Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:1. Michael Tilson Thomas, acclaimed American conductor, has died at the age of 81
Michael Tilson Thomas
The well-known American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, long
associated with the San Francisco Symphony, died on Wednesday at his
home in that city.
MTT, as he was known almost universally to
musicians and also to music lovers in the US and elsewhere, had led the
San Francisco Symphony from 1995 to 2020, when he became music director
laureate. It was the longest tenure of any conductor since the
symphony’s founding in 1911. Under Tilson Thomas, the SF Symphony had
become one of the most prominent and critically praised orchestras in
the US.
*****
Throughout his life, Tilson Thomas sought to use the medium of
television to reach a broader audience. He inaugurated the “Keeping
Score” series of programs on public television in the US about 20 years
ago, introducing the music of such figures as Beethoven, Tchaikovsky,
Gustav Mahler, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Copland and Charles Ives. These
programs, nine in all, highlighted some of Tilson Thomas’s interests:
his devotion to the great classics like the work of Beethoven and
Tchaikovsky; his enthusiasm for work of the late 19th and the 20th
century, including Mahler, Stravinsky and Shostakovich; and his advocacy
for American composers like Aaron Copland and Charles Ives. These
treasures of education and of musical performance can be viewed today on
YouTube.
Another American composer with whom Tilson Thomas was closely identified was George Gershwin, the composer of such classics as Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, the Piano Concerto in F, the Cuban Overture and Porgy and Bess. MTT’s recordings of Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris
were among his best. “Gershwin Live!,” an award-winning performance
with Sarah Vaughan and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, included some of
Gershwin’s most famous song
*****
It should be noted as well that Tilson Thomas was also an active composer. The titles of some of his compositions—From the Diary of Anne Frank (1990); Shôwa/Shoáh (1995), composed to mark the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; and Whitman Songs (1999)—indicate an interest in social issues and history that he shared with Bernstein.
In
Tilson Thomas’s programming, both in San Francisco and elsewhere, he
was able to combine the standard repertory with new music in a fresh and
lively way. He worked closely with contemporary composers, including
John Adams, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk and others.
*****
Tilson Thomas’s partner of some 50 years, Joshua Robison, to whom he was married in 2014, died in February of this year.
2. LA mayor Bass joins Trump in pro-corporate wildfire “relief” charade
The April 22 Oval Office meeting between Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass,
County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and President Donald Trump has been
hailed as a pragmatic effort to secure relief for victims of the January
2025 wildfires. In fact, it is a stark demonstration of the unity of
the political establishment in defense of corporate interests.
Bass and Barger appealed for $34 billion in federal aid, citing the
scale of devastation and the insufficiency of existing funds. They urged
pressure on major insurers, including State Farm, to pay outstanding
claims in areas such as the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. They also
called on banks to grant relief to residents paying mortgages on
destroyed homes while struggling to afford rent elsewhere.
Trump’s
response exposed the fraud at the center of the entire exercise. He
announced that Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin
would conduct an “audit” of insurance companies, producing a public list
distinguishing those that have paid claims from those that have not.
Such
an “audit” without enforcement powers imposes no obligation on
corporations. It replaces law with publicity, allowing the
administration to posture as an opponent of insurance abuses while
guaranteeing that no meaningful action is taken.
*****
The joint appearance of Bass, who has cultivated a “progressive”
image, alongside Barger and Trump, is being celebrated as bipartisan
cooperation. In reality, it lays bare the essential class unity of
Democrats and Republicans. When confronted with a crisis that threatens
social stability, all factions of the ruling elite close ranks.
Karen
Bass’s administration in Los Angeles has been defined by austerity,
expanded policing and support for real estate developers. Her 2025–26
budget has intensified opposition amid overwork, stagnant wages and
declining services, while wildfire response failures followed cuts to
fire funding.
Bass’s appearance beside Trump was entirely consistent with her role
only days earlier in shutting down the threatened strike by 77,000 Los
Angeles educators and school workers. At 2:30 a.m. on April 14, hours
before the walkout was set to begin, SEIU Local 99 announced a
last-minute deal with LAUSD, abruptly canceling what would have been the
first district-wide strike of classified workers, teachers and
administrators in LAUSD history.
Bass had intervened directly in
the late-night talks, appearing the next morning alongside union
officials who praised her for “stepping in” and serving as “the closer,”
while they made clear they would “rather be here today than on the
picket line.” In that case, as in the wildfire talks, Bass functioned as
an enforcer for the corporate and Democratic Party establishment,
blocking a broader mobilization of workers and subordinating urgent
social needs to the dictates of the ruling class.
She has boosted LAPD spending, aligned with federal raids and
advanced punitive homelessness policies benefiting private contractors.
Facing reelection and a $1 billion shortfall, Bass declared a fiscal
emergency, proposing the elimination of 1,647 city jobs to impose
sweeping social cuts.
The supposed pressure on insurers is a
preemptive maneuver to contain mounting public anger. Insurance
corporations are not aberrantly failing. They are functioning exactly as
the system requires, maximizing profit by denying or delaying payouts.
The refusal to impose binding regulation reflects the political intent
by both big business parties.
*****
Wildfires, like all disasters, are shaped by social conditions. Their
scale and impact reflect decades of deregulation, environmental
destruction and the subordination of infrastructure to private profit.
By reducing the crisis to a logistical problem, officials conceal its
origins in policy and class relations.
The situation in California makes this explicit. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara,
a Democrat, has functioned as a key facilitator of insurance industry
interests, approving major premium hikes while advancing a “sustainable
insurance strategy” that legitimized deregulation. He accepted industry
donations, intervened to benefit contributing firms and helped create
conditions allowing insurers to raise rates, withdraw coverage and shift
costs onto homeowners, effectively transforming the regulatory
apparatus into a mechanism for protecting corporate profits rather than
consumers.
The role of California Governor Gavin Newsom
cannot be ignored either. He has suspended key environmental
protections, including the California Environmental Quality Act, to
fast-track rebuilding for utility companies. Under the guise of
recovery, his policies grant firms like Southern California Edison broad
freedom to operate without oversight, prioritizing profit over
environmental and public safety concerns while mirroring federal
deregulatory practices and reinforcing the subordination of state policy
to corporate demands
State Farm
has no doubt played a central role in deepening the wildfire crisis by
delaying and disputing claims, while simultaneously seeking major
premium increases and reducing coverage in high-risk areas. Homeowners
have faced prolonged waits for payouts and, in many cases, loss of
coverage altogether, reflecting a profit-driven strategy that shifts the
financial burden of disasters onto policyholders rather than absorbing
losses.
However, the focus on individual firms such as State Farm
can be used as a diversion. The problem is not a handful of bad actors
but the structure of the entire industry. Insurance companies operate
according to profit calculations, not social need. Without coercive
regulation, they will continue to deny claims and raise rates.
