Four-year witch hunt continues against Alton Estate workers in Sri Lanka
The ongoing repression of Alton Estate workers by management and the police, supported by the trade unions, is calculated to intimidate all estate workers.
•W.A. Sunil
Latest articles
Australian PM incites attacks on pro-Gaza student encampments
The Labor government is slandering peaceful student protests as antisemitic and dangerous, tacitly greenlighting violence against the encampments by Zionist thugs.
•Oscar Grenfell
US reiterates “ironclad” support for Israel, as hundreds of thousands displaced from Rafah
With Israel expanding its assault on Rafah and launching indiscriminate bombings and assaults throughout the Gaza Strip, 20 percent of Gaza's population has once again been forced to flee over the past week.
•Andre Damon
US to quadruple tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles
With tariffs and other barriers going up almost every day, the global economy is increasingly coming to resemble the madhouse of the 1930s.
•Nick Beams
Michael Cohen testifies in Trump “hush money” fraud trial
The fascist ex-president faces up to four years in prison if convicted of maintaining false business records to cover up the payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
•Patrick Martin
University of California strike vote must be the start of a working class fight against war and assault on democratic rights
The vote by the graduate student workers is a sign of a new stage in which the working class will emerge as the basic social force against war and dictatorship.
•Tom Hall
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Canada’s federal Liberal government has intervened to delay or block a strike by 9,300 railroad workers while unions in Argentina carried out the second national protest strike against the Milei government.
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Child care providers across the US protest deplorable wages and conditions
Thousands of child care providers temporarily shut down facilities or called out sick Monday to take part in the third annual “Day Without Child Care.”
•Kate Randall
“We would have a new iteration of the Stand-up Sellout,” former faculty warn of UAW betrayal as University of California strike vote begins
The strike authorization vote places the rank and file in direct conflict with the UAW leadership, which fully endorsed President Joe Biden’s 2024 candidacy despite his genocidal and warmongering policies.
•Marc Wells
The struggle for international socialism in South Asia
This is the text of the speech delivered by Deepal Jayasekera, General Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Deepal Jayasekera
The reshaping of Latin America by the new imperialist war
This is the text of the speech delivered by Tomas Castanheira, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Group in Brazil, to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Tomas Castanheira
New Zealand junior doctors hold 25-hour nationwide strike
The strike by junior doctors comes in the face of a deepening crisis of underfunding and understaffing in the country’s public hospitals.
•John Braddock
Proposed school closures, budget cuts provoke massive opposition among Los Angeles educators
The district is planning the cuts even though it has more than $6.3 billion in reserve.
•Dan Conway, Kimie Saito
Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View (1974): America “is a country with many dark secrets”
The film expresses the broadly felt suspicion in the population—at that time and even more so today—that there is something sinister and rotten in the American state.
•Clare Hurley, Matthew Brennan
Protests continue in UK towns and cities against Israel’s genocide in Gaza
Ahead of next Saturday’s national rally in London against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, dozens of protests were held over the weekend in towns and cities across Britain.
•Our reporters
UK Prime Minister Sunak warns of nuclear war
Sunak pledged that the Tories were the party to be trusted to wage war at whatever cost. Labour will respond in kind.
•Chris Marsden
Postal workers in Britain demand: Free Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Defending Bogdan means challenging the endless pro-war propaganda by the British media that the NATO-backed conflict against Russia is being waged to defend democracy and human rights.
•Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (UK)
SEP (Australia) public meeting: Free Julian Assange! Oppose imperialist war!
The Socialist Equality Party in Australia is holding a meeting on Sunday, May 26 in Sydney and online to discuss the urgent struggle to free Julian Assange.
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Sri Lankan workers enthusiastically support SEP’s party development campaign
Sri Lankan workers and youth have strongly backed the Socialist Equality Party while denouncing government’s attempts to block independent and socialist candidates from participating in forthcoming elections.
•Our reporters
On behalf of Biden administration, UAW bureaucracy and DSA struggle to contain anti-war sentiment
In recent weeks, the Democratic Party has come to rely increasingly on the UAW bureaucracy and Democratic Socialists of America to protect Joe Biden, insulate his re-election campaign from growing hostility to the genocide in Gaza, and keep weapons flowing both to Israel and to Ukraine in the US-NATO war against Russia.
•Eric London
Russia launches offensive on Kharkov as NATO threatens escalation in Ukraine
As the military situation of the NATO alliance and its puppet regime in Ukraine becomes ever more desperate, the danger of direct military intervention by the NATO powers is growing.
