Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
Workers in Toledo, Ohio spoke out Wednesday against the Trump administration’s deployment of military troops to major US cities and the mass round-up of immigrant workers by ICE at factories in Georgia and other states. A World Socialist Web Site reporting team spoke with workers on the picket line at the Libbey glass plant, and during shift changes at the Dana Driveline and Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex.
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A Dana autoparts worker:
“The whole ICE thing is BS,” a worker at the nearby Dana Driveline plant said. “It’s a violation of everybody’s Constitutional rights. It doesn’t matter if you are here legally or illegally, whatever you want to call it, people have rights. There are people who are here legally and they are revoking their legal status, acting like all of a sudden, they’re illegal. It’s BS. It’s fascism.
“This is just how it begins. If they don’t have rights, we don’t. It never stops with these people—they won’t stop with these ‘illegal people.’”
Asked what he thought about a general strike, he said, “It would be great if we could do that. We have to figure out how we can stay in solidarity, so we can organize this. If we just stopped making them money, they are going to listen to us. We have the power, we just have to organize it. A general strike is the way to go.”
2. Social anger erupts at “Block Everything” protests across France
Hundreds of thousands of people joined yesterday’s “Block Everything” protests against France’s budget crisis after the government fell on Monday. Police estimated 175,000 people attended 550 political rallies and 262 infrastructure blockades across France. Tens of thousands marched in several distinct protests in Paris. Police said 10,000 marched in Toulouse and in Rennes, 8,000 in Marseille and in Lyon, and 6,000 in Montpellier.
Clashes erupted as 80,000 police deployed by President Emmanuel Macron assaulted protesters, arresting 540, including 211 in Paris. Drones overflew protests in cities, including Paris and Bordeaux, and across Brittany’s Morbihan and Orne regions. Police charged peaceful rallies and also arrested 30 students after assaulting a blockade of Hélène Boucher high school in Paris.
The protests were an eruption of anger at Macron’s call for social cuts to fund rearmament and France’s massive sovereign debt and his naming of Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister after Prime Minister François Bayrou fell Monday. Four French governments have fallen in two years. But even as an overwhelming majority of French people oppose Macron’s social cuts and his calls to send troops to Ukraine, he again named a fifth unpopular, right-wing prime minister.
The protest revealed growing disillusionment and anger with organizations promoted by capitalist media as the “left,” like Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s populist Unsubmissive France (LFI) party and the Stalinist-led General Confederation of Labor (CGT) union bureaucracy. Their role in shutting down strikes in 2023 against Macron’s pension cuts, now opposed by 91 percent of French people, was widely noted. Workers need new organizations of struggle entirely outside the structures of official politics, based on an international, socialist revolutionary perspective.
World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke with a number of youth and workers about why they joined others in the day's protests.
Samuel, a film student:
“Let’s suppose, by a miracle, we bring down Macron, great. But in England, Africa, North America, South America, in Asia, we will find all the same problems. The idea is not to think just in our little French corner, but to really think about the entire globe.”
3. Gunman kills fascist Trump activist Charlie Kirk
Fascist pro-Trump political operative Charlie Kirk, 31, was shot to death Wednesday afternoon on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, as he was addressing a crowd at an open-air event.
Kirk was the founder and leader of Turning Point USA, a fascist youth group that has been active on college campuses promoting white supremacy and hatred of immigrants and leftists. After playing a major role in Trump’s 2024 election campaign, including a prime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention, Kirk became a powerful advisor to the new administration, vetting cabinet nominees for their acceptability to Trump’s fascist “base.”
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Trump made the first public announcement of Kirk’s death, posting on social media, “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” he wrote, adding, “He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”
In a fascistic statement delivered from the White House Wednesday night, Trump denounced the “radical left,” which he said was “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country and it must stop right now.”
Trump clearly went on national television to exploit the shooting and turn Kirk into a martyr to legitimize escalating violence from the far-right and threaten his political opponents. This is under conditions in which no arrest has been made and there is no actual information on the killer.
Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff through Sunday throughout the United States, in an extraordinary display of mourning for someone who had no record of public service, but rather had devoted himself to the most repulsive forms of hate-mongering and racism. Kirk is certainly the first full-blown fascist to receive such an honor.
Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff through Sunday throughout the United States, in an extraordinary display of mourning for someone who had no record of public service, but rather had devoted himself to the most repulsive forms of hate-mongering and racism. Kirk is certainly the first full-blown fascist to receive such an honor.
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The shooting of Kirk follows the murder of a Democratic state legislative leader and her husband in Minnesota, and the arson attack on the home of the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania. And it comes amid a continual stream of threats of violence, imprisonment and deportation by President Trump against targets ranging from his opponents in the Washington political establishment to the millions of immigrant workers who have come to the US to escape persecution or find work.
The response of the Democratic Party has been cowardice and complicity in this right-wing narrative. Leading Democrats, including former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, former vice president Kamala Harris, and Senator Bernie Sanders, all issued groveling statements. Sanders wrote on X/Twitter that “political violence has no place in this country” and “my thoughts are with Charlie Kirk and his family.”
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The most groveling response to the killing of Kirk, and the fascist effort to profit from it politically, came from the New York Times, the semi-official voice of the Democratic Party. Within hours of the assassination, an editorial appeared on the newspaper’s web site headlined, “America Mourns Charlie Kirk.” (The title was subsequently changed to “Charlie Kirk’s Horrific Killing and America’s Worsening Political Violence.”)
It is politically appropriate to condemn the killing, which accomplishes nothing progressive and actually aids the efforts of the Trump White House to attack democratic rights and erect a police state. But that is no reason to glorify the victim or cover up the bloodthirsty, bigoted character of his political perspective.