The same applies to the appeals directed at banks. Calls for
voluntary relief are empty gestures. Financial institutions will not act
against their own interests absent compulsion. The refusal to impose
such compulsion defines the policy of both parties.
The April 22
meeting exposes the real character of American politics: whatever
differences exist between Democrats and Republicans, they collapse when
corporate interests are at stake. In times of crisis, the political
system operates as a unified mechanism for defending capitalist rule.
The alignment of Bass, Barger and Trump exposes how the ruling class
manages social catastrophe: empty rhetoric with policies that leave the
underlying system untouched.
3. Hegseth says Iran blockade “going global,” as US announces new sanctions on Chinese shipping
The United States is expanding its naval blockade of Iran into a global
operation against shipping in any ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
said Friday. Hours earlier the Treasury Department sanctioned a major
Chinese oil refinery and 40 shipping companies for buying Iranian crude.
“Our blockade is growing and going global,” Hegseth told reporters at
a Pentagon briefing on April 24. “No one sails from the Strait of
Hormuz to anywhere in the world without the permission of the United
States Navy.” He said 34 ships had been turned back since the blockade
began this month and the U.S. Navy had seized two Iranian ships in the
Indian Ocean this week.
The blockade and the sanctions are aimed
at China. The U.S. Navy this week seized the M/T Tifani, a tanker
carrying about 2 million barrels of Iranian crude bound for Chinese
refineries, in the Bay of Bengal between Sri Lanka and the Strait of
Malacca. China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil and depends on Iran
for more than 10 percent of its crude supply.
*****
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said Friday that
the sanctions “undermine international trade order and rules” and
“infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies
and individuals.” The action came on the eve of a planned meeting
between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
*****
At the same Pentagon briefing Hegseth demanded that European
governments join the war, telling them to “start doing less talking and
having less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat.”
A Pentagon memo, authored by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby and leaked to Politico
on April 24, proposes to formally punish NATO members who refuse to
send warships to enforce the blockade. The memo recommends throwing
Spain out of NATO planning meetings, putting the British claim to the
Falkland Islands back into question, cutting French access to US
intelligence and canceling joint exercises with the German military. The
targets are treaty allies. The United States launched the war on Iran
without consulting NATO or gaining authorization from the United Nations
Security Council.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said
Thursday that Israel is preparing to renew its bombing of Iran. “We are
awaiting a green light from the United States, first and foremost to
complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty,” Katz said, “and
additionally to return Iran to the Dark Age and the Stone Age by
destroying key energy and electricity facilities and dismantling its
national economic infrastructure.” When the attack resumes, Katz added,
“it will be different and lethal, adding devastating blows at the most
sensitive points.”
*****
Among targets struck in the past 48 hours: a Tehran University student
dormitory in Amirabad, where the Human Rights Activists News Agency
reported 14 students killed and 31 wounded; an apartment block in Bandar
Abbas the US military described as a “naval logistics target”; people
standing in line for bread in Ahvaz, per Tasnim and HRANA; and a Red
Crescent triage station in Khorramabad. In Lebanon, the Health Ministry
reports 2,491 killed and 7,719 wounded, including at least 177 children
and 91 medics. CNN, citing satellite imagery analysis, says 523
buildings have come down in southern Lebanon over the past three weeks.
Israeli officials, in reports by Al Jazeera and Haaretz, describe the policy as “Gazafication.”
*****
The escalation comes as the Pentagon’s missile stockpiles fall below
half their prewar level. The Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) reported this week that the US has burned through as many
as 1,430 of its 2,330 prewar Patriot interceptors—over 60 percent of
the stock—each priced at nearly $4 million. “A war against a capable
peer competitor like China will consume munitions at greater rates than
in this war,” the report said. “Prewar inventories were already
insufficient; the levels today will constrain US operations should a
future conflict arise.”
The economic costs of the war are being
paid by working people around the world. Brent crude oil closed Friday
at $106 a barrel, roughly 60 percent above prewar levels. Gold reached
$4,697 an ounce. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has called the
disruption to global energy markets “the worst energy crisis in history”
and executed its largest coordinated reserve release ever, 400 million
barrels. JPMorgan projects Brent at $150 a barrel if the Strait of
Hormuz remains closed into mid-May.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Associated Press that Iran
“in the next two, three days ... they’re going to have to start
shuttering production, which will be very bad for their wells.”
Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, in a Newsmax interview
Wednesday, said of the embargo: “We’re literally starving them, both
financially, and they can’t feed themselves either.”
In the same
interview Marshall endorsed nuclear escalation. Asked whether the US
“will have to go in and finish this job” if negotiations fail, he
replied: “I think that’s right. Previous presidents have had the same
issues on what to do. Think about President Truman’s decision on
dropping the bomb, and D-Day for President Eisenhower.” Truman ordered
the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
4. El Gamal family released from Dilley concentration camp: A victory in the fight against collective punishment
A federal court order releasing Hayam El Gamal and her five children
from the Dilley family detention center in South Texas is a significant
victory for democratic rights and a defeat for the Trump
administration’s campaign of collective family punishment.
But it
is a victory in a single battle. The war on immigrants, and through them
on the democratic rights of the entire working class, continues and is
escalating, and the El Gamal family, including four minor children,
remains under threat.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of the Western District
of Texas ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to
immediately release the family after nearly 10 months of imprisonment
and seven months after a judge earlier ordered them released on bond.
Hayam El Gamal and her 18-year-old daughter Habiba were ordered to wear
electronic monitors.
The order followed an emergency hearing
Thursday argued by Christopher Godshall-Bennett, an attorney for the
family. Attorneys Eric Lee, Rebecca Webber and Niels Frenzen were among
those who submitted the filings and argued for the family’s release.
Following the ruling, Godshall-Bennett wrote on social media, “Heading
home from Texas after the triumph of our family over the admin. The
Dilley concentration camp remains full of children living in shipping
containers. Release every single one and close that hell hole
immediately.”
The Texas Tribune reported that the family
was believed to have suffered the longest detention in the history of
the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, the only federal
immigration facility authorized to hold parents with their children.
The family had been held since June 2025, after ICE thugs seized them
two days after the June 1, 2025 Boulder, Colorado, firebombing attack
for which Hayam’s estranged husband, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was
arrested. None of the six family members has been charged with any
crime, and El Gamal has divorced Soliman and condemned the attack. The
FBI confirmed that none of the family members had advanced knowledge of
the attack.
The family’s innocence did not stop Stephen Miller and
the Trump administration from punishing them. The El Gamal case was
intended to establish the principle of collective punishment: that
relatives of those the state labels “enemies” can be seized, imprisoned
and deported without charge or trial.
*****
The conditions the El Gamal family endured at Dilley are part of a wider atrocity. Human Rights First and RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) reported this month
that more than 5,600 people, including parents, children, toddlers and
newborn babies, were imprisoned at Dilley between April 2025 and
February 2026. The report found “pervasive and systemic” abuse and that
families are “routinely threatened with or subjected to separation to
coerce them into abandoning asylum claims.”