•Alex Lantier
Democrats and Republicans: US enablers of Israeli onslaught on Rafah
While the two corporate parties pretend to have major policy differences over the Gaza genocide, they have joined forces to provide record US support for the Israeli military.
•Patrick Martin
Auroral display dazzles millions around the globe
Vivid displays of the aurora borealis and aurora australis were visible to millions of people around the world on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.
•Bryan Dyne, Don Barrett
This week in history: May 13-19
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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Nordic military operations highlight NATO’s preparations to attack Russia from the north
One major NATO exercise has followed another, with tens of thousands of troops participating, while the US has expanded its bilateral defence agreements with Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden to create what resembles a massive American staging ground for an invasion of Russia from the north.
•Jordan Shilton
South Korea expresses its desire to join the anti-China AUKUS alliance
The expansion of AUKUS to allies like Seoul is part of Washington’s agenda to surround China as it rapidly accelerates its plans for war.
•Ben McGrath
As California academic workers begin strike authorization vote, protests against Gaza genocide continue
Ahead of the vote, Socialist Equality Party candidate for US president Joseph Kishore released a statement calling on UC academic workers to vote “yes” to strike.
•Our reporters
The emerging global war and the international strategy of the working class
This is the text of the speech delivered by Ulaş Ateşçi, a leading member of the Sosyalist Eşitlik (Socialist Equality Group) in Turkey, to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Ulaş Ateşçi
The struggle for socialism against British imperialism and the Labour Party
This is the text of the speech delivered by Thomas Scripps, the assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (UK), to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Thomas Scripps
Canadian anti-genocide protests under attack: Police violently clear Calgary encampment, McGill seeks injunction
The police’s brutal clearing of the University of Calgary encampment, just hours after it began, was meant to intimidate all those workers and youth across Canada who are protesting Israel’s genocidal onslaught on the Gaza Palestinians.
•James Clayton, Eric Marquis
Tenth anniversary of the death of 301 miners in the Soma disaster in Turkey
The last decade has witnessed a deepening of the ruling elite's disregard for the safety of workers for the sake of profit, let alone the necessary occupational safety measures, in Turkey and around the world.
•Barış Demir
Eurovision Song Contest hit by mass protest against Israel’s Gaza genocide
With over 15,000 protesting outside the final Saturday evening, the 68th annual event was held under a regime of censorship, intimidation and police repression.
•Robert Stevens
Stop the US-backed Israeli attack on Rafah!
The assault on Rafah is being funded, armed, and politically directed by US imperialism.
•Andre Damon
Healthcare giant Steward Health Care files for Bankruptcy
Steward Health Care filed for bankruptcy in Dallas this week threatening the closure of more than 30 hospitals. This will have a devastating impact on more than 30,000 healthcare workers and more than two million patients.
•Benjamin Mateus
Florida deputy kills airman after entering the wrong apartment
Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, was in his off-base apartment when he was fatally shot by a deputy, who was responding to a disturbance call in a difference apartment.
•Chase Lawrence
Boeing 737-300 catches fire on runway in Senegal, injures 10
It is only a matter of time before more people are killed on Boeing planes, repeating or exceeding the tragedies of the two 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019.
•Bryan Dyne
Sri Lankan university students, academics and workers support US students opposing Israeli genocide in Gaza
“The opposition of students and workers in America and Europe to the war against Palestinians in Gaza is encouraging. We must oppose the world from being dragged into a third nuclear world war for the interests of a handful of imperialists.” – University of Kelaniya student.
•Our correspondents
Australia: Union bureaucracy blocks NSW nurses and midwives’ demand for 30 percent pay rise
Nurses and Midwives Association officials ended the May 3 meeting before members could vote on a motion to double their wage claim and take up a campaign of industrial action.
•Clare Bruderlin
Japanese university encampments established against Gaza genocide
Japanese students have expressed solidarity with protesters on campuses in the US who have faced a wave of vicious police crackdowns.
•Owen Howell
“It’s the working class’s turn to stop business as usual and demand change”: Workers speak out against police crackdowns
Across the United States, workers are speaking out against the Gaza genocide and the police attack on students being conducted by both pro-war parties.
•Our reporters
Australian government hails High Court ruling backing indefinite immigration detention
The Labor government’s determination to proceed with its immigration bill as fast as possible shows that its imprisonment and deportation plans go far beyond the up to 200 detainees directly affected by the verdict.
•Mike Head
Foreign Affairs article lays out path for war against China
According to the author, war planning must be “embedded” within the economic agencies of the US.
