UK budget: a pittance for crumbling, asbestos riddled schools
The Starmer Labour government’s first budget does nothing to reverse the cuts to education since 2010 or to make schools safe.
•Margot Miller
Latest articles
IAM bureaucracy runs roughshod over rank and file to force through sellout contract at Boeing
The fact that the vote passed by such a slim margin shows how much opposition remains in the rank and file. Workers were not convinced to support the deal so much as threatened and blackmailed by the IAM and Boeing.
•Bryan Dyne, Tom Hall
Hundreds of New York Times technology workers go on strike, disrupting US election coverage
More than 600 software engineers, product managers and digital designers—the core team sustaining the New York Times’ digital infrastructure—walked off the job, demanding increased pay and calling for an end to discriminatory performance management practices.
•Stephen Parker, George Marlowe
Who is Sri Lanka’s new President, Anura Kumara Dissanayake?
In the history of the JVP, Dissanayake has played a particular role in its jettisoning of socialistic demagogy and transformation into a pro-imperialist party of the Sri Lankan ruling class to implement austerity and crush any opposition.
•Naveen Dewage, K. Ratnayake
An insight into China’s high-tech development and its implications
A Bloomberg analysis highlights the vast transformation in the structure of the global economy over the past three decades arising from the growth of China.
•Nick Beams
Israel bans UN Palestine relief agency as part of Gaza mass starvation campaign
The Israeli government sent a letter to the UN on Monday stating that it was withdrawing from a 1967 agreement to cooperate with the most important Palestinian relief agency amid the dire humanitarian crisis from the year-long Gaza genocide.
•Kevin Reed
American historians issue politically bankrupt and intellectually dishonest appeal for Kamala Harris
The appeal is an appalling document, which exposes both the political bankruptcy of American liberalism and the deplorable role played by its intellectual exponents in propping up the Democratic Party.
•David North
DSA-backed “Uncommitted Movement” received nearly half a million dollars from pro-Democratic Party Super PAC
Far from a “grassroots” operation, the “Uncommitted” trap was controlled and financed from the beginning by party operatives seeking to divert mass anger over the genocide in Gaza back into the Democratic Party.
•Jacob Crosse
Harris holds rally at Muhlenberg College in wake of firing of professor for speaking out against Palestinian genocide
Harris’s campaign stop was not geared toward making any statements in defense of democratic rights but lent her campaign’s stamp of approval to the college’s effort to banish them.
•Nick Barrickman
Amid crackdown on Gaza protests at US art schools, School of the Art Institute of Chicago students stage walkout over genocide
The language used by the various administrations is worthy of a police or intelligence agency. The tone of disapproval is striking.
•David Walsh
Longshore job actions spread to largest Canadian seaports in BC and Montreal
Worker unrest over contract disputes at Canada’s largest ports in Montreal and British Columbia threatens to spill over into a significant curtailment of seaborne cargo traffic into and out of the country.
•Carl Bronski
Body of last missing Impact Plastics worker lost in Helene’s flood water recovered
The body of Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso was found in a debris pile in Erwin, Tennessee bringing the total number of Impact Plastics workers to die during Helene to six.
•Will Coleman
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Workers continue to press actions against the far-right Milei administration in Argentina, while a strike by 2,000 San Francisco hotel workers saw the arrest of workers last week.
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Australia: New South Wales teachers’ union rams through sell-out wages and conditions deal
An illegitimate and antidemocratic process was organised to suppress any discussion and scrutiny of the terms of the union-government agreement.
•Erika Zimmer
Renowned academic Haim Bresheeth arrested in London under Terrorism Act during protest against Israel’s genocide
Professor Bresheeth was arrested at a protest outside the official London residence of Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely.
•Robert Stevens
Kartal Municipality strike in Turkey exposes CHP, DISK and the pseudo left
Under conditions where the workers in Kartal and other municipalities were not able to take matters into their own hands by forming strike committees at grassroots level, the trade union apparatus regained the initiative and undermined the struggle.