The report documented
inhumane conditions, due process violations and lasting physical and
psychological harm to families and children, including inadequate access
to food, water, hygiene and basic medical care. Families reported
foul-smelling and unclean water, dirty water barrels and mold. Parents
also reported undercooked meat, hair, worms, bugs, dead flies and
foreign objects in meals. The concentration camp was the site of a
measles outbreak earlier this year.
El Gamal was rushed to the ER
this month after her urgent requests for medical care were ignored. A CT
scan revealed an unexplained chest lump and fluid around her heart, but
ICE then denied the doctor-recommended ultrasound for follow-up. Her
16-year-old son also suffered acute appendicitis after detention staff
refused treatment beyond Tylenol.
In heartbreaking letters, El Gamal’s children described their
imprisonment in writing as “slowly killing us on the inside.” The
younger children drew pictures pining to go “home” and to “school.”
*****
What is being tested on immigrants is being prepared for the entire
population. Federal troops have been deployed against peaceful
protesters in American cities. Immigration Gestapo have killed US
citizens, including Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Administrative subpoenas are being used to compile dossiers on students,
healthcare workers and social media users who speak out against the
raids.
The New York Times reported Thursday that the
Justice Department has identified 384 foreign-born US citizens whose
citizenship it wants to revoke, part of a broader push to accelerate
denaturalization cases through dozens of US attorney’s offices. A top
Justice Department official described the 384 people as the “first wave
of cases” in a “White House initiative.”
The conspiracy for
dictatorship is unfolding in real time. The defense of immigrants is
inseparable from the defense of democratic rights for the entire working
class. Immigrant workers are not a separate population. They are part
of the international working class confronting the same program of
austerity, war and authoritarianism.
*****
The Democrats have ceased fighting ICE deployments at airports, a
test run for deploying immigration police at polling stations. By
agreeing to DHS funding in March, they have paved the way for the
current Republican reconciliation package, which would entrench ICE and
CBP funding and expansion through Trump’s presidency.
The El Gamal
family’s freedom was won through sustained legal and public struggle,
including by the family itself, whose letters and public statements from
detention, combined with the efforts of their attorneys and supporters,
mobilized broader support. Protests were held outside the Dilley
facility and in Colorado demanding the family’s return home and the
closure of the concentration camp.
The Socialist Equality Party
calls on workers to demand the immediate end to all proceedings against
Hayam El Gamal and her children, the removal of the electronic
monitoring imposed on Hayam and Habiba, and a guarantee that the family
will not be re-detained or deported. The Dilley detention center must be
closed, and every child and parent still imprisoned must be released,
along with an end to family separations, mass raids and the use of
detention and deportation as instruments of political terror.
The
defense of immigrants is inseparable from the defense of democratic
rights for the entire working class—against political surveillance,
denaturalization, and the normalization of armed immigration forces in
cities, workplaces and airports. What is required is the independent
political mobilization of workers, native-born and immigrant alike,
against both parties and the capitalist system they defend—a system that
imprisons children, wages illegal wars abroad and diverts the wealth
produced by society into repression and destruction.
5. El Salvador’s Bukele regime stages mass show trial for nearly 500 alleged gang members
Prosecutors
in El Salvador have opened a mass trial of 486 alleged members of the
MS-13 gang on charges ranging from homicide to extortion and arms
trafficking. In what will be the largest criminal proceeding in the
country’s history, the defendants are accused of involvement in more
than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022, including an
estimated 29,000 homicides.
Authorities claim they are targeting
the highest ranks of the gang’s leadership and insist they possess
overwhelming evidence, pledging to seek the maximum sentences available
under Salvadoran law.
The trial is taking place under a regime
enacted through sweeping legal changes enacted during the ongoing state
of emergency imposed by President Nayib Bukele, who has ruled under
extraordinary powers for four years. These measures permit mass
hearings, often conducted virtually, denying defendants’ basic rights.
*****
Bukele, who has referred to himself as “the coolest dictator in the
world,” has been embraced by Donald Trump as an “incredible ally.” The
American would-be dictator has applauded his crackdown on gangs,
amounting to martial law, and the construction of vast prison complexes.
He has described El Salvador’s prison system as “humane” and effective,
while highlighting cooperation on immigration enforcement, including
deportation agreements targeting alleged gang members.
The reality
behind this rhetoric is the consolidation of an authoritarian regime.
The state of emergency has suspended fundamental democratic rights and
enabled mass detentions on an unprecedented scale. Human rights
organizations estimate that El Salvador’s prison population has surged
to approximately 118,000 detainees—more than double the system’s
capacity. At one point, 1.9 percent of the country’s population was
incarcerated, one of the highest rates globally. Bukele’s government has
threatened life sentences and even starvation for detainees, invoking a
so-called “war on gangs” to justify these measures.
This state of authoritarian terror strips away the thin democratic
façade established after the end of military rule in 1979 and the
conclusion of the civil war in 1992. That façade was constructed with
the complicity of the petty-bourgeois nationalist and Stalinist
leadership of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN),
which transformed itself from a guerrilla movement into a bourgeois
political party. Bukele himself emerged from the section of the business
elite that aligned itself with the FMLN.
The repressive apparatus
now in place has extended beyond El Salvador’s borders, intersecting
with US immigration policy in alarming ways. The Trump administration
designated MS-13 a terrorist organization and pursued agreements with El
Salvador to exchange prisoners. These policies have led to the
deportation of migrants—including Venezuelans—under conditions that
evoke the forced disappearances of Latin America’s military
dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s.
*****
Invoking the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, the US government has
justified mass deportations by claiming an “invasion” by criminal
groups. Hundreds of migrants have been detained without due process,
often seized by plainclothes agents and transported to undisclosed
locations. Lawyers and relatives frequently cannot determine their
whereabouts, as records are altered or erased. Some detainees last year
later reappeared in El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center
(CECOT), effectively functioning as a concentration camp overseen by
security forces with a documented history of torture and extrajudicial
killings.
The historical parallels are unmistakable. Under the
US-backed dictatorship that ruled El Salvador during the country’s civil
rule (1979-1992), approximately 71,000 people—between 1 and 2 percent
of the population—were killed or disappeared.
CECOT itself has
become a symbol of repression. Human rights groups estimate that at
least 238 to over 250 individuals, including Salvadorans and
Venezuelans, were transferred from the US in early 2025 without charges.
As many as 36 Salvadorans deported from the US remain there
incommunicado.
Testimonies describe a pattern of brutality: beatings, humiliation
and sexual assault. Prisoners are held in windowless cells under
constant artificial light, deprived of sleep and basic necessities.
Access to water is severely limited, with reports of contamination by
worms and mosquitoes. Hunger strikes have been met with violent
reprisals, including prisoners being beaten and dragged away “half
dead.” In desperation, some detainees resorted to a “blood strike,”
cutting their wrists—only to be ignored by guards and medical staff.
