US sends long-range missiles to Ukraine
The White House announced Friday that it would send long-range missiles to Ukraine capable of striking nearly 100 miles into Russian territory.
•Andre Damon
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The specter of socialism haunts US Congress
Last week the US Congress spent three days denouncing socialism and pledging to reverse all the social gains made by the working class on a global scale in the century since the Russian Revolution of 1917.
•Eric London
Washington announces basing of US troops in the Philippines
Under the terms of EDCA, Washington is re-establishing its military bases, critical to its war aims in the Indo-Pacific region, in its former colony, the Philippines.
•John Malvar
The lessons of the rail struggle of 2022
As far as management is concerned, the “contract” is only binding on us workers. They feel emboldened because they know they have not only Congress on their side, but the union apparatus.
•The Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee
Temple University graduate students begin open-ended strike for higher pay, better health care
Temple University students in Philadelphia began an indefinite strike this week after the university refused to bargain with them for cost of living and other improvements.
•Bhuvana Tumakur, Nick Barrickman
European Union urges intensification of Ukraine war
The entire European Union leadership traveled to Kiev on Thursday, where it met with the Ukrainian government for two days.
•Peter Schwarz
US issues ludicrous “spy balloon” charge against China
The hysteria over the balloon points to the increasingly strident war propaganda emanating from Washington against China, as well as the potential for such a minor incident to be inflated to trigger a military conflict.
•Mike Head
Republicans remove Ilhan Omar from House Foreign Affairs Committee, Democrats capitulate
House Speaker McCarthy has allotted an outsized number of slots on key committees to members of the fascistic House Freedom Caucus who held up his election for Speaker for 15 ballots, as well as other far-right lawmakers who supported his bid for the speakership.
•Barry Grey
Surging inflation in Japan leads to growth of inequality
Between rising energy bills, expensive groceries, and stagnant wages, the latest round of record-breaking inflation further pushes Japanese workers to the brink.
•Misa Boisseau
Indian budget intensifies austerity for working people, hikes military spending
The Modi government’s 2023-24 budget combines brutal austerity measures for India’s workers and toilers, with a 13 percent hike in military spending and massive sops to big business, the rich and superrich.
•Keith Jones
Canada’s governments exploit health care crisis of their own making to press for privatization
Four decades of capitalist austerity and the profits-before-lives response to the COVID-19 pandemic have left Medicare on life support.
•Dylan Lubao
Musician Steve Van Zandt propagandizes for imperialist war
Van Zandt’s reactionary, bloodthirsty comments would have no significance whatsoever—they would simply be more pro-war propaganda from the wealthy upper middle class in America—were it not for his celebrity and his musical history.
•James McDonald
“Operation Nightingale”: Fraudulent nursing diploma scandal exposes US health care and education crises
Twenty-five defendants are awaiting a trial and face up to 20 years in prison. The allegations reflect a deepening crisis in the health care and education systems, which the defendants sought to exploit.
•Katy Kinner
A letter from the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists to the International Committee of the Fourth International
In this letter to the ICFI, the YGBL reviews the political situation and moods in Russia amidst the escalating US-NATO war over Ukraine.
•Andrei Ritsky
Australian bar and restaurant chain exploits Fair Work Act to avoid penalty rates
Brisbane-based Mantle Group Hospitality has dodged weekend, evening and public holiday penalty rates for more than two decades.
•Martin Scott
After Quran-burning provocations, Turkey-NATO tensions rise amid war on Russia
As the US-led NATO powers escalate their war against Russia, tensions with Turkey are increasing on many fronts.
•Hakan Özal
Germany’s Chancellor Scholz visits Argentina, Chile and Brazil
The four-day trip was dominated by the intensification of the NATO war against Russia and the suppression of the escalating class struggle worldwide.
•Peter Schwarz
Biden administration reaffirms “US support” for murderous regime in Peru
The State Department Wednesday “expressed US support” for the Boluarte regime’s efforts to ensure “stability,” after the brutal killing of nearly 60 unarmed demonstrators.
