Alabama miners are determined to fight, but the UMWA is isolating the strike and working to defeat it.
That's why we're building independent rank-and-file committees of miners, linked with committees of autoworkers, educators, and Amazon workers, which will break the isolation imposed by the corporate-controlled unions and unite the working class.
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) now includes committees of rank-and-file autoworkers, educators, Amazon workers, postal workers, and bus drivers.
If you are a rank-and-file mine worker, fill out this form now to contact us and start building a committee.
You can also text us at 205-614-9370
“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
An internal company memo issued last year declared that the “globally accepted standard, that ‘we don’t work under unsupported ground,” was “dated.”
Efforts to rescue the miners trapped 410 feet underground came to a halt on Monday.
The WSWS spoke with Liz French from Betteshanger, a former pit village in the Kent coalfield in south-east England. Liz was a founding member of the National Women Against Pit Closures during the 1984-85 Miner’s Strike. Among the 200 miners imprisoned during the 1984-85 strike, Liz’s late husband Terry received one of the longest prison sentences of five years.
Kurt Hourigan, a 37-year-old father of two, was killed in the collapse, and a 21-year-old worker sustained life-threatening injuries to his lower body.
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.
Whatever we got, and it was nowhere near enough, we got by ourselves. No thanks at all to the bureaucratic industrial police force known as the United Steelworkers.