Internal
intelligence documents further reveal that 36 percent of those detained
during the state of exception had no prior criminal profile. Yet they
remain imprisoned without contact with the outside world and without any
meaningful opportunity to defend themselves.
The NGO Socorro Juridico Humanitario (SJH) has compiled a database
showing 517 deaths of prisoners under Bukele's state of exception, with
nine out of ten of them never having been convicted of any crime. About a
third of the deaths were caused by violence or torture, another third
by medical negligence, and for the rest the cause of death remains
unknown.
The case of Kilmar Abrego García illustrates the arbitrary nature of
these policies. Deported unlawfully from the United States, he became
one of hundreds sent to CECOT without trial. Although later returned to
the US and released by court order, his case highlights the broader
system of extrajudicial detention. Bukele himself publicly refused to
return him during a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, underscoring
the political alliance underpinning these actions.
The broader
implications extend across the region. Bukele’s model—combining mass
incarceration, suspension of rights and militarized policing—is being
promoted by right-wing governments in Ecuador, Honduras and Costa Rica.
Trump’s support reinforces this trend, normalizing a doctrine that the
state may detain or even kill individuals based on suspicion alone,
without due process.
Bukele has placed the country under a permanent state of exception,
criminalizing civil society organizations and journalists as fronts for
gangs.
As is typical of the US corporate media, little attention
has been paid to the deeper roots of violence in El Salvador. These lie
in a long history of extreme inequality and state repression, driven by
the interests of local elites and US imperialism. The rise of gangs such
as MS-13 and Barrio 18 cannot be understood outside this context.
Their
consolidation was a byproduct of US policies in the 1990s, particularly
under the Clinton administration. Mass deportations of young
immigrants—many of whom had formed small groups for protection in US
cities—transplanted gang structures to Central America. One deportee
recalled: “Eventually it became a gang, but initially it was just to
protect each other… These kids were being treated like trash.”
The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
(IIRIRA), enacted under the Democratic Clinton administration, marked a
turning point, dramatically expanding deportations and undermining due
process. Combined with severe social inequality in El Salvador, these
policies created fertile conditions for gang proliferation.
That
inequality is itself rooted in decades of US-backed economic and
military intervention. During the civil war, Washington provided more
than $4 billion in aid to the Salvadoran government, supporting a regime
that employed death squads, torture and mass killings. Economic
policies tied to US interests deepened poverty, promoting export-led
growth while increasing dependence on imports and undermining domestic
employment.
Privatization, austerity and dollarization—under both
the fascistic Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) party and the
FMLN—further eroded living standards. By the early 2000s, a tiny elite
controlled nearly half of the country’s wealth. Subsequent FMLN
governments, despite their leftist rhetoric, continued these policies,
expanding military spending and imposing austerity measures.
Conditions have worsened under Bukele, who came to power exploiting
mass anger against the ARENA party and the FMLN. Poverty increased from
22.8 percent in 2019 to 25.8 percent in 2024, driven by a 24 percent
rise in the cost of living that outpaced wage increases. Social programs
were slashed, with 31 out of 40 eliminated. Meanwhile, public debt
ballooned from $19.8 billion to $32.1 billion.
These conditions
will continue to push youth toward migration or involvement in criminal
networks, perpetuating the cycle of violence that the government claims
to combat. The current mass trial, far from addressing these root
causes, represents a further escalation of repression aimed ultimately
against the working class.
6. Trump’s “Department of War” seeks to enlist US auto companies in accelerated arms buildup
Pentagon officials recently met with executives from General Motors
and Ford, marking a turn by the Trump administration toward the
development of a war economy.
According to press reports, unnamed
senior defense officials have held meetings with executives of major
corporations about building military equipment, including Mary Barra,
CEO of General Motors, and Jim Farley, CEO of Ford. The Pentagon is
reportedly seeking to replenish critical munitions and weapons systems
that have been depleted due to the ongoing Ukraine proxy war against
Russia, the Gaza genocide, and the war against Iran.
According to a report in the Detroit Free Press,
“By some estimates, it could take five years or more to replenish the
munitions that have been used in the last 40 days” of the war against
Iran. It quoted John Ferrari, a retired Army major general who now works
for the American Enterprise Institute, a right wing Washington, DC
think tank, who warned, “We are on borrowed time. The Russians, the
Chinese, the Iranians—everybody knows that we don’t have enough
munitions.”
For their part, auto executives, with profits lagging
as a result of low electric vehicle sales, are eyeing Trump’s proposed
$1.5 trillion military budget.
A defense official stated, “The
Department of War is committed to rapidly expanding the defense
industrial base by leveraging all available commercial solutions and
technologies to ensure our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage.”
The
meeting with top auto executives follows the announcement earlier this
year of the launch of the so-called “Arsenal of Freedom” project, aimed
at putting US industry—and all of society—on a war footing. This has
involved tours by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other military
officials of weapons plants.
Hegseth is calling for the
rebuilding of the US military-industrial base and moving away from what
he calls a “peacetime science fair” toward a “wartime arms race,” aiming
to “out-innovate competitors.”
*****
Autoworker, socialist, and working class hero Will Lehman
In response to the moves by the Trump administration to enlist the auto companies in the drive to war, Mack Trucks worker Will Lehman, who is running for UAW president, said:
This
is what fueled the student protests against the genocide in Gaza.
Universities were associated with war development and war technologies,
and students and university workers did not want any part of it.
War is being presented to workers as something that will bring jobs, but the reality is that workers will pay in blood.
They
are gearing up to send workers and the children of workers to fight
these wars, to die for the profits of those who are exploiting workers.
The wars in the Middle East have led to debacles. They have left scars
on the working class that will not soon be forgotten.
Trump talks about destroying an entire civilization, but it is not just Trump talking—it is US imperialism that is driving this.
The
only way we are going to stop that is through our collective action.
The UAW bureaucracy is fine with workers going off to fight wars as long
as they collect dues. They are not going to be fighting these wars.
The
UAW usually lines up behind the Democrats, but they are fully backing
the Trump administration by promoting war production. Fain wears a shirt
with a bomber on it. Anti-genocide protesters in Michigan were thrown
out of a UAW rally.
This is part of the bureaucracy’s policy that
everything must be subordinated to nationalism and the war effort.
Nationalism is a poison being fed to the working class, and workers must
oppose this.
Workers face a choice. It is not all said and
done—we still have an opportunity to stop it. The power of the working
class is real. Workers need to understand their class strength and act.
But the UAW bureaucracy is not going to lead that fight. If they remain
in charge, we are going to lose.
This means workers need to assert
their own power by building rank-and-file committees to organize and
coordinate struggles based on the interests of workers, not the UAW
bureaucracy.
*****
Shawn Fain became president of the UAW through an apparatus‑managed election in the aftermath of scandal
UAW President Shawn Fain has often spoken nostalgically of the “Arsenal of Democracy” and has promoted converting auto plants for defense industry use. In 2024, then-president Joe Biden, for whom Fain was a top ally, described the unions as his “domestic NATO.”
