For years now, the big majority of strikes occur when the old contract expires. No major national contracts have expired since November, so there simply have not been opportunities for new strikes. However, a number of major contracts are due to expire this year.
As the US presidential election begins to gather steam, Joe Allen looks at the far right threat and the dangerous game being played by the Democrats. Allen asks if Genocide Joe has the support to win or whether a new left alternative should take their place instead.
Chicago represents a test case for how a “sanctuary” city can welcome an influx of migrants, when as many as 2.4 million asylum seekers have crossed the southern border in the last year. Hundreds of migrants arrive weekly on buses dispatched by the right-wing governors of Texas and Florida.
As U.S officials laud an “elder statesman” and “erudite strategist,” the rest of us, and surely millions of brown-skinned people, celebrate the end of an “iconic napalm rights advocate” whose lies, hubris, towering inhumanity and many blood-soaked foreign policy follies left a legacy – in Vietnam, Chile, Cambodia, Argentina – of an “enormous pile of corpses” that may number four million.
Corporate leaders have undoubtedly been keeping a close watch on the rise in working-class combativity in recent months, and they will be devising their own strategies to contest any shift in the balance of class forces that has suited them so well in the previous decades.
Fain expressed his hope that the union’s victory will be, “a turning point in the class war that’s been raging in this country for the past 40 years.” The contracts are consciously timed to expire on April 30, 2028. This means that the next strike could be on May Day, the international day of workers solidarity. All this is new ground in the American labor movement.
The union leadership has called for the Ford workers to return to work as quickly as possible. The picket lines are down. It will take a little time for the skilled trades to get the line and machinery up and running again. But the union has called for a prompt return to work.
Changes in business investment have always been an indicator of future growth in output and employment – not vice versa, as Keynesians argue. And in Q3, business investment came to a standstill. In previous quarters it was investment in new structures (offices, manufacturing plants etc) that kept business investment contributing about 1% pt to quarterly growth. But in Q3 that has evaporated.
On October 17, the United Auto Workers’ strike passed its thirty-third day. There are three new points that should be focused on. They are the decision to strike Kentucky Truck, Bill Ford’s attempt to do an end-run around the union leadership, and the mounting repercussions of the strike.
The Democrats campaigned against Trump’s cruelty and capitalized on outrage towards his racist policies to win elections in 2018 and 2020. But once in office, the Democrats deliver not the sharp break with these policies their supporters expect, but a “lesser evil” that shaves off the roughest edges, applies some liberal rhetoric, and ends up normalizing the policies it claimed to oppose.
Even though the strike is continuing, the union has already made significant progress at the bargaining table. Most importantly, on October 6, General Motors agreed that future production of batteries for electric vehicles would be done by UAW members.
The mood of the strikers continues to be high. Chanting is frequent. There is constant honking by passing trucks and cars. The picket lines are well organized with captains, food and water tents, and all the other necessary supplies. Members of other unions are greeted warmly. Strikers are well briefed on the major objectives of the union at the bargaining table. The union’s escalating Stand UP strike strategy seems to be popular.
The strikers’ mood is upbeat. A September 23 rally organized by UAW Local 551 at the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant is a good example of this. Workers, in their bright red UAW T-shirts, took part in a call and refrain chant. The organizer would call out the name of a section of the plant: trim, paint, etc. The workers would then respond, “Strike It Out!” It was clear at the rally careful preparations had been made if the plant was chosen to strike in the escalating strike program.
The UAW now has the opportunity—perhaps its last—to revive the class struggle, which is the only way to begin to reverse the balance of class forces weighted so heavily in favor of the employers for so long.
Risch’s position threatens the health and well being of Palestinian children who are refugees while disregarding the misdeeds of the apartheid state next door that denies Palestinians their fundamental rights, including the right of UNRWA-assisted children to return to homes and lands from which their families were expelled.
