United States

In every country on earth, working people face the same conditions: attacks on wages and benefits, speedups, layoffs, broken contracts, sell-outs, and an all around lack of respect by the bosses.  The Soldiers of Solidarity, initiated by rank and file members of the United Auto Workers, are saying: "Enough is Enough!"  Their struggle to organize against these attacks has inspired working people internationally.  We call on all workers in the U.S. and around the world, organized and unorganized, as well as the youth - the workers of tomorrow - to support their efforts 100 percent. Click ...

The bosses at Delphi are offering a so-called “consensual” agreement and some in the autoworkers’ union have sent out signals they are prepared to take the bait. The Soldiers of Solidarity (SoS), a rank-and-file body within the UAW, understand that there is a lot more at stake here. Here we publish an article by Gregg Shotwell of the SoS.

Rank and file United Auto Workers in the USA are picketing the Delphi World Headquarters in Michigan on Monday, January 23. We are republishing their appeal for support and participation, published on Future of the Union. If you are in the area and can make it, be there!

We publish two letters commenting on the recent New York TWU strike, one from the USA and another from Venezuela. The strike has exposed once more the fact that the two main US parties, Republicans and Democrats are not enemies, but partners opposed to the working class. The strike has also highlighted the fact that in the USA there is not just the imperialist bourgeoisie, but also a might working class that is an ally of the workers of the world.

A new anti-immigration bill is being considered in the United States that would be used to criminalize and persecute mainly the millions of Latino workers. The aim of course is not to “send them back” for these workers are quite useful to the US bosses. Without legal rights they can be paid less than the other workers, and so they make bigger profits for the bosses. The aim is to actually make it even easier to exploit them.

Iraq was consciously destroyed by intense bombing. New Orleans was destroyed thanks to negligence on the part of the powers that be. Reconstruction is proving painfully slow, but the beneficiaries are the same companies as in Iraq, corporate giants like Halliburton and Bechtel. Whether it be the suffering of the Iraqi people or of the US working class, the same parasites at the top benefit.

Class contradictions are increasing sharply in the USA, the “richest country in the world”. The recent strike of the New York Transit Workers has brought into sharp relief that there are two Americas, one for the rich and one for the poor. Although that strike was derailed by the union leadership it marks the beginning of a new era in trade union relations in the USA, one of bitter conflict.

A major attack on trade union rights is also going ahead at Delphi. If the UAW workers there are forced to take a 63 percent pay cut and severe attacks on healthcare benefits and pension rights it will not be long until the bosses begin demanding similar cuts in other industries. A victory for the Delphi autoworkers would be a victory for the whole of the US working class.

Under pressure from the rank and file, New York's Transit Workers Union (Local 100) has called a strike involving the 33,000 workers and bringing the nation's largest transit system to a halt. Pay, health, and retirement benefits are the main points of contention.

The choice for US workers is very clear. The very existence of unions as defenders of workers is in question: whether it is nobler to suffer the indignities of concessions or oppose and put an end to them. The members of TWU 100 have chosen the latter! They deserve the support and respect of all in the fight for a future. Solidarity Forever!

Hurricane Katrina highlighted the extreme class contradictions that exist within US society. In this interview John Peterson, Editor of the US Socialist Appeal, outlines how attitudes are changing and how awareness of the real situation is sinking into the consciousness of millions of Americans. (This text is also available in the original Dutch version at: http://www.vonk.org/CallReadOnly.asp?artikelID=1658&status=1)

Twenty-five years ago today John Lennon was killed in New York. There was a mass outpouring of grief all over the world. This was because he symbolised something different from the mainstream music industry. He gave expression in the words of some of his songs the genuine feeling of disgust of many workers and youth at what capitalist society stands for.

Living standards for the US working class have been falling for some time. Inside the richest country in the world we have “third-world” type conditions for a layer of the population.

While poverty levels grow and living standards fall, the American bosses keep up the pressure to drive down real wages even further. The latest example is what is happening at Delphi (that supplies parts to GM) where the bosses asked workers to take a 63% pay cut. In December the UAW votes on what response to give and GM are bracing themselves for possible strike action.

With the situation in Iraq deteriorating, his approval ratings steadily dropping, the aftermath of Katrina still haunting the nation, divisions in his own party, and the DeLay case causing a widespread erosion of faith in the government, Bush may well be threatened with impeachment. But even if the reactionary Bush Administration goes the way of Richard Nixon, where does that leave the working class in the United States?

The events of the past year have awakened millions of Americans to the bitter reality of life under capitalism. To many, the entire planet appears to have gone insane. The world has been shaken from top to bottom by natural disasters, wars, famines, political crises, riots, and revolutionary uprisings. This is a graphic reflection of the impasse of capitalism in the epoch of its decay and decline: an era of wars, revolutions, and counter-revolutions. Editorial statement of the US Socialist Appeal.

The recent blackout on the US East coast highlights the inability of the capitalist class to provide even the most basic services in the heart of imperialism. The ability of capitalism to keep even something as important as its global headquarters, New York,  has been undermined by the blind mechanics of the profit-drive, the central component of capitalism itself. By Kurt Penca. Originally published on the new issue of the American Socialist Appeal.

In a first in US Labor history, nearly 100,000 grocery workers are on strike or locked out in California, St. Louis, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, demanding a halt to the ever-increasing bosses' assault on one of the working class' most essential needs: health care. Under the heavy skies of recession, these multi-billion dollar companies want to make the workers pay the full bill for the economic downturn. In order to maintain their huge profits, the capitalists are more than willing to put the physical health of the working class to the ax. This is a threat that the Labor Movement cannot tolerate, despite the braking action of their own leadership...

This summer the Teamsters, SEIU, UFCW, and UNITE HERE split from the AFL-CIO union federation at their annual convention in Chicago. For the first time in half a century, the US trade unions are officially divided into large, separate camps.  The break up of the AFL-CIO came as a shock to many trade unionists and activists.  These four unions alone represent over one third of the federation’s 13 million members. But is it a step forward for US workers?