•Nick Beams
Nearly 3,000 protesters arrested in US as crackdown on anti-genocide encampments continues internationally
In addition to double-digit arrests at the University of Pennsylvania and MIT, police at the University of Calgary in Canada and the University of Arizona conducted tear gas-filled sweeps of anti-genocide encampments Thursday night.
•Jacob Crosse
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
South Korea: Costco workers demand better pay and conditions; India: Air India Express workers strike over new employment terms; Australia: Wilmar Sugar mill workers walkout for higher wages in Queensland; Submarine maintenance workers in South Australia down tools; Fiji Water bottling plant workers strike.
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Canada Post, announcing major losses, demands massive concessions from workers
The announcement of a $748 million loss last year comes as the Crown corporation is in the midst of negotiations with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers bureaucracy over contracts for 42,000 Urban Postal Operations workers and 8,000 rural and suburban mail carriers.
•Niles Niemuth
Robert Altman’s Thieves Likes Us (1974): “What is robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?”
The socially intriguing and historically authentic film was an opportunity for the director to reveal his attitude towards American capitalism during the Great Depression.
•Joanne Laurier
The danger of nuclear escalation: What would be the impact of dropping atom bombs on Germany?
Since the release of the SGP’s TV election spot warning of a nuclear third world war, there have been increasing signs that NATO’s war against Russia is entering a new stage that could actually lead to the use of nuclear weapons.
•Johannes Stern
Hundreds of educators protest pay and job cuts at Ann Arbor, Michigan school board meeting
The Democratic Party-controlled Ann Arbor school board plans to cut $25 million from next year’s budget.
•Our reporters
UK Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke defects to Starmer’s right-wing Labour Party
Elphicke is seeking to salvage her political career by jumping ship to a Labour Party expected to easily win a general election later this year, and she can do so by joining a party whose programme is identical to that of the Tories.
•Robert Stevens
The class struggle in France and the fight against war
This is the text of the speech delivered by Alex Lantier, the national secretary of the Parti de l'Egalité Socialiste (PES) in France, to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Alex Lantier
University of Michigan lecturers’ union blocks strike in order to isolate anti-genocide protesters
Voting by lecturers at the University of Michigan finishes today on a sellout tentative contract agreement entered into by the Lecturers’ Employee Organization.
•Therese Leclerc
The return of fascism and war in Germany and the fight for socialism
This is the text of the speech delivered by Christoph Vandreier, the national secretary of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Germany), to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Christoph Vandreier
After strike vote Warren Stamping workers back broader fight
Workers at Warren Stamping told WSWS reporters that the recent strike vote over health and safety at the plant reflected anger over a range of issues including job cuts.
•Shannon Jones
Australian political, media establishment threatening pro-Palestinian student encampments
Labor government figures and media commentators are increasingly explicit that their denunciations of the small student encampments are only part of a broader campaign to ban all protests against the genocide.
•Oscar Grenfell
Sri Lankan president announces wage rise to dissipate estate workers anger
Wickremesinghe’s so-called pay hike, which is backed by the unions, will do little to overcome the massive increases in the cost of living for plantation workers and their families, let alone lift them out of the desperate social abyss they confront.
•W.A. Sunil
For a UAW-wide strike against the police attack on campuses! Autoworkers must defend the right to protest!
The only way to stop the war and defend our rights is by taking matters into our own hands as the working class, who create all of society’s wealth.
•Will Lehman
Jobs assault deepens, while report says workers’ share of national income has fallen to 55 percent
Weekly unemployment in the US jumped by more than 10 percent, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the share labor receives of national income has fallen to an unprecedented 55.8 percent as of the first quarter of 2024.
•Kevin Reed
33 people arrested as George Washington University pro-Palestinian encampment is broken up by police
The crushing of the GWU encampment is part of a nationwide counter-offensive against student protests as the Israeli government prepares to enter and annihilate the remnants of survivors in the city of Rafah.
•Pete Salmon
Israel expands attacks throughout Rafah, intensifying catastrophic humanitarian conditions
Media reports provided extensive coverage to comments by US President Joe Biden late Wednesday that the US would not provide large bombs or artillery shells for offensive operations in Rafah. However what is at stake are merely tactical differences over how best to proceed with the onslaught.
•Jordan Shilton
Democrats back ultra-right House Speaker: A bipartisan coalition for war and repression
The vote Wednesday was the first time in US history that the minority party supported the candidate of the majority to oversee the House of Representatives.