•Bahadır Çelik
UNICEF head warns everyone in Northern Gaza “is at imminent risk of dying”
Nearly one month ago, Israel began an assault on Northern Gaza to implement the so-called “generals' plan” to ethnically cleanse the entirety of Northern Gaza. Virtually no food, water, or medical supplies have been allowed into the northern section of the Gaza Strip, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee.
•Andre Damon
Social murder in Spain: 217 dead, 1,900 missing in Valencia flood
Scientists long warned Spanish and EU authorities of the need to protect Valencia from floods, but masses of people received no warning until walls of water broke over their homes and workplaces.
•Alejandro López, Alex Lantier
As Boeing workers vote on third sellout deal, parts supplier Eaton begins replacing striking workers at Michigan factory
Both workforces are fighting against a corporate oligarchy which has clearly coordinated a campaign to break their strikes.
•George Kirby, Bryan Dyne, Tom Hall
Governors in three US states ready National Guard troops in response to threats of election-related violence
A climate of violence hangs over the US elections following recent attacks on ballot boxes and Trump’s ongoing incitement against political opponents and the press.
•Jacob Crosse
Stanford University promotes the anti-public health agenda of the COVID denialists
Stanford University held a conference last month to promote the right-wing agenda of the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposes all social measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
•Benjamin Mateus
Far-right commentator Candace Owens barred from entering Australia
The decision by the Australian Labor government paves the way for further attacks on free speech and democratic rights, including crackdowns on opposition to the genocide in Gaza.
•Tom Peters
Reject the third sellout TA at Boeing! The rank and file must seize control of the strike from the IAM bureaucrats for victory!
It has become absolutely clear that if we are to win this strike, we have to overthrow the dead weight of the IAM union bureaucracy.
•Boeing Workers Rank-and-File Committee
Oxfam report: “Inequality is at an all-time high – and rising.”
Oxfam and the Development Finance International have released a damning report about the growth of inequality all over the world, but with policy prescriptions that cannot be implemented under capitalism.
•Harvey Simpkins
South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite pleas from trial judge, jurors and former corrections department director
Moore is believed to be the only person in the history of South Carolina’s death penalty to be executed in connection with an armed robbery who did not bring the fatal weapon to the scene of the crime.
•Kate Randall
Nearly 150 people killed in Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Trami
A planned and internationally coordinated approach to mitigate and avoid the catastrophic impact of storms and other natural disasters is impossible under capitalism.
•Dante Pastrana
Pacific leaders’ fact-finding mission in New Caledonia
The Pacific Forum mission went ahead with permission from the far-right Macron government, amid talks over the French territory’s anti-colonial uprising.
•John Braddock
SAG-AFTRA leadership continues to betray workers in the entertainment industry
Disney and some of the other major companies continue to refuse to make even the nominal concessions union officials feel they have to have to sell a deal to the membership.
•Hong Jian
Explosion kills 12 steelworkers in Tlaxcala, central Mexico
The explosion in Tlaxcala was no “accident” but social murder driven by a deliberate policy of pursuing corporate and national “competitiveness” by downgrading safety and working conditions.
•Andrea Lobo
Third Peruvian transport strike raises demand for end to Boluarte regime
The rise of Peru’s protection racket mafias is the result of complex socioeconomic processes.
•Cesar Uco
Stop CUPW’s delaying tactics! Launch a working-class political struggle against Canada Post and the Trudeau government!
The fact that Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon participated in the talks Thursday underscores that Trudeau’s Liberals have already begun their preparations to enact strikebreaking legislation, just like they did in 2018. But the CUPW leadership says nothing about this threat, and has struck a deal with management to postpone our strike.
•Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (Canada)
Trudeau slashes immigration as part of a lurch still further right
As a result of huge cuts to the number of new permanent and temporary residents and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers, Canada’s population will fall for the first time ever.