The Times editors claim, “Such violence is antithetical to America.” On the contrary, such violence is the stock in trade of the American ruling class, whether directed at striking workers, racial minorities, immigrants, or political figures deemed to be dangerous or merely inconvenient. It is barely a week since the president of the United States ordered the incineration of 11 people in a Venezuelan fishing boat, claiming, without offering any evidence, that they were drug smugglers and terrorists.
The glorification of Kirk by both capitalist parties and the corporate media in the wake of his killing requires covering up a sordid political record of nearly unmatched foulness.
Over the past decade, Charlie Kirk has seized every opportunity to promote racism, bigotry and fascism, building Turning Point USA with funding from billionaire Richard Uihlein.
He was a key organizer of the January 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally that culminated in the assault on the U.S. Capitol. Kirk has been one of the loudest advocates of the neo-Nazi “Great Replacement” theory, which claims that Jewish billionaires are conspiring to “replace” the white population through immigration. At a 2023 Turning Point rally in Arizona, he ranted that Minneapolis was “destroyed” by immigrants, describing the city as a “perfect example of the Great Replacement.”
This year alone, Turning Point USA’s ties to violence and reactionary politics have been clear. In April, a member of the organization opened fire at Florida State University, killing two and wounding five. Shortly afterward, Kirk exploited the deaths from flooding in Texas to whip up racial hatred, using his podcast to blame an African-American official for the tragedy.
4. Nepal’s prime minister resigns amid spiraling protests
Nepal has been plunged into political crisis by three days of mass protests involving tens of thousands of mainly young people that erupted on Monday. While the immediate trigger was a government ban last Thursday on 26 social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube, the protests reflect widespread frustration and anger over a lack of opportunities, corruption and the social gulf between rich and poor.
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Young people viewed the social media ban as censorship. Before it was imposed, posts on X and TikTok using the hashtag #nepokids exposed the lavish lifestyles of the families of politicians. Unverified but widely shared photos of a minister’s son posing with luxury brand boxes and a video showing a former judge’s son dining in upscale restaurants and standing beside a Mercedes went viral recently.
Protest slogans included “[Prime Minister] Oli is a thief, quit the country,” “Shut down corruption, not social media,” “Justice and accountability for the lives lost,” “We are standing here for our future” and “Provide economic opportunity.”
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world with one in four living below the poverty line. Official unemployment last year was 10.7 percent and for youth (ages 15-24) was 22.7 percent. Many young people are forced to leave the country to look for work.
The protests quickly spiraled out of control despite a brutal police crackdown using tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and live ammunition. In a desperate effort to placate the protesters, Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned on Monday, and the government announced the lifting of the social media ban.
Protesters, however, ignored these attempts at appeasement as well as a curfew that was imposed not only in the capital Kathmandu but in other cities throughout the country. Angered by police violence, young people clashed with police and targeted symbols of the political establishment, including the parliament building, the Supreme Court and other government buildings.
The homes of prominent politicians including two former prime ministers—Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress Party and Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre)—were broken into and vandalised. Nepali Congress is part of the ruling coalition. Kathmandu’s airport was also temporarily closed by fires.
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Amid the deployment of the army and continuing protests, the military held talks on Wednesday with representatives of the protesters, who proposed the formation of a technocratic interim government with former Chief Justice Sushila Karki suggested as a possible interim prime minister. No agreement was reached, however.
Also on Wednesday, prisoners staged jail breaks from several prisons, with widely varying estimates of escapees from around 3,000 to 13,500. Troops remained on the streets to enforce a curfew, with the military warning of harsh measures against looters and rioters. About 25 people have been arrested for looting and violence. The death toll over the past three days stands at 25, with the health ministry reporting on Wednesday that more than 1,000 have been injured.
The protest movement is the most significant since mass demonstrations forced the abdication of King Gyanendra Shah in 2008 and resulted in the formal abolition of the country’s 240-year-old absolute monarchy. Since then, Nepal has been plagued by political instability with 14 governments in the past 17 years—none of which has completed a full term of five years. Last year, 73-year-old Oli was sworn in for a fourth time as prime minister.
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None of the major parties is able to address the country’s economic and social crisis. The various Stalinist parties—including Oli’s CPN-UML and the CPN (Maoist Centre) of Pushpa Kamal Dahal—have been just as ruthless as the conservative Nepali Congress in imposing the burden of the crisis on working people that has hit young people in particular.
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Underlying the political turmoil is the country’s worsening economic crisis. A comment in the Annapurna Express in April, which expressed the frustration and concerns in business circles, declared:
“The economy is in shambles, the citizens are crying out, and the ones in power are stuffing their ears with wads of cash. The recession currently faced by the nation is the result of decades of corruption, inefficiency, and misplaced priorities.”
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It is capitalism, however, not corruption, that is the source of the political and economic crisis in Nepal and that is fuelling mass discontent and anger throughout the region and internationally, including in recent weeks in Indonesia where mass protests of young people erupted.
The only progressive solution lies in the political struggle for socialism based on a unified movement of the international working class. We urge workers and youth to contact the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International which alone fights for this perspective.
5. “Gargantuan” downward revision in US job-creation numbers
The boost to jobs which [US President] Trump claimed would result from tariffs has not materialized. In fact, the tariffs are giving rise to job cuts as employers seek to cut costs because of the hit to their bottom line caused by the price rises in their inputs.
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The Trump administration eagerly seized on the jobs data as justification for its actions on two fronts—the sacking of the head of the BLS at the beginning of last month and its push to have the Federal Reserve make a major cut in its interest rate.
In a statement on the major revision, White House Press Secretary Karolin Leavitt said: “This is exactly why we need new leadership to restore trust and confidence in the BLS’s data on behalf of the financial markets, businesses, policymakers and families that rely on this data to make decisions.”
In fact, the new data do not support the decision to sack BLS head Erika McEntarfer because her dismissal and replacement by Trump acolyte E.J. Antoni was carried out amid claims that the August monthly data, which contained a major downward revision, had been “rigged.”