•Andrea Lobo
Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
India: Tamil Nadu rural sanitation and water delivery workers demand wage rise; Pakistan: Railway workers protest delays in wage payments; Australia: Nurses and midwives at major Sydney private hospitals walk out over staffing and pay
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Podemos bemoans crackdown in Peru, but arms Peru’s regime against the workers
Spain’s ruling pseudo-left party is hypocritically distancing itself from its policy of arming the Peruvian regime with the same weapons it uses to assault strikers at home.
•Alejandro López
In TV interview, French Prime Minister Borne pledges to impose pension cuts
In an interview Thursday night, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne insisted she would impose her pension cuts despite overwhelming popular opposition.
•Anthony Torres
SGP Berlin state elections candidate Rippert: “It is necessary to combine the struggle against social austerity with the struggle against war!”
In this video, Socialist Equality Party (SGP) Honorary Chairman and candidate for the Berlin state elections Ulrich Rippert speaks about the growing social divisions worldwide and the social catastrophe in Berlin.
•Ulrich Rippert
Video: Teachers speak out at London, UK rally
Teachers Jack and Sylvan spoke to the WSWS during the “Protect the Right to Strike” rally in London on February 1, 2023.
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Money for war, but no money for special educational needs in England’s schools
The Department for Education is making International Monetary Fund-type “safety valve” deals with local councils facing bankruptcy, involving major cost cutting in the provision of special education needs and disability support.
•Margot Miller
Communications Workers Union strike re-ballot buys Royal Mail time to impose restructuring
All discussions at ACAS have been about how far the CWU will go to accommodate Royal Mail.
•Paul Bond
Over 90 percent of Europeans worry about the rising cost of living
The latest Eurobarometer survey found that nearly 40 percent are experiencing problems paying for things, and one in two has said his or her standard of living has fallen.
•Elisabeth Zimmermann
Woburn, Massachusetts teachers strike continues in face of injunction and court-ordered fines
Teachers in Woburn, Massachusetts, struck for a fourth day on Thursday in the face of a court-ordered injunction, a fine of $40,000 plus an additional $5,000 to be levied for each day the strike continues.
•Kate Randall
Ukraine cracks down on military “deserters”
The crackdown within the Ukrainian military on soldiers is a reflection of anxiety within the leadership that they will have insufficient cannon fodder as the war escalates.
•Jason Melanovski
In last-minute legal maneuver, Michigan Appeals Court overturns imminent increase in minimum wage
On January 26, less than a month before a February 19 increase in the minimum wage was set to take effect for tens of thousands of Michigan workers, the Michigan Appeals Court blocked the increase by upholding a 2018 “adopt and amend” maneuver of the Republican-led legislature.
•Phyllis Steele
To Leslie, Andrea Riseborough and the Academy Awards: The real scandal is corporate dominance and racial politics
In effect, Riseborough’s nomination disrupted various plans, on which, in turn, a great deal of money and prestige were riding.
•David Walsh
F-16 fighters: The next stage in the relentless US military escalation against Russia
This exercise in kabuki theater, repeated over and over, makes clear the extent to which the US civilian political leadership has become merely a means to package decisions made by the Pentagon to the broader public.
•Andre Damon
US media and policy outlets oppose student debt relief, claim it will subsidize “low value” degrees
Media and policy outlets linked to both big business parties have attacked as over-generous or wasteful the Biden administration’s proposed changes to REPAYE, which would reduce payments for some students without canceling their debts.
•Alex Findijs
Video shows California police kill double amputee in hail of gunfire
Family members of 36-year-old Anthony Lowe Jr. protested outside the Huntington Police Department on Monday after a video released by a witness on social media showed police shooting the double amputee multiple times.
•Jacob Crosse
Video: 500,000 workers strike in Britain, attend rallies to defend right to strike
Strikers speak from “Protect the right to Strike” rallies during the mass national walkout of 500,000 workers in Britain on February 1, 2023.
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US defense secretary in South Korea to further war preparations against China
The visit takes place after South Korea’s president suggested Seoul could develop its own nuclear weapons.