•Patrick Martin
Australia: Unions at May Day rally cover up Labor’s complicity in Gaza genocide
Speakers at the Sydney rally once again promoted the fraud that the federal Labor government that has backed Israel’s barbaric war for seven months can be pressured to change course.
•Martin Scott
“Strikes and industrial labor action … can actually make a difference,” student at Cal State Los Angeles Gaza encampment tells WSWS
Jake, a history student at California State University, Los Angeles, recently spoke with the World Socialist Web Site about the Gaza solidarity encampment established on campus last week.
•Jacob Crosse
Healthcare workers must defend students against police crackdown!
The same politicians claiming peaceful protests against genocide are intolerable disruptions to “order” never batted an eyelash when hospital morgues were stuffed full of bodies during endless and continuing surges of the pandemic.
•World Socialist Web Site Healthcare Workers Newsletter
South Korean opposition party pledges phony reforms
Workers face high inflation, falling wages, and mass layoffs while the Democrats collaborate with the unions to suppress the class struggle.
•Ben McGrath
American military planners declare: “War is peace”
In a roundtable discussion this week, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and Palantir CEO Alex Karp defended Israel’s massacre of Palestinian civilians by advocating military brutality as a general principle.
•Andre Damon
Alstom plants in eastern Germany threatened with closure
The IG Metall union has been agreeing to job cuts and wage reductions for years, claiming this improves “competitivity” and so made jobs safer. Now, 3,700 workers face the loss of their livelihoods.
•Dietmar Gaisenkersting
To stop war, students must unite with the working class
This is the text of the speech delivered by Andy Thompson, an IYSSE member in the US, to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Andy Thompson
Australia spearheads US war plans against China in the Indo-Pacific
This is the text of the speech delivered by Cheryl Crisp, the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Cheryl Crisp
Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa
Teachers in multiple strikes across Europe, in parts of Belgium, Spain, Portugal, a town in Croatia and one-day national strike in Turkey over funding and conditions; Italy’s journalists walk out over attempts to turn state broadcaster into government mouthpiece, cost-of-living protests continue across Iran by workers including truck drivers, construction workers and retirees; Kenyan health workers’ strike in third month over health service starved of funds
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UK contaminated blood inquiry to publish findings, as more heinous crimes are revealed
Around 30,000 people in the UK were infected with hepatitis C and/or HIV after receiving contaminated blood or blood products, including 380 children. At least 3,000 died and the rest were left severely ill.
•Robert Stevens
Roger Waters calls for release of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk
In recent days, the campaign for the release of the Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk, who was arrested by the Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) on April 25 for his socialist opposition to the far-right Zelensky government and the NATO-instigated war between Russia and Ukraine, has gathered momentum.
•Clara Weiss
In France, Xi rejects Macron’s call for China to pressure Russia in Ukraine war
The summit unfolded under the shadow of French threats to send ground troops to Ukraine, and Russian threats to respond to a NATO ground invasion with nuclear weapons.
•Alex Lantier
Israeli assault on Rafah creates humanitarian catastrophe
The launch of Israel’s long-planned assault on Rafah has created a humanitarian catastrophe, displacing tens of thousands of Gazans and threatening the entire population with starvation.
•Andre Damon
New bans on Huawei: Another shot in Biden’s economic war on China
The rise of Chinese hi-tech companies such as Huawei highlight the historic decline of US imperialism which is prepared to resort to all methods to maintain its global economic and military dominance.
•Peter Symonds
Australian chopper and Chinese fighter involved in so-called “near miss”
The Australian government and media, as well as the US, have deliberately inflated the incident, exploiting it to again ratchet up tensions with Beijing.
•Oscar Grenfell
The working class must take up the fight against the genocide in Gaza and in defense of democratic rights
The ruling class is terrified of the student protests because they can arouse the working class. A strike vote by graduate students in California shows there is a growing recognition that the methods of class struggle are required.
•Tom Hall
Australian youth and students call for immediate release of Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk
“Alongside Bogdan’s arrest, students protesting against Israel’s genocide in Gaza are being suppressed around the world.”
•Our correspondents
Bangladesh students protest Israeli genocide in Gaza
“What Israel has been doing to the people of Gaza is clearly a war crime and genocide. The Netanyahu administration has violated all the humanitarian laws.” –Bangladeshi student.
•Wimal Perera
Transport Workers Union president threatens legal action against Columbia University protesters
TWU rank-and-file members must reject his slanders and countermand the threats of legal action. Instead, workers must organize actions in defense of the students.