•Keith Jones
This week in history: November 4-10
This column profiles important historical events which took place during this week, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 75 years ago and 100 years ago
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Israel’s war budget points to a deepening economic, social and military crisis
With the war, already the longest and most expensive Israel has ever fought, now expanding to Lebanon and Iran, the proposed tax hikes and spending cuts will likely deepen before the Knesset approves the budget in three months’ time.
•Jean Shaoul
UK Tories elect Kemi Badenoch as leader in rightward lurch
The ballot was necessitated by the crushing defeat suffered by Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives in July’s general election.
•Robert Stevens
Australian prime minister fails to stem Qantas upgrades scandal
Such scandals, heavily promoted by the corporate media outlets, are invariably mechanisms for executing political shifts as governments unravel in the face of popular hostility.
•Mike Head
Australian COVID inquiry promotes “let it rip,” denounces public health measures
The report, riddled with lies and misinformation, is a crude justification for the subordination of public health and lives to the profit interests of the corporate and financial elite.
•Oscar Grenfell
War, inequality and dictatorship: The critical issues excluded from the 2024 election
There is a pervasive sense that the political system is dysfunctional, incapable of responding to the needs of the people and heading toward violent domestic conflict.
•WSWS Editorial Board
Hundreds of journalists sign letter condemning Israel for targeting and killing Palestinian reporters
An online petition condemning the targeting and murder of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli government in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon has received the support of nearly 800 journalists internationally.
•Kevin Reed
Trump says anti-vaccine zealot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have leading health policy role in his administration
The elevation of Kennedy Jr. threatens the end of public vaccination and will further normalize mass death from previously contained infectious diseases.
•Jacob Crosse, Benjamin Mateus
Australian university educators send message of support to striking US Boeing workers
Workers and students at Western Sydney University in Australia have sent solidarity greetings to the striking Boeing workers in the United States.
•Western Sydney University Rank-and-File Committee
Australia: Hospital-acquired COVID infection caused more than 6,000 cases and almost 300 deaths in NSW last year
This is a direct product of the conscious and planned abolition of virtually all public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID, including the removal of mask mandates in hospitals.
•John Mackay, Martin Scott
No Other Land playing in New York for one week but no US distributor—A courageous indictment of Israel’s crimes and its defenders
The film recounts the expulsion of Palestinian villagers from Masafer Yatta, a settlement of 19 villages south of Hebron in the West Bank.
•Verena Nees
Despite strong opposition from Quebec’s nurses, the FIQ trade union pushes through concessionary contract
Coming more than 18 months after the previous contract expired, the ratification vote was more a vote of non-confidence in the FIQ leadership than a show of support for the concessions-laden contract.
•Laurent Lafrance
Wartime economy vs. public education: Harris’ platform promotes the school-to-military industry pipeline
No matter the outcome of the election, the frontal assault on the social right to high-quality public education will continue to escalate.
•Renae Cassimeda, Norisa Diaz
The German government’s “security package”: a further step towards a police state
New laws tightening gun control and increasing deportations are part of the attempts by the German government to prepare the state for the impending explosive conflicts with the working class.
•Marianne Arens
PepsiCo announces closure of four US plants, eliminating 500 jobs
Workers at the plant on the south side of Chicago last Monday reported arriving to locked gates as well as delivery drivers unaware the plant was shut down permanently.
•Brian Green, Kristina Betinis
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
India: Salem Steel Plant workers strike; Bangladeshi garment workers take action over unpaid wages; Sri Lankan railway station masters hold strike; Australia: Qube port workers continue industrial action; Centennial Coal miners in NSW strike for pay rise.
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VIDEO: Victimised Royal Mail delivery worker Des Beach exposes anatomy of a management frame-up
In this video, Des Beach, a Royal Mail delivery worker with 31-years’ service, speaks about his unfair dismissal with Tony Robson from the World Socialist Web Site.