Last month, the UAW bureaucracy shut down a strike after 5 days by
General Dynamics shipbuilders at Bath Iron Works in Maine. Workers at
the facility make the same guided missile destroyers being deployed
against Iran.
In a visit to the facility only weeks before the
strike, Hegseth delivered a speech in which he stated, “[America and
Americans first] means we protect your jobs, your security, and your
family’s future before we even think about any foreign country or
globalist peacekeeping project. We invest in factories in Colorado, not
China.” The local UAW leadership reportedly responded by leading chants
of “USA, USA.”
7. Watch: Australian workers and youth oppose Gaza genocide and war in Iran
World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to workers and
youth protesting the genocide in Gaza last weekend, under conditions
where those war crimes are being extended into Lebanon and Iran.
The
demonstrations, attended by several thousand people across the country,
took place in an atmosphere of repression and intimidation. In
Brisbane, 22 protesters were arrested
under the state Liberal-National Party government’s draconian “hate
speech” legislation, which bans the anti-genocide phrases “from the
river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada.”
This followed
police raids in recent weeks in Sydney and Melbourne, arresting people
who had taken part in previous protests. While the New South Wales
anti-protest laws that were the ostensible basis for the Sydney arrests
have now been ruled unconstitutional and struck down, the state Labor
government still plans to go ahead with the charges.
8. New Zealand government minister stokes anti-Indian racism
Shane Jones, a member of the right-wing nationalist New Zealand First
Party and minister for Regional Development in the National Party-led
coalition government, sparked controversy over the past week with racist
comments targeting Indian immigrants.
Speaking with the far-right Reality Check Radio on April 20, Jones
denounced a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India, falsely claiming that
it would lead to “unfettered immigration.” In fact, the deal only
provides for up to 5,000 extra temporary work visas at any one time.
With the coalition divided
on the FTA, the National Party is relying on the opposition Labour
Party’s support—which was confirmed on April 23—to pass it into law.
Jones
ranted that immigration will “drive down the value of wages, it will
clog up our roads, it will completely overwhelm our health and other
frontline services. And I don’t care how much criticism we get, I’m just
never going to agree with a butter chicken tsunami coming to New
Zealand.”
Such statements are part of NZ First’s positioning ahead
of the November election. They are a crude attempt to scapegoat
immigrants for the social crisis created by decades of brutal austerity
measures, the transfer of wealth to the rich, and the diversion of
billions of dollars to the military, under successive governments in
which NZ First has played a significant role.
*****
Jones’s comments follow months of racist agitation against Indians, who
make up more than 5 percent of the NZ population (292,000 people). The
fundamentalist Destiny Church has held provocative demonstrations
in Auckland, with slogans including “This is New Zealand, not India,”
“Kiwis first” and the Trumpian “Make New Zealand Great Again.”
*****
For most of the twentieth century, Labour upheld a racist “white New
Zealand” immigration policy. More recently, it has echoed NZ First’s
anti-Chinese rhetoric—including scapegoating Chinese immigrants for high
house prices in 2015—while pushing for New Zealand’s integration into
US-led war preparations against China.
*****
Workers must reject anti-immigrant poison and all forms of
nationalism, which is promoted by the ruling class to obscure the real
source of the deepening social crisis: the capitalist system, which
subordinates every aspect of life to profit and is plunging billions of
people into poverty, war and fascist barbarism.
The working class
is an international social force whose strength lies in its unity across
national and ethnic divisions. The essential task is to break workers
from all capitalist parties and to build a conscious, unified movement
against austerity, racism and imperialist war, based on the fight for
socialism.
9. Hesse, Germany: 4 tannery workers killed in workplace accident
On Thursday afternoon, April 16, five workers at an old tannery in
central Hesse were found lifeless in a pit. Two were able to be
resuscitated, but for the other three, help came too late. A fourth
worker died in hospital a week later, on April 22.
The workplace
accident deprives the old tannery of almost its entire workforce. The
Beuleke leather factory and fur tannery has been in existence for 200
years. It is a family business with only half a dozen employees, located
just outside the small town of Runkel (Limburg-Weilburg) on the river
Lahn. The company website states: “Closed due to bereavement!” and all
flags in the town are flying at half-mast.
The autopsy results were announced Thursday, determining that the men
were the victims of hydrogen sulphide poisoning, an extremely toxic gas
that can cause death very quickly. It is denser than air and
accumulates on the ground and in pits. The treacherous nature of the gas
is such that the characteristic warning smell of rotten eggs may not be
noticed, as hydrogen sulphide has the property of numbing the olfactory
receptors at higher concentrations.
It is suspected that one or
more men climbed into the pit while working and fainted, and the others
tried to come to their aid. The fifth seriously injured worker was a
fitter from a pipe cleaning company who just happened to be present.
Public
sympathy is enormous. A fundraiser was set up for the bereaved family
of one victim, 35-year-old Yuri, who leaves behind a wife and a
five-year-old daughter. On the initiative of a mother at the local
nursery, €37,000 was raised for this family in just a few days. The
mayor has now encouraged further fundraising campaigns.
*****
Tanning, the processing of animal hides into leather and fur, is a
very old, complex craft that involves numerous special steps. The
greatest dangers to humans and the environment, however, do not stem
from the production process itself, but from the waste products.
Waste
residues of animal hides that are temporarily stored in septic tanks
can form highly toxic substances such as carbon monoxide, digester gases
and hydrogen sulfide during the fermentation and rotting process. The
most toxic, hydrogen sulfide, which can paralyze the sense of smell, is
the most common cause of fatal accidents in such production worldwide.
*****
For many years, the central Hesse region was world renowned for its
tanneries, to which the Leather Museum in Offenbach still bears witness
today. With globalization, however, the profession of tanner has almost
died out in Germany. At the same time, the processing of animal hides
has developed into an industrial process worldwide. Large tanning
operations have emerged in North and South America, China and India.
*****
Theoretically, every tannery is subject to strict environmental and
occupational health and safety conditions. There are legal regulations,
accident prevention rules, and supervisory authorities. In practice,
however, these rules are systematically eroded and undermined. Hardly
any authority, municipality, city or region still has the capacity to
effectively monitor compliance with the rules.
The political
attitude towards this is exemplified by the handling of the supply chain
laws in Berlin and Brussels. The attempt to make corporations liable
for occupational health and safety and environmental protection in
supplier companies and countries as well, was watered down and torpedoed
in the EU at the end of last year. The supply chain law is now only
supposed to apply to a few large corporations and will only come into
force across Europe from 2028. Since then, the Merz government has also
been working to abolish the same law in Germany.
Corporations and
governments increasingly have their sights set exclusively on two
issues: rearmament for a war against Russia and profit maximization for
shareholders and the super-rich. Issues like occupational health and
safety and accident prevention inevitably fall by the wayside. The
consequence of this is more and more fatal accidents and increasing
danger in the workplace.