•Alan Whyte
Australian state Labor government austerity budget targets health, education, social services
The austerity budget is another demonstration of the ruthlessly pro-business, anti-working class character of the Victorian state Labor government.
•Patrick O’Connor
At House hearing on “antisemitism,” school officials placate GOP fascists, back suppression of anti-genocide protests
While paying lip-service to independent thought, every school district official declared support for the Zionist state of Israel.
•Jacob Crosse
Democrats step up campaign to block third parties
Political action committees linked to the Biden campaign are attacking the campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein of the Green Party and Cornel West.
•Patrick Martin
Union federations turn May Day in Brazil into platform for Lula government
President Lula is pursuing a corporatist agenda to integrate the unions into the state in order to suppress the class struggle in Brazil.
•Guilherme Ferreira
The fight against war is a fight against the union bureaucracies
This is the text of the speech delivered by Will Lehman, an autoworker at Mack Trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania, and member of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Will Lehman
University students across Europe protest Gaza genocide
Inspired by anti-genocide protests on campuses across the United States defying a nationwide crackdown coordinated by the Biden administration that has led to thousands of arrests, students are occupying university halls and facilities across the continent.
•Alejandro López
Genuine socialism will triumph in Ukraine
This is the text of the speech delivered by Maxim Goldarb, head of the Union of Left Forces — For a New Socialism party, to the 2024 International May Day Online Rally.
•Maxim Goldarb
Police besiege Berlin’s Free University and attack peaceful pro-Palestinian protest camp
If such events had taken place in a country like Russia, China or Iran, there would be a massive campaign in the Western media about the dictatorial behaviour of these regimes.
•Rosalie Arlova, Tamino Wilck, Gregor Kahl
Student encampments protesting Gaza genocide spread across Britain, emergency protest at Downing Street
As of writing, 14 sites have been established, at the Universities of Warwick, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Oxford, Cambridge, Sheffield, Leeds, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, at Swansea and Newcastle University and at SOAS and UCL in London.
•Our reporters
Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail: “Imprisoned” by the US Navy, two sailors escort a young seaman to the brig
As a US Navy ensign prepares to meet his fate, two older sailors try to give the young victim of the system a taste of the life he will be losing out on.
•Ed Hightower, James McDonald
University of Chicago sends police to destroy protest encampment
The University of Chicago sent riot police to attack and break up the student protest encampment. Students have been threatened with suspension and eviction from campus housing if they continue to protest.
•Andy Thompson
Grammy award-winning hip hop artist Macklemore denounces Gaza genocide in viral hit “Hind’s Hall”
“Hind’s Hall” gives expression to the mass opposition that has formed to the United States-sponsored genocide underway in Gaza, it takes several well-aimed shots at those politically responsible, in Israel and the U.S.
•Nick Barrickman
CWU’s Martin Walsh caught in a lie over support for Royal Mail ending six-day letter delivery
During his one-minute video Walsh never challenged—or even referred to—his recent statement in support of a reduced Universal Service Obligation. His PR stunt will only reinforce the widespread view that nothing CWU officials say can be trusted.
•Tony Robson
Biden endorses Israel’s assault on Rafah
In a speech on Tuesday, President Joe Biden effectively gave a green light for Israel's onslaught on Rafah, cynically seeking to exploit the Holocaust to justify US support for the Israeli state's genocide of the Palestinians.
•Andre Damon
US police have arrested over 2,500 anti-war protesters in less than 3 weeks
Politically backed by Joe Biden and both big business parties, US police and campus security forces continue to harass, assault and imprison peaceful anti-war students, faculty and supporters.
•Jacob Crosse
Social Security and Medicare trustees’ reports trigger new calls to cut workers’ benefits
The annual reports for 2024 released Monday by the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds have become the signal for renewed demands for cuts in retirement and healthcare benefits on which tens of millions of Americans depend.
•Barry Grey
Australia: Police shoot dead 16-year-old accused of extremist stabbing
The murky stabbing incident, like another a few weeks ago, was immediately seized on to whip up an atmosphere of fear and hysteria over purported terrorist threats.
•Oscar Grenfell
As it cracks down on student anti-war encampments, NYPD claims to represent New York
Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ NYPD has embarked on an authoritarian campaign, challenging its subordination to civil power and moving to criminalize dissent.
•Daniel de Vries
Wayne State University faculty members say: “Hands off students!”
Faculty vow not to “stay silent,” but denounce the use of state power to repress free speech and impose mass arrests on protesting students in Detroit and nationally.
•Nancy Hanover
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