Americas

The U.S. is in the worst housing slump since the Great Depression as home prices fell by a record 15.3 percent from a year ago in the first few months of the year. Mortgage defaults and home repossessions have skyrocketed as working people are unable to make ends meet.

The rising cost of oil, and gasoline in particular, is having an effect on everything, further stretching the limits of the already strained wallets of US workers. The oil and energy barons are making big profits at the expense of US workers. It is time to call for the expropriation of these parasites.

On July 9th tens of thousands of workers and peasants took to the streets in Peru as part a national strike. The strike had been called to protest against the right wing economic policies of the government of Alan García.

On June 26, at around 10.40pm, comrade Ángel Humberto Martínez Cerón was assassinated just a few metres from his home. He was the General Coordinator of the "January 24" Revolutionary Socialist Students Block (known as BERS-24). The political activity this revolutionary young militant was involved in was the reason why the ruling class decided to silence him.

The influence of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) continues to spread across Latin America. A few days ago a meeting of 60 people from different left groups gathered to hear speakers from the IMT explain the ideas of Marxism and several requested a follow up to this with a programme of political education for trade union members and youth.

Two weeks after a new contract in which GM bosses promised no more layoffs and no more plant closures until 2011, in exchange for a wage freeze and other concessions, they have now announced closure! The profit motive is stronger than any rotten deal the union tops can broker with the bosses and they are prepared to break the law to do so. Workers will be drawing some bitter lessons from this experience.

There was a very successful presentation of Alan Woods' book in the Sidor plant, which has been nationalized by Chávez, with 550 Sidor workers attending the launch of Reformism or Revolution and many workers showing a keen interest in the ideas of Marxism and the Marxist Tendency.

The death of Manuel Marulanda, the legendary leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), reopens a debate over the perspectives for the FARC and for the class struggle in Colombia. In recent months the FARC has received hard blows with the assassination of two of its principal leaders, Raul Reyes and Ivan Rios, numbers 2 and 4 respectively in the leadership of the organisation. Nevertheless, the FARC still control a good part of Colombian territory (mainly in the jungles) and maintain an active presence with more than 15,000 combatants.

Yesterday, the Canadian Auto Workers local 222 held a solidarity rally outside the gates of the Oshawa GM truck plant. There was a real sense of anger amongst the workers present, most of whom were from union families, but this was not the normal crowd that attends demonstrations. These are people who either directly or indirectly will be hit hard by the lay offs.

The mood of the workers was very militant and it is quite clear that they are willing to remain on the picket lines for as long as it takes to win. Terry McDonald, a member of the Oshawa Local's bargaining committee, told Fightback, "We're right. We're going to stay as long as it takes for them to realise that."

The closure of the GM's Oshawa plant announced on June 3rd, with the loss of 2600 jobs, is a slap in the face to auto workers everywhere. The reaction of the workers has been a militant one. Canadian Auto Workers activists blockaded GM headquarters in Oshawa, refusing to let managers in until they sit down and talk with union leaders. At the time of writing, the blockade is still up.

On May 29th approximately 45 people attended a round-table discussion at the Simon Bolivar Cultural Centre in Montreal, Canada, with Celia Hart and Jorge Martin, organized by the International Marxist Tendency on "Permanent Revolution and Trotsky's ideas in Venezuela and Cuba."

On May 28th, close to 200 people attended a very successful conference on Cuba and Venezuela, entitled "Cuba after Fidel, Venezuela at the Crossroads." Hands off Venezuela Montreal and the Bolivarian Society of Quebec, in collaboration with the International Marxist Tendency and Gauche Socialiste, organized the event.

The US Marxists analyse the situation that is developing in the USA, dealing with the deepening economic crisis, the impact of the ongoing war in Iraq, the upcoming elections and the future that awaits the US workers and youth.

A public round-table discussion on the theory of Permanent Revolution and the ideas of Leon Trotsky, and how these ideas are now shaping the revolution in Venezuela, Cuba, and the rest of Latin America. Leading the discussion will be Celia Hartand Jorge Martin.

The question of setting up factory committees has been posed in Venezuela. Because some of those putting forward this idea belong to the reformist wing of the Bolivarian movement, the leadership of the UNT unions instead of promoting them have come out against them. Marxists on the other hand view this as an opportunity to promote genuine workers' control from below.

A group of 113 professors, teachers, lawyers, writers, artists and trade unionists, among them members of the Black Socialist Movement and the Esquerda Marxista tendency, have signed an open letter expressing their concern at the Federal Supreme Court's latest proposals on "racial quotas".

The Movement of the Occupied Factories in Brazil is a glorious chapter in the struggle of the working class. Last year the courts and the police intervened in an attempt to smash the movement. In spite of everything it still survives at the Flaskô plastics factory in Sumaré, Sao Paulo. Here we provide an account of the struggle of the Flaskô workers and background to the movement as a whole.