Despite intense pressure and intimidation by Deere, the UAW and the corporate media, there remains broad opposition among workers to the proposed contract, which is virtually identical to one they voted to reject two weeks ago.
Workers report being blindsided by Saturday’s announcement, which also canceled a strike by 32,000 workers in Southern California which had been scheduled to begin Monday.
Battersea depot is operated by Abellio and suffered the second-highest rate of COVID-19 infections among bus garages across London.
The resurgence of the class struggle has clearly exposed the real character of the “unions,” which are better described as labor syndicates—corporatist instruments of management and the state dedicated to the suppression of working-class opposition.
We are building a network of rank-and-file committees of workers in key industries and workplaces to stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives, and prepare for a political general strike.
The election of May to the Ford board of directors has drawn favorable notice from business analysts due to his confrontational stance against Deere workers.
Workers have said the company and UAW are indifferent to the ongoing spread of COVID-19, which is surging in the Midwest.
Deere is projecting that it will set yet another record for profits next year, exploding the claim by company and union executives that there was no more money available to meet workers’ demands.
The conflict between rank-and-file workers and the UAW is being swept under the rug and deliberately concealed by organizations which have long functioned as apologists for the pro-corporate union bureaucracies.
As of Friday morning, at least 140 workers at the plant were out sick, and a worker whose wife tested positive was allegedly instructed by management to report to work.
After workers voted to reject the local contract at both the Dana Fort Wayne, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky plants, the United Steelworkers is keeping them in the dark on the status of a possible renegotiation of the agreement.
On top of taxes, the USW and UAW are “entitled” to a 1.45 and 1.7 percent cut, respectively, of the signing bonuses. This means that the two unions made more than $150,000 in instant cash just for getting the contract passed, on top of monthly union dues.
Now is the time for Dana workers to join Deere workers and all auto workers to overturn the fraudulent contracts signed by the UAW in recent months and years.
We issue this blunt warning to workers and the general public: The hospital system is worse off now than it was in March 2020. We have been worn to the bone after two years of the pandemic.
The situation facing the health care system on the West Coast exposes the criminality of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which rammed through a contract at Kaiser Permanente earlier this month.
The Alliance of Health Care Unions may have succeeded in ramming through the latest concessions contract, but that does not change the fact that we still need a fully staffed health care system now to handle the impending surge of COVID-19 cases.
Whatever the case may be with the outcome of the vote, the process itself made a mockery of democratic process.
Workers need to build independent rank-and-file committees, independent of IATSE, that actually represent their interests.
The actions of the “union” demonstrate the pressing need for film and television workers to form independent rank-and-file committees that democratically represent their interests.
“We've been patient,” the worker said. “No more patience. Now is the time. Our strike authorization vote shocked them. Good. Stay shocked. They need to listen to us.”
World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to IATSE members who are outraged with the contract being presented to them as a “Hollywood Ending” by the IATSE leadership
O’Sullivan said, “This case goes to the heart of what rights employees have to protect themselves in the pandemic, and how far they can go in pursuing those rights.”
A colleague from Cricklewood garage commented, “Whatever the outcome, it will represent a victory because David has the power to fight the unjust forces against him and he has the following of his colleagues.”
Metroline bus company sacked O’Sullivan after he warned colleagues about the spread of COVID-19 at Cricklewood bus garage in northwest London.
Battersea depot is operated by Abellio and suffered the second-highest rate of COVID-19 infections among bus garages across London.
This statement was adopted by Michigan educators, parents and students to fight plans to reopen schools in Detroit and other cities despite the record-breaking surge in COVID infections and hospitalizations.
The decision by provincial governments across the country to reopen schools to in-person learning amid a tsunami of Omicron infections is criminally reckless. It must be resisted through walkouts and other forms of working class struggle.
Rank-and-file safety committees need to be formed in every school, independent of the unions, to organise the widest discussion on the necessary steps going forward to take up the fight for remote learning, as part of a global fight for the elimination of the virus.
The Southern Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committees adopted a resolution to support Chicago teachers and fight to close schools to save lives.
The ICFI and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties are advancing this initiative to begin and develop a global counteroffensive of the working class against the homicidal policies of the governments controlled by the capitalist ruling class, which are responsible for the worldwide catastrophe.
This resolution was adopted unanimously by the membership of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States at its Sixth National Congress, which was held online from July 19 to July 24, 2020.
The characteristic of every great crisis is that it lays bare the contradictions that have accumulated and been suppressed for decades. All that is backward, anachronistic, corrupt, and, in the most profoundly objective sense, absurd and even irrational in the economic organization, social structure, political leadership and dominant ideology of the existing society is brutally and comprehensively exposed. The pandemic is such a crisis.
This lecture by David North examines the causes for the betrayals of the trade unions in their hostility to the class struggle and socialism, and reviews the historical conflict between the trade unions and revolutionary Marxism. It was re-published in the 2014 book, The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished 20th Century.