•Our correspondent
Erdogan government arrests Kurdish CHP mayor in Istanbul
This arrest and the appointment of a trustee to replace an elected mayor is a clear attack on basic democratic rights. The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long sought to stifle political opposition through such anti-democratic operations, building a police state.
•Barış Demir
The Unequal Pandemic exposes COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on the poor
University College London (UCL) and Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK hosted a screening of The Unequal Pandemic, followed by a panel discussion, to launch the film about inequality during COVID.
•Jean Shaoul
Oppose threat to close UK Vauxhall plants: for a unified fight against job losses worldwide
In the face of Stellantis’s economic blackmail, and with Vauxhall workers’ jobs and conditions used as bargaining chips in talks with the most “pro-business” Labour government in history, the Unite union has maintained a guilty silence.
•Tony Robson
Bill Clinton defends mass murder of civilians in Gaza genocide
Speaking in Michigan on Monday, Bill Clinton justified the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, openly advocating the targeting of civilians and collective punishment against non-combatants, both of which are war crimes.
•Jordan Shilton
Sri Lanka’s JVP government drops election promise to abolish terrorism law
This week’s announcement makes clear that the JVP/NPP administration will not hesitate to use the PTA and other repressive measures against workers and other political opponents of its International Monetary Fund-mandated program.
•Saman Gunadasa
Survivors of abuse demand accountability over decades-long cover-up by the New Zealand state
Investigative journalists and the recent Royal Commission into Abuse in Care have highlighted how successive governments, lawyers, judges and state officials covered up systemic abuse of hundreds of thousands of people in state-run facilities.
•Tom Peters
Opposition to job cuts mounts as Ford announces months-long shutdown of EV truck plant in Rouge complex
Ford plans to stop building its F-150 Lightning at its REV-C facility in Dearborn, Michigan from mid-November through the end of the year.
•Tim Rivers
Australia: Rail union holds 5-minute “strike” as NSW Labor government seeks to cut real wages
The toothless action epitomises the role of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) bureaucracy, which is working to suppress a struggle by workers against the Labor government.
•Martin Scott
European Union imposes tariffs on Chinese EVs
In a decision announced this week, the EU lifted EV tariffs to 45 percent and declared they would last for five years.
•Nick Beams
IAM union announces third sellout deal to end Boeing strike, with vote the day before US presidential election
The announcement underscores the fact that victory is only possible if workers seize control of the strike from the sellout bureaucracy.
•Tom Hall
Trump kickstarts campaign to overturn 2024 election results
Before Election Day, the fascist Republican presidential candidate is seeking to lay the basis for legal and extra-legal challenges in the event he loses.
•Patrick Martin
Bird flu virus detected in pigs for the first time in US
The recent detection on an Oregon farm raises the risk of the influenza virus acquiring mutations that lead to a pandemic pathogen.
•Benjamin Mateus
Ontario NDP doubles down on witch hunt of pro-Palestine legislator Sarah Jama
Canada’s social democrats are doubling down on their support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, which Jama was thrown out of the NDP’s parliamentary caucus for speaking out against in October 2023.
•Carl Bronski
Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales survives assassination attempt
The failed assassination attempt has sharply intensified the conflict between factions of the ruling MAS party.
•Andrea Lobo
Volkswagen demands 20 percent wage cut
Volkswagen wants to cut the wages of its 120,000 employees in Germany by almost 20 percent, thereby saving €2 billion a year. This became known on Wednesday evening after the second round of negotiations on the VW company wage agreement.
•Peter Schwarz
Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa
Car workers in Germany strike for pay rise as global car industry demands job cuts and lower pay; retirees, municipal and oil workers and the disabled join ongoing protests across Iran as living standards collapse; healthcare workers in Nigerian stage seven-day warning strike over pay and conditions as university staff begin indefinite strike over unpaid salaries
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Undercover: Exposing the Far Right uncovers the race science conspiracy
Channel 4’s programme is based on an investigation conducted by Hope Not Hate. It is an important documentary, revealing the international and financial connections of the global fascist movement.
