Both trade union activists and the business press have been closely following the negotiations between UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) for some time. Then, on July 25, the big news came. The IBT had signed a tentative agreement with UPS. The purpose of this article is to explain what is in the new agreement and the attitude that socialists should take.
Economic headlines present a confusing jumble of news. Commentators speak of avoiding a recession, while interest rates and food prices remain high. There are plenty of Help Wanted signs yet many people are not feeling particularly flush. What’s really going on? The purpose of this article is to examine the current US economic situation.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is teetering toward the edge of a cliff. But the right-wing fanatics currently enjoying a 6-3 supermajority in the Court do not allow such minor considerations (like accountability) to deter them from achieving their main goal: turning back the clock in U.S. society to the 1950s era, when LGBTQ people were forced to stay in the closet; college students were wealthy, Christian, and white; racial segregation still flourished; and, of course, abortion was illegal.
In the year to Q1 2023, in Europe, unit profits increased more than unit labour costs in manufacturing, construction and finance, and grew at the same rate as unit labour cost in “accommodation food and transportation”.
The Republican Party is no longer the most important political vehicle for the ruling class. The Republicans have become so involved in Trump’s intrigues, vendettas, and conspiracy theories that a considerable layer have forgotten their responsibilities to bourgeois democracy and to a stable system of capital accumulation.
The June 25 elections in Greece confirmed, but also reinforced, the harsh negative features of the results of the “first round” of the May 21 election. In the new parliament, the sum of the right and the far-right parties reached 200 seats (out of a total of 300), thus creating a correlation of parliamentary forces that is unprecedented in the years following the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1974.
Our work has been devoted to essentially arguing a negative point—that it’s fundamentally wrong to see any part of the Democratic Party as the road to social change. This viewpoint obviously poses a major question: if socialists shouldn’t be supporting Democrats, then what should we be doing instead? What is our alternative course of action?
UPS has told management and supervisors to be at work in early August to handle a possible strike. So there may be some serious contingency planning behind the “win-win” veneer. Interestingly, UPS competitors, such as FedEx, are positioning themselves to sweep in and grab UPS customers if there is a strike.
Now that the election’s over, evidence is beginning to come in to judge the validity of the different perspectives. The Lavin interview is an important statement by a major ruling class player. It shows that those socialists who stressed the fundamental compatibility of Johnson with the Democratic Party and ruling class politics were on the right track.
The actual class balance of forces, the political balance of forces and the electoral balance of forces are different quantities and qualities to measure. They are interrelated and they influence each other, but they are not identical.
Industrial strikes are rare enough today. So when two occur within a few months of one another and literally a few minutes’ walk from one another, it’s worth paying some attention. This is what’s happening in Bedford Park, an industrial suburb just south of Chicago.
2024 will become, as every national election since 2016 has, a referendum on Trump and MAGA. In that circumstance, Joe Biden—despite holding the support of only about 40 percent of the public—will have to be favored by the Democratic Party for reelection, assuming a health crisis doesn’t derail the octogenarian president.
The new young trade unionists desperately need the skills, knowledge, and toughness of the older generations. The old established unions need the drive, vigor, and esprit de corps of their new comrades. When these two trends merge, the labor movement will be back on the road—with a vengeance.
The social pillar that supported this political achievement of the Right was the mobilization of the ruling class and the affluent upper-middle classes, with their potential to pull along with them a certain broader audience.
On May 7, the Chilean right scored a major victory in elections to choose delegates to draft a new constitution for the country. The conservatives, who mostly want to maintain the current constitution drawn up under the Pinochet dictatorship, have more than the 60 percent support in the constitutional council they need to write the new constitution without having to offer any concessions to the left.