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The reason for the large revisions lies in the difficulties in rapidly gathering monthly data based on surveys. The overestimations of the number of jobs created is rooted, at least in part, in the fact that only 43 percent of employers respond to the monthly survey, down from the 60 percent who replied before the pandemic.
The BLS has been trying to improve its data gathering methods, but has been hampered by budget cuts carried out under both previous Republican and Democratic administrations and the further cuts under the second Trump regime.
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It is almost certain that the Fed will cut rates by 0.25 percentage points at its meeting next week, and may well make a so-called “jumbo” cut of 0.5. One of Trump’s appointees to the Fed’s governing council, Christopher Waller, who dissented from the July decision to keep rates on hold, has indicated he is in favor of such a move if there were a significant deterioration on the jobs front.
But even a cut of that size is nowhere near the reduction by as much as three percentage points that Trump has been demanding.
However, his campaign to change the balance of power in the Fed’s governing body and weaken the position of Chair Jerome Powell, whom he has denounced as a “numbskull” while trying to find ways to have him removed, has received something of a setback. A US judge has ruled that Fed governor Lisa Cook, sacked by Trump, could retain her position while her case for wrongful dismissal proceeded.
The organizers of the protest, Film Workers for Palestine, call the appeal “a historic action” and point out that the individuals making the pledge include “Oscar, BAFTA, Emmy, Cannes, Berlin, Venice, César, Goya, and Peabody Award winners.”
They write in a September 8 press release:
Actors Olivia Colman, Ayo Edebiri, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, Tilda Swinton, and Javier Bardem, as well as writer-directors Yorgos Lanthimos, Ava DuVernay, Asif Kapadia, Emma Seligman, Boots Riley, Adam McKay, and Joshua Oppenheimer, say: “in this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”
The statement explains that as “filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions.” It observes that the world’s highest court,
the International Court of Justice, has ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza, and that Israel’s occupation and apartheid against Palestinians are unlawful. Standing for equality, justice, and freedom for all people is a profound moral duty that none of us can ignore. So too, we must speak out now against the harm done to the Palestinian people.
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The group of signatories come from a number of countries, primarily the US, Britain, Canada and Ireland, as well as several generations. The “breadth and width” of the personalities has a certain significance. No doubt if the effort to obtain signers were extended to the entire globe, tens of thousands of names could be gathered. The pledge was published in Spanish, Turkish, French, Arabic and Japanese.
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The outpouring of outrage over the genocide is entirely healthy and welcome. This most recent appeal follows a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the Venice International Film Festival estimated to have drawn 10,000 people, perhaps the largest political protest ever held at a film event.
The steady accumulation of appeals, protests and open letters by thousands of actors, directors and others speaks to genuine anger and a growing radicalization in artistic and intellectual circles. It also hints at a political impasse that needs to be overcome. Protests aimed at government and existing parties, and even the legitimate punishment of Israeli institutions, will not change the ghastly situation. Only the movement of the international working class, coming into action against the capitalist society responsible for these world-historic crimes, can do that. The artists will have to turn their attention in that direction.
7. European powers escalate war threats against Russia after drones shot down over Poland
On Wednesday, Polish and Dutch fighter jets shot down a group of drones allegedly flying over Polish territory, in the first known instance of a NATO member directly firing on Russian military assets.
“This situation brings us closer to open conflict than we have been since World War II,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the Polish parliament yesterday. His government has requested consultations under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty.
Article 4 obliges NATO members to discuss joint defence measures if a member state feels its security is threatened. It has only been invoked seven times in the 76-year history of the military alliance. It is the precursor to Article 5, which obliges NATO countries to provide mutual assistance in the event of war.
If Tusk and his NATO colleagues are convinced that an open conflict with Russia, the world’s second-largest nuclear-armed power, is imminent, why are they not pulling out all the political and diplomatic stops to prevent such a catastrophe?
Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world was closer than ever before and since to a nuclear showdown, US President John F. Kennedy took enormous risks. But he ultimately prevailed over the hawks in his own military and achieved a diplomatic solution.
Today, there is not a single voice of moderation among NATO’s leading representatives. No sooner had it been reported that Polish and Dutch fighter jets and German Patriot missiles, with the support of Italian AWACS surveillance aircraft, had shot down drones in Polish airspace than they began to outdo each other in war rhetoric.
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The circumstances surrounding the incident remain completely unclear. Neither the number nor the origin of the drones is known. While Tusk spoke of 19 drones entering Polish airspace, only three or four were reported to have been shot down. Even Polish President Karol Nawrocki, a right-wing hardliner, had to admit that he did not expect to have complete information about the events for another 48 hours.
The Russian Defence Ministry denied any intention to hit targets in Poland and said it was ready to consult with the Polish Defence Ministry on the matter. In the past, drones from the war in Ukraine have strayed into Poland without NATO accusing Russia of any intent.
Pavel Muravyeika, deputy defence minister of Belarus, which borders Poland, said drones had accidentally entered Polish airspace because their navigation system had been disrupted. Belarus itself shot down drones over its territory because they had lost their bearings. Disrupting GPS signals is a widespread weapon in the war in Ukraine.
But even if everything NATO claims were true, a few drones do not pose a serious military threat to the military alliance. Rather, the circumstances suggest that the European NATO powers prepared and partially staged the action to justify further military measures against Russia and demonstrate their ability to carry them out on their own.
Since US President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, the European powers have been waiting for such an opportunity. They concluded from the Alaska summit that the US can no longer be relied upon and are taking increasingly aggressive action against Russia. They have massively increased their financial and military support for Ukraine, are encouraging President Zelensky to attack targets deep inside Russia and are planning to send their own troops to Ukraine.