•Thomas Scripps
Palestinian academic secures legal victory against witch-hunt at Sheffield Hallam University
On her crowdfund site, Abusalama explained: “This victory is not just personal. It is a victory against attempts to silence advocates for justice in Palestine”.
•Harvey Thompson
Israeli strikes on Iran: A dress rehearsal for a wider war
The attack—far and away the biggest Israeli military strike ever launched against Iran—represents a major provocation and escalation of Israel’s war throughout the Middle East.
•Peter Symonds, Keith Jones
Bernie Sanders calls on workers and youth outraged over Gaza genocide to vote for Kamala Harris
The pro-imperialist “socialist” from Vermont argued there would be a “much better chance of changing US policy” under war criminal Kamala Harris.
•Jacob Crosse, Barry Grey
Parents and teachers protest closure of Acero charter schools in Chicago: “2,000 of our students will be displaced”
Parents at Fuentes Elementary organized a demonstration to protest the closure of their children’s school. Acero, the charter network, is closing seven schools this year, impacting 2,000 students and 250 jobs in primarily working class communities.
•Kristina Betinis, George Marlowe, Joe Raymond
Harris’s Washington speech: Coverup and complicity in the face of fascism
The Democrats are fearful above all of evoking anxiety and anger, of creating a situation where broader layers of the population will react. In the face of a fascist menace, the Democrats preach quiescence.
•Joseph Kishore
Israeli massacre of children in Gaza is “greatest of any conflict in recorded warfare,” UN expert warns
“As of last week, 13,319 children have been killed in Gaza, of whom 786 were under the age of one,” said human rights expert Chris Sidoti.
•Andre Damon
Three US governors issue joint statement demanding end to Boeing strike
The letter is an indication of the deep concern among all layers of the American bourgeoisie of the economic and geopolitical impact of the strike.
•Bryan Dyne
All eyes focused on crucial government meeting in China as economy continues to slow
The opinion of economic and financial analysts both in China and internationally is that more must be done to boost consumption spending, and that unless that happens, the target growth rate for this year of “about 5 percent” will not be achieved, let alone a viable growth path for the future.
•Nick Beams
US Supreme Court approves voter purge in Virginia
The right-wing Supreme Court supermajority intervened to allow the continuation of a Republican-backed program to summarily disqualify voters as suspected non-citizens.
•John Burton
Western Sydney University IYSSE Annual General Meeting elaborates socialist perspective against war and genocide
The meeting at the working-class university outlined a socialist perspective, based on the mobilisation of the working class against the Gaza genocide and imperialist war.
•Our reporters
Canada Post workers overwhelmingly authorize strike
Workers voted by over 95 percent to strike, making clear their determination to fight back after years of concessions and to resist the Crown corporation's plans to use AI and other new technologies to increase worker-exploitation.
•Niles Niemuth
Samsung India workers speak out after CITU’s betrayal of their 37-day strike
The strike by some 1,500 Samsung India workers was abruptly brought to an end by the CITU, the Stalinist trade union federation, after it capitulated all down the line to Tamil Nadu’s DMK government and Samsung management.
•Yuvan Darwin, Martina Inessa
At least 158 dead as flash floods in Spain devastate Valencia
Spain’s worst flood in decades is a social disaster driven by the ruling elite’s inability to plan policies to halt climate change, or even to devise basic disaster management plans advocated by scientists.
•Alejandro López
Labour’s first budget a downpayment on its offensive against British working class
There was genuine concern that too savage cuts would undermine global confidence in the UK economy or spark massive opposition in the working class.
•Robert Stevens
Macron visits Morocco as NATO-Russia war spreads across Africa
Macron's “strategic framework” is a proposal to use Morocco as a source of cheap qualified labor and logistics to boost French corporations’ profits and increase French imperialism’s influence in the contested areas of the Sahel and West Africa more broadly.