•Ben McGrath
Australia Post meeting highlights corporatist role of Communication Workers Union
The state-owned postal service has entrusted the CWU with the task of introducing changes to the delivery model that will drastically increase the workload of postal workers and slash jobs.
•Martin Scott, Jim Franklin
France and Australia to make artillery shells for Ukrainian army
The announcement marks a further significant stepping up of both governments’ involvement in the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, and the resumption of closer ties in preparation for war against China.
•Mike Head
Video: Berlin SGP candidate Endrik Bastian on health care disaster
SGP candidate and nurse, Endrik Bastian, speaks at a rally of the Socialist Equality Party at Leopold Square in Berlin's working class district of Wedding. He condemns the immense cuts in the health sector in favor of rearmament.
•Endrik Bastian
Striking workers speak out at UK rallies: “This is the only thing we have got, the right to vote and the right to strike.”
Thousands attended “Protect the right to Strike” rallies called by the Trades Union Congress during Wednesday’s strike by 500,000 workers throughout Britain.
•our reporters
Striking teachers detail crisis facing UK education
Members of the Educators Rank-and-File Committee and the Socialist Equality Party visited picket lines and held intensive discussions with striking teachers during Wednesday’s walkout.
•our reporters
Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa
Striking Scottish teachers join rail workers, civil servants, university lecturers and fellow educators in coordinated national strike across UK, as further NHS strikes planned; teachers’ strikes continue in Hungary and Portugal over pay, staff shortages and minimum service levels.
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Indiana Stellantis workers denounce bogus UAW “run-off” election, back Will Lehman's campaign for new vote
Among Stellantis workers, there is broad disdain for the bogus run-off between Ray Curry and Shawn Fain after a first round of the election that left 90 percent of the membership out of the voting.
•Jerry White, Valery Tsekov
Abellio London bus drivers resume strike, defying Unite’s attempted sell-out
A driver explained, “Everyone is mad. The drivers are saying the union is a sell-out. Even the managers are saying they’ve never seen the drivers fighting against the company so hard, and against the union as well.”
•London Bus Rank-and-File Committee
Caterpillar handed investors $6.7 billion in 2022, while demanding more concessions from workers in next contract
The company’s 2022 earnings report showed substantial sales increases and projected robust demand for 2023, despite growing economic headwinds.
•Marcus Day
Oppose the state repression of the Union of Left forces in Ukraine!
The World Socialist Web Site unequivocally denounces the state-led persecution of the Union of Left Forces - For a New Socialism party in Ukraine by the NATO-backed Zelensky-government.
•Clara Weiss
Price-gouging drives record profits at US energy giants
ExxonMobil and Chevron have reported record profits and at the same time implemented massive share buybacks to further enrich shareholders amid growing world poverty and hunger.
•Shannon Jones
No to Macron’s pension cuts! Workers will not pay for war!
Macron is calling for slashing pensions in France, massively increasing military spending and intensifying the NATO war against Russia, which threatens to escalate into a global nuclear conflict.
•Alex Lantier
Australian state government forcing 2,000 residents from inner-Sydney public housing
Property developers are expecting billion-dollar profits from the New South Wales government privatisation and redevelopment of Waterloo public housing estate.
•Zac Hambides
Museum Berlin-Karlshorst commemorates World War II blockade of Leningrad
The focus of the January 17 panel discussion at the former German-Russian Museum was Lasar Mojshes’ wartime diary and the memories of his daughter Anna.
•Verena Nees
Thousands of Sri Lankan port workers protest against tax increases
The new wave of protests has terrified the Wickremesinghe regime, the opposition parliamentary parties and the trade unions.
•Our reporters
Rank-and-file committees needed at Australian universities to fight cuts, commercialisation and militarisation
University workers and students across Australia face intensified pro-business restructuring and integration into war research, as well as deepening budget cuts.
