examples show that what was exposed in Mississippi is only the tip of the iceberg: Enough! The true crimes of the capitalist state must be exposed to all!

Everyone can see that the struggle against police brutality is at a standstill. Three years ago, there was an enormous swell of anger, with millions protesting against racist cop killings. Yet today, there is no real fightback. So, what happened? The BLM movement was organized on the basis of a slogan that was an empty sentiment that could be endorsed by anyone with absolutely no consequences. Everybody could say Black Lives Matter, keep calm and carry on. From Bezos to Biden to U.S. banks, all fly the BLM banner while they continue to exploit black people, the working class and the oppressed here and across the world. For decades, every movement against innumerable police atrocities has fallen flat on its face—they have all pushed schemes to put more black faces in city office or in control of the police, working for the same capitalist government that enforces racial segregation and repression. Their strategy is based on building coalitions with progressive politicians who lie to your face while stabbing you in the back. (read more)

Everyone can see that there’s a crisis and that conditions in the U.S. are only worsening, from housing to health care. Pensions are basically nonexistent and working people have astronomical debt. The working class is discontented but strikes to try to improve their immiserated conditions have not managed to fundamentally change anything for the working class. The country is heavily divided over which capitalist ruler should screw them, Biden or Trump. Both choices are repugnant to many workers. The Democrats’ main selling point is that Biden is not Trump. Biden is desperate to keep everything from falling apart before the elections. The last thing that “the most pro-union president” wants is a major union battle with the ILWU or Teamsters, which would cause a crisis. Crushing it would not bode well for Biden’s poll numbers. On the other side Trump is no better. Some workers sympathetic to striking think the way to stick it to Biden and the Establishment is to vote for Trump. But with all his anti-Establishment rhetoric and appeals to the working class, Trump’s loyalty lies with the bosses in charge of this country.

So what is needed? Clearly the politicians don’t have the answers and are only gearing up to make things worse. The real battle is not “democracy” vs. “autocracy” or Biden vs. Trump, but workers vs. the Establishment! The way to change things is for labor to be an independent force that fights for itself. This could not only provide pay raises but it could change the total trajectory of this country. The purpose of the deals being dangled in the face of the workers is to prevent this. UPS, ILWU workers, vote “no”!

With economic crisis and a presidential election on the horizon, the bosses are trying to corral the workers movement (especially supply chain workers) into submission, either with a carrot in the case of these contracts, or with the stick, as with the crushing of the rail workers last year. These strategic workforces could cause the most trouble for the government. This is what lies behind the bribe of substantial pay raises being offered to the Teamsters and ILWU. The bureaucrats argue that the deals are a victory, but in actuality accepting these deals means that the labor movement surrenders! These offers are not a show of the strength of the union, they are a sign of the weakness of the enemy. Biden is very unpopular and is desperately trying to buy peace in the lead-up to the elections. Instead of taking advantage of this opportunity, getting the most concessions, and changing the balance of forces for the class as a whole, the bureaucrats insist that these deals are the best that can be done. At bottom the bureaucracy is pushing these contracts because of their strategy to not challenge Biden or the capitalist order. (read more)

La situación de la mujer en México es simplemente horrible: violencia doméstica, violaciones, desapariciones forzadas, asesinatos. Tal es el caso de Milagros Monserrat, que fue apuñalada y se desangró hasta morir en las calles de León, Guanajuato, a plena luz del día el pasado 10 de agosto. Es claro que el llamado urgente de las mujeres es por acabar con esto. Pero, ¿cómo? Nosotros llamamos por ¡pistolas para las mujeres! como una demanda inmediata para protegerse de la violencia cotidiana brutal. Que las mujeres estén armadas tendría un impacto directo en el número de ataques al hacer que los potenciales agresores lo piensen dos veces antes de actuar. Como dicen: Dios creó al hombre y la mujer, y Samuel Colt los hizo iguales.

Con este llamado desafiamos directamente al paternalismo machista que considera que las mujeres tienen que depender de los hombres y del estado burgués para su defensa. A su vez se contrapone a los esquemas fallidos impulsados por las feministas y los populistas: llamados por más seguridad (lo cual significa más policía en las calles), separación de hombres y mujeres en el transporte y en las marchas, rogarle al gobierno que implemente reformas mínimas. El llamado por armar a las mujeres reta el monopolio de la violencia por parte del estado capitalista mexicano —la policía, las cárceles, el ejército y los tribunales— que sirve para mantener el dominio y las ganancias de la clase explotadora. Su interés no está en luchar por la liberación de la mujer, sino en perpetuar la opresión. (continuar leyendo)

Union-busting ex-Prime Minister Paul Keating is living proof that traitors to the working class can oppose AUKUS. But to support and champion AUKUS, as Anthony Albanese and his gang of Labor Ministers and other hangers-on do, is to necessarily be a traitor to the working class. These oily servants of the bosses have no place in the workers movement and must be driven out of the Labor Party. One pacifist internal grouping, Labor Against War (LAW), is calling for a pushback against AUKUS. What that pushback consists of remains undefined. Well, we have an answer. To LAW and the growing numbers who are against this reactionary alliance, we say: You cannot fight AUKUS in league with those who support it! We must fight together now to expunge the AUKUS-lovers from the ALP!

AUKUS portends nothing but catastrophe for workers the world over, from Australia to Southeast Asia, China, the U.S. and Britain. Hell, for Australian workers it can only lead to massive job losses from the breakdown of China/Australia trade and to war, in which the U.S. spy bases in Australia would be an immediate target. Likewise, for Chinese workers AUKUS is a clear and present danger to their very existence.

There is an increasing polarisation within the ALP over the question of AUKUS. It would be a good thing and an act of political hygiene to drive out the pro-imperialist bootlickers currently running Labor. Only spineless sycophants of the Labor machine would oppose this. Although a step forward, a split with AUKUS supporters would not be our split. Our aim is not a cleaned-up/pacifist ALP but a revolutionary party. That said, putting the pacifists in charge would make it easier to show youth and workers that the real obstacle to fighting imperialism and war are not the AUKUS-lovers but the program of left Laborism. (read more)