•Alex Lantier
Workers and young people speak out against CFMEU administration at SEP (Australia) meeting
“The government is going for the strongest section of the trade unions on purpose, for strategy. I think the goal is just straight-up austerity against the working class and this is part of it.”
•Our reporters
Sri Lankan president again declares: No increase to public sector salaries
Dissanayake’s indication that he would not pay the proposed salary hike is a clear signal to the IMF that his regime abides by its harsh austerity measures.
•W.A. Sunil
After plant closures announced at VW: For a global rank-and-file campaign against job cuts in the auto industry!
Rank-and-file committees among autoworkers in both North America and Europe must be expanded to include every key factory, giving workers the power to shut down the global industry.
•International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees
Israel massacres 93 in Northern Gaza airstrike, bans UN humanitarian organization
In the worst single massacre since Israel launched its campaign to ethnically cleanse Northern Gaza this month, Israeli forces bombed a five-story residential building in the town of Beit Lahia Tuesday, killing 93 people, including 25 children.
•Andre Damon
As billionaires pour millions into second coup, Trump agitates against vote in Pennsylvania
Trump’s extra-legal campaign to seize the White House regardless of the vote is being bankrolled by billionaires who have yet to be held to account for funding Trump’s first coup attempt.
•Jacob Crosse
French far-right government threatens to impose militarist austerity budget by decree
The only force that can stop military escalation and relentless attacks on living standards and social rights is the working class, mobilized independently of forces like Mélenchon’s New Popular Front.
•Anthony Torres, Alex Lantier
2024 Nebraska Senate race: A cesspool of political reaction
The independent senatorial candidate, union bureaucrat Dan Osborn, and his Republican opponent, Deb Fischer, are competing to see who can be the biggest Trump supporter.
•Chase Lawrence
Aurora, Ontario arts center censors anti-genocide artists and closes down exhibition as “the best possible business decision”
When a “controversial” art work or exhibition goes on display, a by now trite and even stereotyped process is set in motion.
•David Walsh
Following federal “hospital reform” measures, Left Party leads the way in closing hospitals
While the Left Party still campaigned with the slogan “Every hospital counts” in the last state elections in east Germany, it is implementing the sweeping cuts wherever it is in government at state level.
•Markus Salzmann
Sudan’s civil war and “world’s worst” humanitarian crisis unleashed by imperialist scheming
Fighting between these two corrupt figures erupted in no small part due to longstanding efforts by US imperialism and other regional powers to exert control over Sudan and its resources—gold, minerals, oil and agricultural land—and cut off Khartoum’s relationships with China, Russia and Iran, which all have growing economic interests in the region.
•Jean Shaoul
Trump’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden
Whatever the outcome of the election, the American political system is breaking down. The type of fascistic movement that Trump is constructing will continue to grow in strength and can only be opposed through the development of a socialist movement in the working class.
•Tom Mackaman
Georgian president refuses to recognize election results, appeals for Western backing
Political turmoil has seized the south Caucasus country, as pro-Western protesters heed the president's call to reject the outcome of parliamentary elections.
•Andrea Peters
Japan’s LDP suffers electoral defeat for only the third time since 1955
Whatever the form it takes, the next government will be one of instability and crisis as it seeks to impose new burdens on the working class in order to boost corporate profits and aggressively pursue the interests of Japanese imperialism.
•Peter Symonds
SEP meeting in Australia calls for building worker rank-and-file committees to fight CFMEU administration
This report includes videos of speeches delivered by SEP members, explaining the administration and outlining a perspective to fight it.
•Our reporters
Labor’s cuts set to destroy over 1,000 jobs at Australian universities
The Albanese Labor government’s caps on international student enrolments are triggering thousands of university job cuts across Australia.
•Jack Turner
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