•Committee for Public Education
New Zealand pseudo-left group glorifies former PM Jacinda Ardern
The ISO hails Ardern as an “inspirational” leader who deserves “solidarity” against “misogynist” attacks, while whitewashing her Labour government’s assault on the working class and participation in imperialist wars.
•Tom Peters
Democrats use Tyre Nichols’ funeral to push token police “reform”
While family and friends reflected warmly and consciously on the life of Nichols, and all victims of police violence, Democratic Party politicians and operatives sowed racial divisions and sought to channel mass anger at unending police murder towards legislative “reform.”
•Jacob Crosse
McCarthy, Biden meet over debt ceiling crisis
The main concern of both capitalist parties is the impact of any breach in the debt ceiling on the stock markets and the financial interests of the billionaires.
•Patrick Martin
COVID-19 is a leading cause of death in children in the US, study finds
The findings come as recent CDC sero-prevalence data indicate nearly 100 percent of American children have been infected with SARS-CoV-2.
•Emma Arceneaux
“The German government is marking the 90th anniversary of Hitler’s seizure of power by sending tanks against Russia again”
On Saturday, January 28, the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) held its fourth election rally in Berlin-Neukölln. Main candidate and SGP chairman Christoph Vandreier spoke on the 90th anniversary of Hitler’s seizure of power and how the German government is marking this anniversary by sending tanks against Russia again.
•Christoph Vandreier
Stop the censorship of anti-war videos on TikTok!
On Monday, TikTok deleted a viral anti-war video by the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP, the German section of the Fourth International) that had received over over 150,000 views.
•Jan Ritter, Christoph Vandreier
Defend German peace activist Heinrich Bücker! The real criminals are sitting in the Chancellery!
The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) strongly condemns the conviction of the antiwar and peace activist Heinrich Bücker and calls on workers and young people to take action against the scandalous verdict.
•Ulrich Rippert, SGP candidate for the Berlin House of Representatives
Interview with author Ahmed White on the historical significance of the Industrial Workers of the World
Ahmed White, of the University of Colorado Law School, is the author of Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers.
•Tom Mackaman
German Social Democrats grasp at world power
The SPD-led German government is aggressively stepping up its war policy. The SPD strategy paper “Social Democratic Responses to a World in Transition” asserts a leading role for Germany in Europe and the world.
•Johannes Stern
850 faculty and staff begin strike at Memorial University of Newfoundland
The president of the faculty union has opposed appealing to other workers, including teaching assistants, not to cross the strikers’ picket lines, declaring “We are not hooligans.”
•E.P. Milligan
Half a million UK workers strike
The strikes were called to coincide with the passage through Parliament by the Conservative government of new anti-strike legislation, representing the greatest threat to workers’ democratic rights ever mounted.
•Robert Stevens
Blinken green lights Israel’s far right government suppression of Palestinians
His de facto support for Netanyahu is bound up with the dependence of US imperialism on Israel as the guardian of its predatory interests in the resource-rich region and as its subcontractor in its covert war against Iran and its allies.
•Jean Shaoul
“Everyone should be on the ballot”: Stellantis workers in Kokomo, Indiana, denounce fraudulent UAW run-off election
Supporters of UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman are touring factories in Indiana and other states to inform workers about Lehman’s protest against the disenfranchisement of UAW members.
•Jerry White
Memphis police reveal 2 more cops suspended in Tyre Nichols killing
The Memphis Fire Department also announced the firing of three employees, including two emergency medical technicians, for failing to properly assess Nichols' condition after arriving on the scene.
•Jacob Crosse
Workers, youth denounce war at protest in southern France against pension cuts
Opposition among the millions who marched yesterday was not limited to pension cuts but extended as well to the Macron government and the NATO war on Russia in Ukraine.
•Anthony Torres, Kanda Gabriel
Despite Biden’s lies, the COVID emergency continues
The Biden administration’s plan to end COVID-19 emergency declarations is wholly unscientific and will have vast consequences for the American and international working class.
•Evan Blake
As lockout at WestRock paper mill in Alabama enters fifth month, company holds job fair to keep mill running with scab labor
The workers once again rejected the company’s “last, best, and final offer” on January 4. In response, the company ramped up its efforts to break the workers’ resistance by holding a job fair in Phenix City, Alabama, 26 miles north of Cottonton.