10. Union leaders meet with Lula amid strike wave in Brazil
Officials from Brazil’s largest union federations met last Wednesday,
April 15, with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers
Party – PT). Officially portrayed as delivering a series of demands
compiled in the nationalist and pro-corporate document “Working Class
Agenda 2026-2030,” the meeting signaled the open support of the union
federations for Lula’s candidacy in October’s presidential election.
The
meeting took place amid a wave of strikes in Brazil, particularly in
the education sector at the municipal, state, and federal levels. Just
as happened during the administration of the fascist President Jair
Bolsonaro (2019–2022), Brazil’s largest union federations are making it
clear that they will do everything they can to once again isolate,
stifle, and divert these struggles behind Lula’s candidacy.
During
the 2022 election campaign, Brazilian union federations offered
unprecedented joint support for Lula’s candidacy against Bolsonaro.
Explaining this support, Ricardo Patah, president of the UGT — Brazil’s
third-largest union federation — told Folha de S. Paulo in February:
“Bolsonaro wanted to wipe out the union movement, a pillar of democracy,
while Lula listens to us and endorses our demands.”
At the April
15 meeting, Lula greeted the union bureaucrats, repeatedly calling them
“comrades.” Sérgio Nobre, president of the PT-controlled CUT—Brazil’s
largest union federation—responded by declaring: “President, here is
your army, and we will be fighting this battle alongside you. You are
our general.”
The labor federations made a big fuss over their
drafting of the document “Working Class Agenda 2026–2030” and its
presentation to Lula and to the presidents of the House of
Representatives, Hugo Motta, and the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre. The CUT
wrote on its website that the unity of the federations “ensured that our
voice would echo in the ‘corridors of power.’”
The document was
written in the tired language of bourgeois nationalism, which assumes
that conflicting interests between “capital and labor” can be reconciled
by the capitalist state. Furthermore, it promotes a protectionist
chauvinism that mirrors the support US unions are giving to Trump’s
tariff war.
*****
At no point do Lula and the union federations point out that the brutal
regime of labor exploitation in Brazil is a consequence of the
capitalist system in one of the most unequal countries in the world. For
them, a measure such as reducing the workweek is something that “helps
improve productivity” and “the winners are Brazil and the companies,” as
the labor minister, former union bureaucrat Luiz Marinho, declared last
year. This illusion also helps divert the struggle for a reduction in
the workweek into the safe channels of the Brazilian Congress,
pressuring it to approve the end of the 6x1 shift schedule.
*****
The behind-the-scenes negotiations in the “corridors of power”
between union leaders, the Lula administration, and the heads of the
Brazilian Congress take place in the context of a powerful working-class
movement emerging in Brazil.
A report by DIEESE published on
Wednesday indicates that the number of strikes in Brazil increased by 14
percent in 2025 compared to the previous year, rising from 880 to
1,006. The largest increases occurred in the “private sector” (from 440
to 539) and in state-owned enterprises (from 46 to 71). Among the latter
are numerous work stoppages throughout 2025 and strikes at the end of
the year by postal workers and Petrobras employees against the Lula
administration.
Like everywhere else in the world, this trend will
intensify as the effects of the war in Iran become more pronounced in
Brazil. Since last October, inflation has been rising, climbing from
0.09 percent that month to 0.88 percent in March. The largest increases
were in diesel fuel (13.90 percent), gasoline (4.59 percent), and food
and beverages (1.56 percent).
Last week, a strike by app drivers
and delivery workers took place in at least four Brazilian states. In
addition to protesting against rising fuel prices and increased fees
charged by companies, they protested against a bill in the Brazilian
Congress to regulate app-based work. Championed by app companies, this
legislation leaves “platform-based independent workers” without an
employment relationship with the companies. In 2024, the Lula
administration had advocated for a similar bill, which was also widely
rejected by app workers.
Since the beginning of the year, a series of strikes in primary and
higher education has erupted across Brazil at the municipal, state, and
federal levels. Teachers, staff, and students have been fighting against
widespread attacks on public education, which combine low wages, poor
working conditions, and a rapid advance of privatization and
pro-corporate policies.
Today, this movement has been making its presence felt in a powerful way
in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which are among the most populous
states in Brazil. Teachers in the public school systems of the capitals
of these states, as well as those in the state public school system, and
teachers, students, and staff at state universities—the University of
São Paulo (USP) and the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)—have
been staging walkouts and strikes.
*****
Workers have faced repeated betrayals by the unions, which refuse to
unite their struggles. At the same time, the vast majority of these
unions are led by bureaucrats from the PT and from Morenoist and
Pabloite groups within the PSOL, who do everything to suppress these
struggles for fear that they will get out of their control and seek to
divert them toward bourgeois politics, particularly elections.
The
attacks on education and the working conditions of the working class
and Brazilian youth are being waged by the entire ruling elite and its
parties, including Lula’s PT. Like other bourgeois rulers around the
world, Lula’s response to the growing global crisis—now intensified by
the war against Iran—has been an open defense of increased military
spending, while continuing to commit to austerity policies. Conversely,
this policy is paving the way for the electoral rise of Bolsonaro’s son,
the equally fascist Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who is already tied with
Lula in the polls.
Brazilian workers and youth seeking a
socialist and internationalist response to the capitalist crisis—the
root cause of austerity and the attacks on education and working
conditions, as well as of war and the threat of the fascist far
right—will find a genuine path forward in the International Online May Day Rally organized by the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). We call on
you to organize to attend the rally, which will take place on May 1, and
to help publicize it as widely as possible.
11. Turkish miners’ struggle continues under a police siege
The struggle by Doruk Mining workers to demand their unpaid wages and
other benefits—centred on a march which began in Eskişehir and has now
reached the capital, Ankara—continues with a hunger strike under police
siege.
The miners’ arrival in Ankara brought the class struggle to the
forefront of the national agenda. While the people of Ankara showed
their support for the miners, statements of solidarity with the workers
were issued in factories and public squares across the country. Dozens
of actors, musicians, poets, academics, writers, and
journalists—including Hüsnü Arkan, İlyas Salman, Vedat Yıldırım, Orhan
Alkaya, Menderes Samancılar, Ataol Behramoğlu, Müjdat Gezen, Suavi,
Tülin Özel, and Füsun Demirel—released solidarity videos.
The
class struggle in Ankara is unfolding in the midst of an imperialist war
of aggression against Iran, waged by the Trump administration—an ally
of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government—in collaboration with
Israel. Despite the government’s calls for a “ceasefire” and “peace,” it
is effectively siding with the US and condemning Iran’s right to
self-defense, while over 90 percent of the population opposes the
US-Israel war against Iran.