In doing so, they are moving ever closer to a catastrophe that threatens the survival of humanity. This madness follows an international pattern. Political crises and violence are escalating everywhere. Democracy, social security, human rights and international law are being trampled underfoot.
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The crisis of capitalism and imperialist antagonisms have once again reached the same limit today. This is the reason for the escalation of the war against Russia. There is no support for this among the broad masses of the population, and resistance is growing among the working class against layoffs, wage cuts, social spending cuts and dictatorship.
This explosive opposition must free itself from the influence of the trade unions and all parties—right-wing and supposedly “left-wing”—that defend capitalism. Only an independent movement of the international working class, fighting for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist society, can halt the descent into war, dictatorship and poverty.
The Socialist Equality Parties and the International Committee of the Fourth International fight for this perspective.
8. South Korean government under pressure after arrest of Hyundai workers in US
The seizure on September 4 of more than 300 South Korean workers at the Hyundai Motors Metaplant complex in the United States has resulted in widespread shock in South Korea. Facing pressure from various sectors, the administration of President Lee Jae-myung is attempting to balance between protecting the interests of big business and expressing phony concerns for the workers.
Foreign Minister Cho Hyun was dispatched to Washington to orchestrate the workers’ release and no doubt appease Trump, who denounced them for being in the US “illegally.” The workers will return to South Korea “voluntarily” rather than face deportation, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry. Seoul has charted a flight that is expected to leave from Atlanta with the workers on board late Wednesday at the earliest.
The Trump regime’s attack on these workers has placed its fascistic policies on full display for the population in South Korea. In a recent survey, six in ten South Koreans expressed anger over the treatment of the workers, particularly after video was released showing them marched to a prison bus in chains.
Protests, though relatively small at the moment, have taken place in Seoul near the US Embassy. Demonstrators have denounced US immigration policy and held signs, for example, declaring “No person is illegal.”
This threatens to cut across Seoul’s cooperation with Washington, both economically and militarily. Less than two weeks prior to the raid, Lee met with Trump in Washington where the South Korean leader obsequiously praised Trump as a “peacemaker” and pledged to back the US war drive against China.
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Hyundai and LGES stated they were unable to obtain the correct short-term visas for their employees. The workers detained in Georgia, who were carrying out highly specialized tasks, entered the US under the short-term visa waiver program or had B1 business visas, neither of which allows the holder to work.
Most of the workers were not directly employed by either Hyundai or LGES, which have washed their hands of responsibility. Instead, they are subcontractors, a tier of workers that lacks job protections. This leads to employers demanding that workers engage in dangerous work or activities beyond those stipulated in contracts under the threat of dismissal. The subcontracting system is prevalent around the world, creating a highly exploited layer of the working class.
South Korean businesses commonly employ subcontractors to cut costs, with this section of workers making up approximately 38 percent of the labor force. Seo Sang-pyo, South Korea’s former consul general in Atlanta, stated it was common for subcontractors in the area to not have the correct visas for their work.
The workers at the Hyundai-LGES facility are victims of not only the US state, but the companies that placed them in that position in the first place, forced to risk abuse, arrest and deportation. This fact is not lost on workers in similarly precarious positions in South Korea, who in recent years have staged protests demanding an end to the subcontracting system.
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Hyundai in particular has a track record of ignoring safety. In the last two and a half years, three workers have been killed at the Hyundai Metaplant complex where the raid occurred.
Seoul is now scrambling to suppress the growth of popular anger. South Korean consular officials in the US who had met with the detainees claimed, “We gather that there has been no unfair treatment of the detained people or any potential violations of human rights.” This ignores the obvious fact that the seizure of the workers itself was a massive violation of their basic democratic rights.
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Among sections of big business, the seizure of workers has also generated anger, amid fears that their investments in the US are now being threatened. This could potentially cut across joint South Korean-US business activity, which is being increasingly directed towards US war preparations against China.
According to the Korea Economic Daily, work at the Hyundai-LGES plant and 22 other South Korean-operated sites involved in automotive, shipbuilding, steel and electrical equipment around the US had halted or nearly all halted after the raid.
Nearly a week after almost 500 workers were kidnapped by the federal immigration agents at the joint Hyundai-LG factory and battery plant in Georgia, the Guardian reported that at least one of the workers was legally living and working in the United States. Citing an internal federal document, the Guardian reported Wednesday that one of the workers was legally in the US yet was still forced to sign documentation agreeing to a “voluntary departure.”
So far, the Guardian has only obtained documentation proving at least one worker was “legally” in the country, but there is every reason to believe many of the 475 workers kidnapped on September 4 were not “criminals” in any sense of the word and had done everything in their power to comply with US immigration law.
As of this writing, over 300 Korean workers remain in the United States. A chartered flight orchestrated between the governments of South Korea and the United States to send the workers back to Seoul was cancelled on Wednesday. Another 175 workers, from several other countries, are still detained in an ICE concentration camp.
The documentation obtained by the Guardian refutes the initial statement advanced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which claimed that all those kidnapped were in the country “illegally.” In its September 4 press release Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wrote that “individuals arrested during the operation were found to be working illegally, in violation of the terms of their visas and/or status.”
Yet the document, written by an ICE agent, according to the Guardian, confirms that at least one worker “entered into the United States … with a valid B1/B2 visa and [redacted] was employed at HL-GA Battery Company LLC as a contractor from the South Korean company SFA From statements made and queries in law enforcement databases, [redacted] has not violated his visa…”
Even though the worker was legally allowed to labor and live in the United States, the document continues: “however, the Atlanta Field Office Director has mandated [redacted] be presented as a Voluntary Departure. [Redacted] has accepted voluntary departure despite not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements.”
In other words, despite this worker having their “papers in order,” he has been kidnapped, held in ICE custody for the last week and will be forced to leave the country.
