Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Israel launches air strike on school housing displaced Palestinian families in Gaza City
While the Israeli government claims that its operations are aimed at defeating Hamas and securing the release of hostages, leaked comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reported by Al Jazeera, reveal that the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza is the central aim.
The World Socialist Web Site opposes individual acts of violence, and nothing progressive will come out of the shooting of Lischinsky and Milgram. The Marxist movement has always stressed that individual violence cannot be a substitute for the conscious struggle to mobilize the working class in opposition to war, inequality and the attack on democratic rights, which is the only way to stop the Gaza genocide. Such actions are seized upon as a pretext to escalate police repression and further criminalize opposition to the genocide. With the killing of Lischinsky and Milgrim, this is already taking place.
3. Oppose European rearmament!
European countries are collectively plunging hundreds of billions of euros into a mad frenzy of military spending. The massive diversion of resources from social programs and jobs into the war machine is setting the European imperialist powers on a collision course with the working class.
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Rearmament continues largely behind the backs of Europe’s population, without any explanation being given to the public of its costs or goals. Last week, the European Union (EU) activated the Security Action For Europe (SAFE) program, a part of its €800 billion rearmament plan agreed in March that provides EU states and Britain €150 billion in loans for joint European defense projects. While this decision went largely unreported, it means that European states will ultimately have to repay €150 billion, either by raising taxes or slashing social programs.
4. SMART union decries “misinformation” while helping management prepare for one-man crews at BNSF
The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Transportation Division (SMART-TD) released a statement May 19 titled “Truth and Lies about the BNSF Crew Consist Agreement.” The statement, itself dripping with hypocrisy and lies, denounces a “flood of misinformation making the rounds”, particularly from “outside our union”, about the proposed crew consist agreement.
By “outsiders,” SMART-TD means above all the World Socialist Web Site. It is clearly concerned about its influence among railroaders, tens of thousands of whom have read the WSWS. It is also terrified of the influence of the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee. The RWRFC spearheaded efforts to fight the last sellout contract in 2022 which was imposed on workers by Congress, after the union bureaucrats used threats, lies and endless delays to block a national strike.
According to the AFL-CIO, over 140,000 workers die each year in the U.S. from hazardous working conditions. This amounts to more than 380 preventable deaths every day. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is dismantling basic worker protections, gutting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and all regulatory agencies they view as limiting corporate profits.
As educators are aware, even child labor laws are being loosened, with the Trump policy book Project 2025 advising that teenagers should be permitted to work in “hazardous” jobs. Forcing young people to abandon an aspiration to higher education, punitive student loan policies, transforming K-12 into business-directed “career pathways” and privatizing public education are all components of an overarching policy of increased exploitation.
6. Healthcare workers speak out about NewYork-Presbyterian layoffs
A physician assistant and a registered nurse who have been affected by the layoffs both spoke to the World Socialist Web Site on condition of anonymity. Their accounts reveal that workers are not receiving essential information and that the unions are refusing to organize any genuine resistance to the hospital’s attacks.
7. Boeing receives sweetheart deal to avoid criminal prosecution over 737 MAX crashes
Under the agreement, Boeing will pay approximately $1.1 billion in fines and compensation, retain a company-selected “independent compliance consultant,” and avoid the felony fraud conviction that would have threatened its status as a major defense contractor. The deal reverses a previous agreement reached under the Biden administration in July 2024, in which Boeing had agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud charges.
The move represents the calculated intervention of the American state on behalf of the military-industrial complex. Boeing is not merely a civilian aircraft manufacturer but a cornerstone of the US military-industrial complex, receiving over $20 billion for the next-generation fighter jets and representatives accompanying President Trump on lucrative arms deals in the Middle East.
8. Trump defends trillion-dollar war budget in fascistic tirades at West Point and Arlington
While millions are poised to lose healthcare coverage and go hungry, Trump boasted that the US government is purchasing “new airplanes, brand-new, beautiful planes,” “the best missiles,” “drones and much, much more,” including what he called the “Golden Dome Missile Defense Shield.”
The massive expansion of what is already the largest military budget in the world coincides with an ideological purge of curricula at the military academies that do not conform to the MAGA agenda.
Following executive orders from Trump and directives by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth targeting so-called “un-American” and “Marxist” content, instructors at the military academies have been ordered to remove from their syllabi books, courses and terminology that address past US military atrocities or examine issues related to race and gender.
9. US-EU tariff talks resume after Trump blew up negotiations with threat of 50 percent hike
The resumption of talks came after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen initiated a phone call with US President Trump following his declaration on Friday that the US would impose a 50 percent tariff on all European goods from June 1.
The content of the discussions with von der Leyen is not known, but Trump, as is usual, gave the impression that the EU had given ground.
10. Pseudo-left promotes CTU sellout contract as Democrats prepare austerity measures
The recent leadership elections in the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) have revealed the union bureaucracy’s deepening crisis of authority as its latest sellout contract paves the way for increased attacks on teachers, including hundreds of layoffs being prepared with more school closures on the horizon.