Under these conditions, the workers’
entry onto the political stage and their potential to block the
implementation of the capitalist oligarchy’s agenda are deemed
unacceptable by the government. Numerous independent workers’ leaders
have been arrested in recent months. The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi –
Dördüncü Enternasyonal (Socialist Equality Party – Fourth International)
has called for the demand for the release of prisoners of the class struggle to be one of the main demands of the upcoming May Day.
That the struggle of just a hundred miners for their unpaid wages and
other social rights has resonated so widely highlights the decisive
nature of the class struggle that has been suppressed for decades, not
only by state repression but also by the union apparatus and identity
politics. The miners demonstrate the social power that must be mobilized
for the social and democratic rights of the overwhelming majority of
the people and against imperialist war.
*****
Miners’ demands include payment of months of unpaid wages, severance
and notice pay for dismissed workers, an end to the imposition of unpaid
leave, safe working conditions, reinstatement of workers dismissed for
union membership, and the nationalisation of the mine to guarantee job
security.
Mining workers who set out from Eskişehir on April 13 to seek a response to their demands arrived in Ankara on Monday after a nine-day march covering approximately 190 kilometers. The arbitrary arrest of union leader Aksu just before the march began signaled what kind of response President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government was preparing to give.
On
Monday, police attacked workers with pepper spray at the entrance to
Ankara, detaining 30 people—including Aksu and the union’s General
President, Gökay Çakır—later releasing them. On Tuesday, 110 miners
who had begun a hunger strike in an attempt to stage a peaceful protest
in front of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources were detained
by police. Faced with growing public outrage over the unlawfully of
detentions and the government’s oppression of workers, the miners were
released after 14 hours. However, neither were their demands met nor did
the threat of severe state repression subside.
*****
The urgent task of putting an end to capitalist exploitation and private
property—the root causes of social problems—requires the working class
to take power into its own hands. This is the most important question
raised by the struggle of Doruk Mining workers: Who controls society and
the economy? The problems faced by Doruk Mining workers are, at their
core, part of the broader problems of the working class in Türkiye and
around the world. A fundamental solution requires the economy to be
restructured on a socialist basis in the interests of society, rather
than in the hands of a handful of capitalist oligarchs.
The numerous parties that visited the miners on Thursday are
representatives of the same capitalist order and ruling class that the
Erdoğan government is striving to protect by suppressing workers’
struggles through force. Some of them, such as the CHP and the Kurdish
nationalist Peoples’ Democracy and Equality Party (DEM Party), are
attempting to control the social opposition developing within the
working class through illusions of social reform and democratization.
DEM
Party Co-Chair Tülay Hatimoğulları visited the miners and stated, “We
stand with the resistance of the Doruk Maden workers.” While the DEM
Party criticizes the government’s repression of social opposition and
the working class, it simultaneously promotes the illusion that the
government could expand democratic rights within the framework of the
negotiations being conducted between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK).
On Thursday, a representative of the Islamist New
Welfare Party visited the workers. The day before, Şenol Sunat, a
far-right deputy from the Good Party, expressed his support for the
miners in a speech in parliament. In addition, many union
representatives visited the miners and expressed their support.
None
of these establishment parties—including the CHP and the DEM Party—or
the union bureaucrats have done anything to mobilize the masses in
defense of the miners. The truth is, they are just as reluctant as
Erdoğan to see a mass working-class movement erupt across the country.
The
government and the company are now trying to pacify the miners by
deploying not only police pressure, but also the corrupt trade union
apparatus. While the workers’ march to the Ministry of Energy and
Natural Resources was blocked by police force, the ministry’s doors were
opened to the Türkiye Maden-İş Sendikası (Turkish Miners’ Union),
affiliated with the Türk-İş confederation—an organization that has been
absent for years and complicit in the company’s attacks on workers. On
Wednesday, Minister Alparslan Bayraktar met with Nurettin Akçul, the
General President of the Türkiye Maden-İş Sendikası.
*****
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), one of the sponsors of this year’s 13th International Online May Day Rally,
is fighting to put an end to the way union bureaucracies everywhere
divide the working class along national lines for the interest of
corporations and their power, and to unite the growing workers’
struggles across borders. We call on all workers to establish
rank-and-file committees linked to the IWA-RFC in their workplaces, to
show organized solidarity with the workers of Doruk Mining and other
workers’ struggles, and to participate in the International May Day Rally.
12. ANC-led government sends army to South Africa’s townships
The African National Congress (ANC)-led Government of National Unity
(GNU) is deploying 2,200 soldiers across South Africa, targeting
working-class townships under the pretext of combating gang violence.
Under
the banner of “Operation Prosper,” South African President Cyril
Ramaphosa is deploying troops in full combat gear, armed with assault
rifles and transported in armoured vehicles and military Samil trucks.
Soldiers are equipped with live ammunition, with standing orders to fire
in “self-defense”.
These forces are being sent into
overwhelmingly working-class and impoverished apartheid-era townships,
shaped by the legacy of the Group Areas Act. Areas targeted include
Eldorado Park, Westbury, Riverlea, Mitchells Plain, Hanover Park, and
the northern parts of Nelson Mandela Bay, spanning the Eastern Cape,
Free State, Gauteng, North West and Western Cape provinces.
Speaking to Parliament last month, Ramaphosa stated that “We are
getting the police and the army to work together to handle the
challenges our people are facing.” He justified the deployment of the
South African National Defence Force as necessary to complement the
South African Police Service in tackling gang violence, extortion
syndicates and unregulated mining, and in “bringing stability to our
communities.”
*****
Soldiers are also being deployed in regions such as the Far West Rand
that have become centres of the country’s “zama-zama” informal mining
economy.
For many residents, the sight of soldiers on the streets
revives memories of apartheid-era repression, including the brutal
suppression of the Soweto Uprising of 1976 and the widespread township
revolts of the 1980s under successive states of emergency of the
apartheid regime. Entire generations recall the military’s role in
occupying townships, enforcing curfews, and terrorizing residents.
The deployment of troops has nothing to do with combating gangs. The
growth of crime and violence stems from a deepening social crisis rooted
in capitalism and overseen by three decades of ANC rule.
Thirty
years ago, Nelson Mandela promised that taking control of the capitalist
state and advancing a new black capitalist elite would open the path to
widespread prosperity. In his inauguration speech on May 10, 1994, he
declared, “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful
land will again experience the oppression of one by another.” He
proclaimed that “we have, at last, achieved our political emancipation”
and pledged to liberate all people from “the continuing bondage of
poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.” He
concluded: “Let freedom reign. The sun shall never set on so glorious a
human achievement.”
The ANC’s promise has given way to a nightmare for the majority of South Africans.
Two-thirds of the population now live in poverty, and around 10.8
million people cannot afford sufficient food. Approximately 30 percent
of workers are unemployed, while youth unemployment stands at around 40
percent. At the same time, the richest 10 percent of the population
controls more than 80 percent of the country’s wealth.