•J. L’Heureau
Millions of workers in France march against pension cuts, Macron and war
Rail and transit workers, energy and refinery workers and public servants went on strike and protested in France on Tuesday, as strikes spread to Britain, Belgium, Finland, Spain and across Europe.
•Anthony Torres, Pierre Mabut
After Congress imposes rail contract, BNSF announces plans to contract out locomotive maintenance
As far as management, Congress and the corrupt union apparatus are concerned, the contract is only “binding” upon workers, while the railroads are free to flaunt it whenever convenient.
•Joshua Rodridguez
Top US general predicts war with China by 2025
While his internal memo starkly sets out Washington’s agenda for war, Air Force General Michael Minihan is not an isolated maverick within the US military.
•Peter Symonds
No record of Australian Labor government’s diplomacy to US about Assange
The latest revelation demonstrates that while occasionally making vague statements about Assange’s plight, Labor is continuing the more than ten-year record of Australian governments collaborating in his persecution.
•Oscar Grenfell
How the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on American theaters
The most recent Theatre Facts survey covers the state of the field in 2020-2021. That is to say, it provides a glimpse of the conditions produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, both short- and long-term.
•David Walsh
NATO sends over 120 battle tanks to Ukraine in “first wave”
Twelve NATO countries have pledged to send between 120 and 140 modern main battle tanks to Ukraine, in what Ukrainian Defense Minister Dmytro Kuleba said was the “first wave” of tank deliveries, with more to come.
•Andre Damon
Facing bankruptcy, Pakistan government unleashes brutal IMF austerity on flood-devastated population
Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous country, with more than 230 million inhabitants, is teetering on the brink of financial default.
•Sampath Perera
Peace activist sentenced for criticizing German war policy in Ukraine
The Berlin-Tiergarten District Court has sentenced peace activist Heinrich Bücker for a speech he gave on the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion on the Soviet Union.
•Justus Leicht
Australian Gold Coast and Tweed Coast bus workers strike again over pay and conditions
After years of very low wages, ever-tightening schedules that leave no time for turnaround breaks, and a lack of safety, lunch and toilet facilities, Kinetic workers struck yesterday for the second time in a month.
•Mike Head
UK: A socialist strategy to defeat the anti-strike laws
The trade unions have not organised a single day of strike action against the greatest threat to workers’ democratic rights ever mounted, urging workers to rely instead on a future Starmer-led Labour government.
•Socialist Equality Party (Britain)
London bus drivers urge united action as Unite tries to close down Abellio strike
Drivers from Go Ahead and Metroline spoke out as Unite officials stepped up efforts to end the Abellio strike, due to resume February 1 for three days.
•Our correspondents
UK's University and College Union bureaucracy puts below inflation pay deal to a ballot
The UCU union bureaucracy is seeking to wear workers’ resistance down in order to impose a below-inflation deal.
•Henry Lee
Firefighters in UK vote massively to strike, FBU leadership delays action
The result shows the intense anger built up among firefighters over years of declining pay and conditions, declining numbers of firefighters and staff, closed fire stations and degraded services.
•Steve James
Democratic Socialists of America falsely tout New York State 2022 electoral victories as boon for socialist politics
The Democratic Socialists of America are exploiting the results of the New York State 2022 elections to build their brand of pro-imperialist and corporate-friendly “socialism.”
•Jesse Thomas, Daniel de Vries
Abbott Labs under federal criminal investigation at Sturgis, Michigan baby formula factory
Anonymous sources have told corporate news media that the US Department of Justice is investigating Abbott Laboratories in connection with its baby formula manufacturing facility in Sturgis, Michigan, which was shut down in February 2022 for bacterial contamination.
•Jay Haywood
TV and radio workers strike against corruption and for secure jobs at German broadcaster RBB
Hundreds of workers—full-time, freelance and trainees—at broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) went on a day-long strike on Friday.