Charles Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney who represents some of the detained South Korean workers, said in an interview with the Associated Press Monday that many of the workers were engaged in authorized activities under the B-1 business visitor visa program. He said that their intended stay in the United States was limited to a few weeks and “never more than 75 days.”
Kuck explained that no US company manufactures the machines used at the Georgia battery plant, so the machines and specially trained workers had to be brought in from overseas for installation and on-site repairs. He noted that training someone in the US to carry out this type of work would take approximately three to five years.
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In a statement to the Guardian, a DHS spokesperson defended the arrest of the worker with a blatant lie, “This individual admitted to unauthorized work on a B1/B2 visa. He was offered voluntary departure and accepted it.”
DHS thugs are repeating the same lies as the fascist in the White House. Over the weekend, Trump stated categorically that the workers kidnapped “were in the U.S. illegally.”
In a gangster threat to non-US-controlled corporations, Trump added that if they want access to the US market, they must both comply with his immigration regime and agree to train and hire “American workers” on his terms.*****
The mass arrest of workers last week has caused outrage in the US and internationally. On Saturday, protesters gathered outside the plant in Ellabell, Georgia to denounce the attacks on immigrants and the mass deportation operation.
The brutal treatment of the workers, forced to march onto buses shackled in chains, has also provoked outrage in South Korea. On Tuesday, protesters gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea carrying signs that read, “A tariff bomb and workers confinement.”
Notably, while workers in the United States and internationally are disgusted and angered at the ongoing mass deportation operation, much of the trade union bureaucracy is openly aligning itself with the immigration Gestapo.
10. Australian educators call for defense of anti-genocide academics
A meeting of the Committee for Public Education (CFPE), the rank-and-file educators’ network in Australia, passed a resolution on Saturday in defense of three academics who are being persecuted for opposing the Gaza genocide.
The meeting called on educators, students and workers to move similar resolutions defending Randa Abdel-Fattah from Sydney’s Macquarie University, and Nick Riemer and John Keane from the University of Sydney, as well as democratic rights including free speech and academic freedom.
A group of pro-Zionist staff and students, backed by a high-profile legal team, is suing Riemer and Keane in the Federal Court for making public statements opposing the genocide.
If the case is upheld, it will set a legal precedent that could outlaw any opposition to the worsening US-backed Israeli mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing in Gaza as “antisemitic.” It therefore has far-reaching implications for free speech and other basic democratic rights in Australia and internationally.
Abdel-Fattah has been subjected to a vile campaign of vilification and slander by Zionist lobby groups, right-wing media outlets and politicians for speaking out against the atrocities in Gaza.
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Zionist groups have called for Abdel-Fattah to be fired and to be removed from speaking engagements, the latest being the Bendigo Writers’ Festival. Dozens of authors, including Abdel-Fattah, then boycotted the festival following a demand by La Trobe University, a major sponsor of the event, that participants adhere to a “code of conduct” that conflates criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitism.
Abdel-Fattah was subsequently invited to write an opinion piece for the Age, only to have the newspaper refuse to publish it. Both the Guardian and the Conversation, a university-backed website, also refused to publish it. The article was eventually posted last month by the independent news website, Deep Cut.
In her article, Abdel-Fattah described the abusive Zionist-instigated attacks that have been made on her through social media, the corporate media, members of parliament and university managements, including the targeting of her personal and professional email accounts.
She wrote: “Can you imagine what it would be like to receive death and rape threats at your workplace and your home? How about having donations made in your name to the Israeli military, with receipts sent to your personal email alongside your phone number and home address? Can you imagine someone writing your name on the side of a bomb? Or the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia publicly calling for your workplace to become unsafe for you?”
Abdel-Fattah is far from alone in being subjected to such harassment and intimidation. In Australia, other critics of Israel who have been persecuted by governments, the corporate media and Zionist organisations include journalists Mary Kostakidis and Antoinette Lattouf, University of Sydney academics Sujatha Fernandes and Tim Anderson, artists, writers, musicians and many health professionals and doctors like Miranda Robinson and Jennifer Martinez.
This assault on free speech and political dissent is taking place amid widespread opposition throughout Australia and internationally to the genocide, as witnessed by last month’s Sydney Harbour Bridge march by some 300,000 people, followed by rallies in cities and towns across the country, joined by about a quarter of a million people.
These rallies were marked by deepening hostility not just toward the worsening mass killings and starvation in Palestine but the active support for the Washington-backed onslaught by the Labor government, including through continuing exports of F-35 parts and other military items to Israel.
In the face of this outrage, the Albanese government is still prosecuting the false claim that opposition to the genocide is fueled by antisemitism. This is a vile smear campaign aimed at delegitimizing and banning the growing opposition to the most blatant crimes against humanity since the Holocaust.
Nurses and case workers at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, Michigan, entered the 10th day of their strike on Wednesday for safe staffing ratios, higher wages and against the union-busting tactics of hospital management.
The more than 700 hospital employees, members of Teamsters Local 332, walked out on September 1 after Henry Ford Health Genesys refused to accept their demands.
Nurse-to-patient ratios are the primary issue for nurses. One said that nurses are often too busy to even bathe their patients. Floors and units are not properly stocked with essentials such as medicine and food, causing nurses and nurses’ aides to have to go to different units or floors to obtain them, further sacrificing time and patient care.
Nurses also said the refusal of the hospital to adequately recruit and retain nurses has been a problem since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic....
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The strike stands at the crossroads, with scab nurses being brought in and other critical unionized hospital staff crossing the picket lines each day.
The scab nurses are being paid $8,000 per week and provided with food stipends. Management even opened the cafeteria on third shift, something which it had not done for some time.
The scabs were given a single day’s orientation and did not know where supplies or equipment were located, which is highly dangerous to patients and undermines patient care.
