The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Parties are assisting workers everywhere in the building of an interconnected network of rank-and-file committees, to organize a united counter-offensive against inequality, exploitation, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapidly escalating imperialist world war.
There are now rank-and-file committees of autoworkers, educators, Amazon and logistics workers, postal workers, bus drivers, and many other sections of the working class.
Rank-and-file committees are of, by and for the rank-and-file workers, who have a different set of interests than management, the bosses, the politicians, and the trade union apparatus, who oppress workers in order to defend the profits of the ruling elite.
Contact us now to join a committee. If there is not already a committee in your workplace, industry or region, we will help you start one!
We workers have every right to take all action deemed necessary to protect our jobs, regardless of whether you choose to sanction them or not. If you will not fight the layoffs, then get out of the way so that UPS workers can do it ourselves.
A rank-and-file rebellion against not just management, but also against the union bureaucracy, is the only thing that can stop this. As long as the Teamsters sellout artists remain in charge, UPS will succeed in its drive to cut jobs. But if we break out of their control, and develop new, alternative structures, that will change the balance of power in our favor.
The unprecedented plan laid out last month to close 200 facilities is the next stage in an offensive against jobs at UPS and requires an urgent response.
The Health Trade Union Alliance (HTUA) last Wednesday announced that it would call an indefinite strike from today. However, after discussion with health and finance ministry officials, HTUA leaders called off the strike.
Belgian postal workers begin stoppages against job cuts and restructuring involving race to bottom with Amazon and other parcel companies; general strike in West Bank after Israeli forces kill 10 Palestinians, bringing total deaths since October to 500; Kenyan doctors continue national stoppage to demand permanent contracts, defy government threats to sack them or make them all temporary
The response of the CEB trade unions to the suspension of 62 of their members is another demonstration that the working class cannot rely on the trade unions and their leaders to defend their democratic and social rights.
The event ws a major effort to promote the union apparatus, which functions as a central pillar of class rule.
While no one was injured in the incident, it is likely firefighters, railroaders and residents were exposed to the carcinogenic smoke and soot. It took a crew of London firefighters around an hour-and-a-half to put out the flames.
On October 24, the World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees brought together a panel of leading scientists to explain how the virus that causes COVID-19 could be eliminated.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Workers in the United States and throughout the world must decide to act collectively and finally put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2022 must not be another nightmarish year of mass infections, illness and death!
The implementation of a scientifically guided and progressive response to the pandemic is possible only to the extent that these policies find the necessary social foundation in a mass movement of the working class on a global scale.
“The aim of this global initiative is to develop a genuine broad-based movement of the international working class, and to encourage workers in all countries to break out of the prison-like shackles in which they are confined by the existing state-controlled and antidemocratic unions, staffed by right-wing pro-capitalist executives.” – DAVID NORTH
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, with the political assistance of the Fourth International and the Socialist Equality Parties, will strive to unify workers in a common worldwide struggle, opposing every effort by capitalist governments and the reactionary proponents of the innumerable forms of national, ethnic and racial chauvinism and identity politics to split up the working class into warring factions.
All over the world the trade unions, including those which were founded through bitter struggles led by socialist-minded workers, now play the leading role in enforcing the dictates of management.
In this lecture, delivered in Sydney, Australia in January, 1998, David North explains this profound transformation through an historical examination of the trade unions themselves.
On August 3, 1981, 15,000 members of the union of air traffic controllers in the US—the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO)—went out on strike against their employer, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