•Gustav Kemper
Auschwitz commemoration dominated by war propaganda, right-wing historical falsification
The unprecedented promotion of war propaganda and the deliberate minimization of the crimes of Nazism at the Auschwitz commemoration are inseparable from the renewed explosion of imperialist militarism now underway in Europe.
•Clara Weiss
Race, class and the police killing of Tyre Nichols
In the aftermath of the release of the video showing the horrendous beating of Tyre Nichols by at least five black Memphis cops, the American media and Democratic political establishment have contorted themselves trying to present the killing as an expression of “systemic racism” in order to mystify the class character of police violence and divide the working class.
•Jacob Crosse, Joseph Kishore
Blinken in Israel: Planning for war with an ally in crisis
Washington is concerned that mounting political instability, both in the occupied territories and within Israel itself, is weakening the main US military bastion in the Middle East.
•Patrick Martin
Turkey to hold elections in May amid deepening political, social crisis
Elections are to be held on May 14, while the bourgeois opposition parties have accepted President Erdoğan’s candidacy despite its unconstitutionality.
•Barış Demir, Ulaş Ateşçi
A tale of two elections: US political establishment calls Tunisian election (11 percent turnout) an “illegitimate sham” but praises UAW election (9 percent turnout) as “historic and democratic”
You don’t need a degree in political science to see the difference in how the corporate media and political establishment treated two elections that took place in December 2022.
•Eric London
Australian Labor government responds to social crisis in Alice Springs with law-and-order measures
Albanese responded to a viscous right-wing campaign against Aboriginal youth by pledging a major increase in police funding, while doing nothing to address a massive social crisis.
•Oscar Grenfell
Unprecedented flooding in Auckland, New Zealand
Four people have died in the ongoing floods and there is widespread anger over the failure of the Auckland Council to provide sufficient early warnings and other assistance to residents.
•Tom Peters
After propping up Canada’s Liberal government for years, the NDP’s Singh accuses Trudeau of “waging war” against workers
Singh neglected to mention a “trifle”—His NDP, with the full-throated backing of the trade unions, has been propping up the minority Liberal government for years and since March 2022 has been in a formal governmental alliance with them.
•Roger Jordan
South Korean intelligence officials raid headquarters of union confederation
The raid demonstrates that the government of right-wing President Yoon Suk-yeol is preparing new assaults on the social and democratic rights of the working class as social tensions intensify.
•Ben McGrath
Sri Lanka: SEP’s local government election campaign wins support in Colombo outer-suburb
Last week residents of Meethotamulla, a low-income working-class area, vehemently denounced successive governments, angrily explaining how they were attempting to deal with the social disaster they now confronted.
•Our correspondents
GM Flint workers speak out on UAW voter suppression, plant conditions
GM Flint workers contrasted the UAW bureaucracy’s silence on its own election with their energetic promotion of the Democrats in the federal midterm elections.
•James McDonald
Concern and anger in China over ending of zero-COVID policy
Comments on social media in China after the government’s sudden lifting of COVID restrictions leading to rapidly escalating infections and deaths indicate the widespread concern and hostility among working people to the change.
•Lily Zhou
On the death of German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1929–2022)
The intellectual life, literary and political history of Germany after 1945 cannot be imagined without the poet and writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger.
•Wolfgang Weber
UAW prepares betrayal of HarperCollins strike by entering mediation
As it has done many times, the union will use mediation as an excuse for accepting an agreement that workers would otherwise reject.
•Erik Schreiber
UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman responds to Monitor’s request for more information about election protest
There was a systematic effort by the entrenched bureaucracy across the board to cling to power by suppressing the vote, which resulted in an election that had such low turnout that it was not meaningful in any fundamental democratic sense.
•Will Lehman
Lessons of the Montgomery, Alabama teachers’ fight against COVID deaths in 2020
Independently of the Alabama Education Association, Montgomery teachers waged a courageous struggle to save lives. The lessons of this struggle remain of critical significance as teachers face a fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
•Emma Arceneaux
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