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The only way the nurses and case workers at Henry Ford Health Genesys can carry forward the struggle is by organizing a rank-and-file committee that is democratically constituted and led by the most trusted workers, who will take the conduct of the strike and the negotiations out of the hands of the union bureaucrats.
In this way, rank-and-file nurses and case workers can make a direct appeal to the rest of the hospital staff to join the picket lines, stop the scabbing and shut down the hospital. This fight must also include an appeal to auto workers and other sections of the working class in the Grand Blanc area to join the fight for safe staffing levels, good wages and benefits at the hospital, which is a critical health care resource for the public in the area.
12. Bolsonaro coup trial resumes amid attacks by Trump and Brazilian fascists
On Tuesday, the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro and the members of the “crucial core” of the January 8, 2023 coup conspiracy resumed in Brazil.
This week marks the decisive phase of the trial, in which the justices of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) present their votes and a final verdict against the accused, with a closing session scheduled for Friday.
Three of the five STF justices already cast their votes. On Tuesday, justices Alexandre de Moraes and Flávio Dino voted for the conviction of Bolsonaro and his seven chief co-conspirators, who include former military commanders and four-star generals.
Today, justice Luiz Fux—expected to be the lone dissenting voice among the panel—made his presentation. Not only did Fux vote to acquit Bolsonaro, but he argued for the annulment of the entire trial, declaring the Supreme Court’s “absolute incompetence” to judge the case.
Even with an expected defeat of Fux’s position in the final vote count, his arguments have incalculable political implications. They were enthusiastically welcomed by Bolsonaro’s fascist allies and will serve as a weapon in their ongoing war against the trial.
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The fact that, 40 years after the end of the 1964–85 military regime, Brazil once again faced the imminent threat of a dictatorship emerges incontrovertibly from the analysis of the coup conspiracy led by the former president and a section of the top military brass.
However, Moraes’ idea that the source of this threat boils down to “a political group” that “doesn’t accept losing elections”—the thesis underpinning the STF’s case as a whole—is absurd.
The threat of a fascist coup in Brazil is a product of the immense unresolved historical contradictions in one of the most socially unequal countries in the world, and, no less, of its deep interaction with an accelerating international crisis.
The reality is that the political crisis culminating in the attempted coup of January 8, 2023, was not and will not be resolved with the conclusion of the trial. This is demonstrated by the explosive situation in which this process is unfolding.
The fascist forces that promoted the January 8 coup attempt in Brazil are engaged in a counteroffensive to implode the ongoing trial and carry forward their political objectives. At the same time, under the leadership of Donald Trump, American imperialism is escalating an aggressive political intervention against Brazil.
On Tuesday, the United States doubled down on its criminal intimidation of Brazil’s political institutions, following the imposition of 50 percent tariffs by Trump, openly presented as a means of forcing the suppression of the proceedings against Bolsonaro.
Asked about potential new measures by the US government against Brazil, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared Wednesday morning: “I don’t have any additional action to preview for you today, but I can say this is a priority for the administration and the president is unafraid to use the economic might, the military might of the United States of America to protect free speech around the world.”
Leavitt also referred to the supposed “censorship” suffered by Trump himself, for having his social media accounts suspended after the attempted coup of January 6, 2021 at the Capitol in Washington. That reference is highly significant: the fascist American president sees himself, rightly so, reflected in the trial of Bolsonaro, whose coup attempt was directly inspired by Trump’s dictatorial conspiracy.
The threat to use American “military power” against Brazil, the largest country in Latin America and a historic US ally, is absolutely reckless and unprecedented. But it must be taken with total seriousness.
13. New York City-area transit workers push for strike action on Long Island Railroad
Workers on the Long Island Railroad (LIRR), one of two commuter rail lines operated by New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), are preparing for a strike that could come as early as September 18.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) sent out strike-authorization ballots to almost 600 engineers, due back by September 15. The engineers operate 947 daily trains and carry about 250,000 passengers into and out of New York City and communities in Long Island each weekday. The state-run MTA also oversees subways and buses in New York City and the Metro-North Railroad, the commuter line that services the northern suburbs.
Four other unions are also involved in talks. LIRR workers are divided into 60 craft unions, but the five threatening to strike consist of 55 percent of the workforce.
The last LIRR strike in 1994 lasted for three days. In 2014, workers voted to strike, but the union bureaucrats settled three days before the scheduled walkout.
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The MTA has an annual operating budget of $20 billion, of which more than 60 percent goes to labor costs. In addition, it has a long-term bond debt of more than $50 billion. The agency is planning on increasing fares and tolls throughout its system by more than 4 percent every year for two years, which it has been doing with a few interruptions for decades.
A strike by transit workers in New York City, the center of American and world finance, would raise the critical issue of the entry of the working class into the fight against dictatorship. Objectively, any fight by railroad workers is at the same time a fight against the capitalist state. Their right to strike is severely infringed upon by the century-old Railway Labor Act, which subjects workers to endless rounds of mandatory negotiations, arbitration and other moves before they are “released” from taking any form of “self-help.”
The National Mediation Board released the five unions from mediation on August 18, which has, under the Railway Labor Act, created a 30-day cooling-off period. This means that workers will be free to strike on September 18.
Because the MTA is a state agency, the state’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul could ask Donald Trump to invoke a Presidential Emergency Board, which would make any strike action illegal until May. (This, by coincidence, is when the Transport Workers Union local 100 contract for about 35,000 NYC bus and subway workers ends.)
Such a strikebreaking request by Hochul would strengthen Trump’s coup. But such a move also has a precedent under the Biden administration in late 2022, when the White House obtained an anti-strike law against 100,000 Class I railroad workers who had rejected a government-backed deal. Democrats, including Democratic Socialists of America member and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, joined hands with Republicans after the unions had stalled for months to give them the time they needed.