Wealth
ownership is still overwhelmingly concentrated among the white South
African ruling class. However, studies show that inequality within the
black African population now accounts for the largest share of total
inequality in South Africa. The ANC’s black economic empowerment
policies have benefited a thin layer to the point that now more than
half of total inequality in South Africa now comes from differences
within population groups, particularly within the black African
population, rather than between racial groups.
*****
The use of the military to suppress the working class is set to
escalate amid the social crisis intensified by the US–Israeli war
against Iran. On April 1, petrol increased by R3.06 per litre
(approximately $0.16), while diesel rose by R7.51 (approximately $0.39).
Paraffin—used by the poorest households for cooking and heating—has
more than doubled in price, reaching between R30 and R35 per litre
(approximately $1.55 to $1.80) in informal settlements. Lower-income
workers already spend around 40 percent of their wages on transport, and
rising fuel costs are cascading through the entire economy.
As
the global crisis of capitalism deepens—driven by imperialist war,
economic instability and intensifying geopolitical conflict—the ruling
class is preparing for dictatorship and war. The US–Israeli war against
Iran is a decisive factor in the worsening conditions faced by millions
of workers in South Africa and internationally. Through its impact on
energy prices, currency instability and global supply chains, it is
accelerating inflation, driving down real wages and pushing already
impoverished populations to the brink. The ruling elite, integrated into
global finance capital, is imposing the burden of this crisis onto the
working class while preparing the armed forces to suppress the
inevitable resistance.
*****
The working class must draw the necessary political conclusions. The
fight against poverty, inequality and repression cannot be waged within
the framework of capitalism or through appeals to the existing parties
and institutions.
The upcoming International May Day Online Rally 2026
takes on decisive importance. It will bring together workers and youth
from across the world to advance a socialist program against
imperialist war, social inequality and authoritarian rule. Workers and
young people in South Africa should seize this opportunity: register
today, participate in the discussion, and help build a unified
international movement against capitalism and war.
13. Unemployment to rise by a quarter of a million as Iran war hits UK economy
The working class in Britain faces a surge in unemployment as the
economic shockwaves from the war on Iran push an already stagnating
economy towards recession.
New forecasts point to a sharp
deterioration in labour market conditions, with up to 250,000 additional
job losses forecast. This would see the official number of unemployed
to increase from 1.87 million to over 2.1 million.
The EY Item Club, an economic forecasting group, warns that the UK
economy will flatline across the second and third quarters of this year,
placing it on the brink of a technical recession, defined as two
consecutive quarters of contraction. Economic growth, already weak, is
projected to collapse from 1.4 percent in 2025 to just 0.7 percent this
year, cutting across earlier signs of modest recovery reflected in
February’s slight uptick in gross domestic product.
The
consequences for the working class are severe. Unemployment is expected
to rise to 5.8 percent by mid-2027, up from the current five-year high
of 5.2 percent, as the crisis triggered by the Middle East conflict
reverberates through the global economy.
*****
The UK economy is highly exposed to energy price shocks, with imports
accounting for nearly half of the UK's oil and gas needs. Almost 68
percent of the UK's gas supply was imported in 2025.
Rising energy
prices are increasing household bills, delivering significant blows to
incomes. Analysis by the Resolution Foundation published this month
found that average median working-age households are expected to be
nearly £500 worse off this year than they would have been without the
Iran war.
Higher energy and petrol costs continue to hit
household income. Filling a typical 55-litre family car now costs £27
more for diesel (breaching the £100 mark for the first time since
December 2022) and £14 more for petrol than before the war.
Only
limited protection for households exists for electricity and gas bills
through the price cap in England, Wales and Scotland. However, it is
temporary, with the latest cap set to expire on July 1. Energy
consultancy Cornwall Insight’s latest forecast predicts that under
Ofgem’s price cap for July to September, a typical dual-fuel household
could pay £1,861 annually, up from £1,641.
*****
The war is affecting mortgage markets. Before the conflict, expectations
had grown that interest rates would fall, easing costs for borrowers.
Instead, lenders now face higher funding costs and reduced expectations
of rate cuts. According to Moneyfacts, the average two-year fixed
mortgage rate has risen from 4.83 percent at the beginning of March to
5.9 percent, with the cheapest deals increasing most rapidly.
14. London Underground drivers speak from the picket lines against imposed “condensed” four-day week
World Socialist Web Site reporters visited picket lines and spoke with striking London Underground drivers.
The
1,800 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) are
striking against Transport for London (TfL)—overseen by London’s Labour
Party Mayor Sadiq Khan—who plan to impose a four-day week. This would
increase shift lengths to eight hours and 45 minutes, risking greater
fatigue and compromising safety.
Strikes were held this week from Tuesday to Wednesday and Thursday/Friday with further action planned in May and June.
The RMT represents half of all drivers on the Underground. The Aslef
union already agreed to the changes earlier, significantly affecting the
impact of the strikes. If combined, the two votes on the deal by RMT
and Aslef members showed a clear majority of drivers across the whole
Underground had voted against the deal.
A driver at Seven Sisters
on the Victoria Line said, “We want a four-day week with reduced hours,
32 hours a week, which makes sense. But we don’t want any four-day week
where you have longer hours to work because the fatigue will kick in. We
don’t agree with the offer that is being imposed on us. We want better
conditions, that is what we are striking for.
*****
On the picket line at Barking depot, Socialist Equality Party members
raised that management’s proposals—originally pushed in 2021—were a
Trojan horse for the destruction of hard-won working conditions. A
striker, Malcolm, replied, “The action today is essentially about
freedom of choice. We have fought for decades to get the terms and
conditions we have—through our actions and through our union
affiliation. To have those stripped away at a whim for a token gesture, a
half-hour paid meal relief is what we are getting, sweeping everything
else away is simply not worth it.
“Everybody would like a four-day week, but not at this cost. This is not
the four-day week we wanted. Management are selling the lie that it’s
optional, which it absolutely is not, it will be imposed. That is why
we’re standing here today.”
15. Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
Australia:
Royal Hobart Hospital cleaners strike again over inadequate resources
Ambulance Tasmania workers reject government pay deal and take industrial action
Clare House child and youth mental health workers in Hobart protest
Lauriston Girl’s School teachers in Melbourne take action for pay rise
Workers at eight Melbourne councils plan 24-hour strike
Kinetic bus drivers in Tasmania strike for pay parity
Brownes Foods logistics workers in Western Australia strike again
National Broadband Network subcontract workers in New South Wales strike over low pay
Bangladesh:
Sugar mill workers demand permanent jobs
India:
Maharashtra state government employees on strike
Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation contract workers protest
Hyderabad water utility workers oppose forced transfers
Telangana road transport workers strike with 32 demands
South Korea:
Striking worker killed on CU Logistics Centre picket line
Samsung Electronics semiconductor workers rally and confirm May 21 strike
16. Defend and help free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk! Please add your name to our petition!
The
fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an
essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide,
dictatorship and fascism.