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The reality is that no contract clause will stop ICE from storming schools, nor will it block the courts or Republican state legislatures from outlawing curricula. The idea that the CTU can simply negotiate away fascism is not only a delusion— It is a political cover for inaction and submission.
These illusions are being deliberately fostered by those who are politically responsible for the attacks now underway. The same forces promoting the contract— Democratic Socialists of America, Labor Notes, In These Times— have for years glorified the CTU as a model of “social justice unionism.” They have also played a central role in the elevation and defense of United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, both of whom now openly align themselves with Donald Trump and the trade union bureaucracy’s nationalist, pro-capitalist agenda.
This fraud— the idea that class antagonisms can be reconciled through “progressive unionism”— is being torn apart by the reality of Trump’s impending austerity, which will be enforced with the full collaboration of the Democratic Party if allowed to do so.
11. Hundreds of Spanish musicians boycott festivals organised by pro-Zionist hedge fund
Spanish musicians and cultural workers have launched a widespread boycott in protest against the Western-backed Zionist genocide in Palestine. Their targets are music festivals owned or operated by investment giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), which is financially involved in real estate developments within Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
As reported by the online outlet El Salto, KKR acquired Superstruct Entertainment in 2024 for €1.4 billion. Superstruct organizes more than 80 music festivals globally, including some of Spain’s most high-profile events. It is now the world’s second-largest festival promoter, after Live Nation.
12. Sri Lankan workers must defend retrenched Next apparel workers
The shutdown of Next is part of a developing disaster in the apparel industry amid the deepening crisis of world capitalism. Apparel-producing countries are engaged in cost-cutting competition as giant retailers in the US and European countries continuously demand low-cost production.
This dog-eat-dog process has been intensified by US President Trump’s imposition of harsh tariffs on exporting countries, including Sri Lanka which faces a 44 percent tariff. Although there has been a 90-day pause since April, uncertainty remains.
13. Australia: Labor’s university job cuts raise critical political issues
Critical issues are posed by a staff-student rally called at Western Sydney University on June 3 against the threatened 300-400 job cuts at the predominantly working-class university.
These cuts are clearly not just a WSU question. They are part of a wider axing of jobs, courses and programs that has already led to the announcement of now more than 3,000 job losses throughout Australia’s 39 public universities over the past six months.
14. Berlin bus drivers support Transport Action Committee slate for the staff council elections
The Transport Workers Action Committee, which is also standing for election again, is calling on our colleagues to make this election a statement of intent against the Verdi union. Only an independent rank-and-file action committee can break Verdi’s dominance and place the initiative for the fight for decent wages and working conditions in the hands of the employees.
The Transport Workers Action Committee Appeal to Berlin, Germany's public transportation workers
15. ICE agents assault and detain US citizen in Alabama
For the “crime” of asking why his brother was being arrested and attempting to record the encounter, Venegas was thrown to the ground by federal agents, his phone discarded and his constitutional rights trampled. He repeatedly asserted his citizenship and presented an Alabama Real ID card— government-issued and backed by heightened documentation requirements— only for ICE agents to dismiss it as fake and proceed with his unlawful detention.
16. Striking Australian bakery workers at Allied Pinnacle need a new political strategy
The World Socialist Web Site not only exposes in detail the UWU’s filthy history of betrayals, but explains what is behind them: Like every other union, the United Workers Union bureaucracy does not represent the interest of workers, but serves as an industrial police force, enforcing the profit-driven demands of management and suppressing the opposition of workers to deepening attacks on their wages and conditions.
17. Australian Labor government issues phony condemnation of Israel’s starvation of the Palestinians
This is part of a coordinated operation, involving similar declarations from members of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence network, including the UK and Canada, as well as the European powers. All of them are shedding crocodile tears over Israel’s implementation of a “final solution” to the Palestinians, which they have assisted politically, diplomatically and logistically.
18. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentina:
Police assault on pensioners’ protest march leaves 80 wounded
Canada:
Strike of thousands of Ontario Workers Compensation civil servants
Mexico:
Education workers protest in Mexico City and Chiapas
Paraguay:
Coca Cola workers protest layoffs and extreme exploitation
United States:
Grand Rapids, Michigan teachers protest low pay, short staffing in district schools
Six California Planned Parenthood clinics unanimously vote to authorize strike
Uruguay:
“March of Silence” honors those disappeared under the dictatorship
19. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk
Internationally, major artistic figures such as Roger Waters and Ai Wei Wei as well as historians such as Mario Kessler and Christian Gerlach have supported the campaign to free Bogdan Syrotiuk. Many political tendencies have also condemned his imprisonment and called for his release, despite their political differences with the Trotskyist movement. These include Jill Stein from the Greens in the United States, and several groups and websites in Russia and Turkey. Most recently, the website of the Socialist Laborer Party in Turkey, and that of the Partisan Defense Committee, which is affiliated with the Spartacist tendency, have issued statements in support of Bogdan.