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The four candidates now running for New York mayor have so far not said a word about the strike deadline. This includes Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party nominee, who, as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), claims to be fighting for working people. His silence comes as he has spent the weeks since his primary victory seeking to reassure Wall Street and the Democratic Party establishment that they have nothing to fear from him.
The workers who may walk out are not just fighting for themselves but for workers everywhere. Meanwhile, they face a capitalist class that is determined to prevent any opposition from below. This means their fight requires the mobilization of the power of the working class to defeat the power of the corporate oligarchy.
14. Canadian auto industry in turmoil: GM Oshawa supplier announces 250 job cuts
Auto parts supplier TFT Global announced last week that it will soon lay off about 250 workers who feed parts into General Motors’ Oshawa assembly plant. The move follows GM’s announcement last May that it plans to end the third shift at its Oshawa facility as some production of the Chevrolet Silverado is “reshored” to its Fort Wayne, Indiana, assembly plant in the wake of US President Trump’s tariff policies. The end of GM’s third shift in Oshawa, now expected to occur in January, will result in the loss of about 750 jobs there. Many more auto parts and logistics jobs throughout the Oshawa area will also be lost.
Jeff Gray, President of Unifor Local 222, which organizes both auto assembly and parts workers in the Oshawa area, released a statement advising workers not to get too “anxious.” After all, he said, “The bottom line is business as normal until November 2025 [now moved to January]. Once the third shift is reduced in Oshawa in total, and this is including General Motors and suppliers, all in one number, about 2,000 people will lose their jobs.”
Such callous prostration by Gray to the “business decisions” of the auto bosses should come as no surprise to autoworkers....
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Unifor responds to this crisis by chloroforming its membership with the claim that by working with the government and corporations to build an EV industry for Canadian capitalism, they can protect workers’ jobs and communities. Of course, this is a continuation of the nationalist-corporatist path they have pursued for decades and one they are doubling down on with their support for Ottawa’s trade war. It is the same bankrupt policy that the United Auto Workers pursues under Trump’s tutelage in order to boost their own corporate allies in the United States in the ever-expanding global trade war. Beggar thy neighbour and the devil take the hindmost!
[Unifor President Lana] Payne and Liberal prime minister Mark Carney are not opposed to trade war measures in principle. They merely object to Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on Canada. Both agree with the entire Canadian political establishment that Trump should focus on waging economic war on, and preparing for military conflict with China. They are eager for Ottawa to participate in a Trump-led “Fortress North America,” so long as Canadian imperialism’s prerogatives as Washington’s junior partner are duly recognized.
Thusly, after cuddling up with the right-wing Ontario provincial government of Premier Doug Ford and promoting the career investment banker and new Prime Minister Carney, Payne writes that last week’s announcements by Carney to combat the impact of Trump’s tariffs “show progress” and “moves in the right direction.”
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What is the way forward for the working class?
Workers have no interest in backing either the “elbows up” rhetoric espoused by both the Conservatives’ Pierre Poilievre and the nationalists of the so-called “left.” Neither can any store be laid with Carney’s growing “elbows down” approach to relations with the Trump administration. Whatever Carney does, whether he is supporting the European imperialist powers’ efforts to expand the war against Russia in Ukraine or seeking to negotiate a “new economic and security” deal with the fascist Trump, he is seeking to advance the interests of Canadian imperialism.
Workers cannot fight Trump and all he represents except on the basis of a class struggle program in opposition to all factions of the Canadian bourgeoisie and by forging fighting unity with the working class in the US. Indeed, workers, whether across North America or internationally, cannot defend their jobs and livelihoods amid an unfolding global trade war—one moreover that is part of a developing imperialist world war—by lining up with their “own” ruling class.
15. Labor’s job cuts intensify in Australian universities
Recent developments throughout Australia’s 39 public universities show the necessity for staff and students to establish independent rank-and-file committees to lead a unified struggle against the job cuts and pro-corporate restructuring taking place under the Albanese Labor government.
Up to 4,000 jobs are being destroyed, along with hundreds of student courses, especially in humanities, while the campus trade unions assist Labor’s reshaping of tertiary education to satisfy the profit needs of employers and in preparation for war.
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Over the past year, the two main unions covering university workers, the NTEU and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), have tried to block every call by the rank-and-file committees at WSU and Macquarie University (MQ) for unified action against the cuts.
The union officials are covering up the underlying agenda of the Labor government by trying to blame mismanagement by individual vice-chancellors for the disaster unfolding across the entire sector.
Not a word is being said about the fact that the Albanese government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on military spending and developing a war economy, including via the AUKUS pact against China, while intensifying the financial pressure on the universities to restructure to align with the “national priorities” set out in its Universities Accord in 2024.
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The unions are assisting the university managements to implement the restructuring. They are helping push people out the door, either via so-called voluntary redundancies or the cosmetic “consultation” processes in the union enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) with the managements, which offer little or no protection against retrenchments.
Despite rallies and protests, and overwhelming votes for strikes at individual universities, the union apparatuses have isolated educators at each institution and not called a single stoppage anywhere.
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The unions do not oppose the attack on international students because they agree with Labor’s nationalist program, which includes falsely blaming these students, and immigrants, for the affordable housing and cost-of-living crisis affecting millions of working-class households.
Universities have relied on charging overseas students exorbitant fees to overcome the shortfall in funding inflicted by successive Liberal-National and Greens-backed Labor governments. Universities Australia, the employers’ group, reported last year that funding for universities had fallen in real terms by $2 billion since 2020 alone.
Labor is intensifying the financial pressure on universities by continuing the previous Liberal-National government’s “Job-ready Graduates” scheme that hiked the cost of three-year humanities degrees to more than $50,000, while cutting the funding to universities for delivering them.
From next January 1, this process will intensify further. Each university’s funding will be tied to a “mission-based compact” with the government’s new Australian Tertiary Education Commission to lay down how the university will contribute to “national priorities.”
Public colleges and universities across the state of Washington are laying off staff, eliminating programs, and sharply raising tuition to make up for deep budget shortfalls. While costs rise across the board, driven by inflation and increasing costs of living, colleges nationally face cuts in the federal budget and political attacks from the Trump administration. The Washington state legislature has also enacted deep cuts in its state operating budget at the demand of the state’s Democratic governor, Bob Ferguson.
Facing unprecedented shortfalls in its budget, the state has enacted 1.5 percent across-the-board cuts to higher education funding, as well as cuts to other state agencies. The University of Washington is further affected with additional cuts to state funding for employee compensation and benefits, amounting to an effective 6.5 percent cut in state money directed to the university.
To make up for the loss of state funding, public universities and colleges across Washington state cut jobs and hiked tuition rates by 3.3 percent, the maximum amount allowed by state law in a single term. Another bill passed this term by the Democrat-controlled state legislature, and signed by Governor Ferguson, will further increase the amount that institutions are allowed to raise tuition in the 2026–27 academic year to 5 percent. This bill will simultaneously reduce the number of students eligible for the WA College Grant program.
Additionally, the Trump administration has withheld hundreds of millions of dollars of federal research grants and funding, for which the University of Washington is among the nation’s largest recipients. The Seattle Times reported that UW has lost 26.8 percent, or $280 million of its federally sponsored research funding and $376 million in sponsored research overall. According to the Times, the cuts have led to 178 layoffs at UW and the reduction of over 100 full-time positions to part-time, either permanently (42 positions) or temporarily (62 positions), as well as 21 staff furloughs.
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While the strained funding situation at public colleges and universities has been used to deny employee pay increases, unions representing academic workers have accepted the cuts. This summer, beginning May 28, Operational Student Employees (OSEs) at Western Washington University carried out a five-day strike against the university to demand bargaining rights and a contract for students employed in operational (non-academic) roles.
The Western Academic Workers United (WAWU-UAW local 4929) ended the strike without securing a contract, instead declaring victory on the basis of a flimsy two-page letter from university president Sabah Randhawa that maintained the university’s right to fire student employees without notice if it was due to budget cuts. The union has pledged to continue working with the university to ask the state government for more favorable legislation.
The capitalist ruling class is determined to make the working class bear the costs of the intensifying social and economic crises. The Democratic Party establishment that dominates the state government has demanded sharp budget cuts to state agencies and services to deal with the state’s operating budget deficit. Facing a claimed $15 billion budget shortfall driven by declining revenues and rising costs, the governor has resisted tax increases on businesses and wealthy individuals. The majority of the state’s tax revenues are raised from a highly regressive sales tax on retail purchases.
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Despite K-12 schools being spared the burden of cuts in the latest state budget and being granted a nominal increase in funding, rising education costs have outpaced state funding, as highlighted in a 2024 report by the League of Education Voters, titled “Underfunded and Unsustainable.” The report details how the costs of nearly everything, from teaching and support staff, to materials, technology, facilities repair and maintenance, insurance, natural gas and food expenses, have increased dramatically. Special education is known to be particularly underfunded, often relying on local tax levies to supplement insufficient state and federal funding. Of 295 school districts in the state, 230 are reported to show either “cautionary” or “concerning” indicators of financial health.
While Governor Ferguson and the state legislature enact deep cuts to higher education and social services, the riches of extremely wealthy individuals residing in the state and its largest companies remain virtually untouched. Washington is home to a dozen billionaires in 2025, according to Forbes, including Steve Ballmer (worth $118 billion) and Bill Gates (worth $108 billion) both formerly of Microsoft (market capitalization of $3.88 trillion). Other large companies based in the state are Amazon (market cap $2.37 trillion), Costco (market cap $435 billion), T-Mobile (market cap $275 billion), Boeing (market cap $173 billion) and Starbucks (market cap $104 billion). Such concentration of extreme wealth controlled by a financial oligarchy is incompatible with the basic social needs of the population.
Among millions of people there is a growing opposition to capitalism, led by the younger generations who have never known the slightest prosperity under this system. Our futures are blighted by war, unemployment, collapsing social services and living standards, ecological catastrophe and dictatorship.
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Figures like Jeremy Corbyn, Jean-Luc Melenchon in France and Bernie Sanders in the US win a following with verbal jousts at inequality and war but defend the capitalist system which produces these evils. They advocate reforms without politically preparing a challenge to the oligarchy’s grip on wealth and state power, disarming their supporters.
The ruling class cannot be pressured. It views its policies not as choices but as a life-or-death struggle to defend its interests against the existential threat posed by the working class. Its defeat is a revolutionary task. For this reason, the new party being founded by former Labour leader Corbyn and former Labour MP Zarah Sultana is a political trap.
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The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) is the youth movement of the International Committee of the Fourth International, represented in the UK by the Socialist Equality Party.
We stand in the tradition of Leon Trotsky’s fight for socialist internationalism. Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, founded the Fourth International in 1938 to organise the vanguard of the working class against the counter-revolutionary betrayals of the Stalinist and reformist parties which allowed Nazism to come to power, strangled revolutions in China, Britain, France and Spain, and paved the way for World War II.
In the founding program of the Fourth International, Trotsky wrote:
“All talk to the effect that historical conditions have not yet ‘ripened’ for socialism is the product of ignorance or conscious deception… Without a socialist revolution, in the next historical period at that, a catastrophe threatens the whole culture of mankind. The turn is now to the proletariat, i.e., chiefly to its revolutionary vanguard. The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership.”
The strength of the working class has grown enormously since these lines were written, as globalization has linked billions together across national borders, continents and time zones in a world system of production and communication. Only this enormous social force has the power to defeat genocide, war and dictatorship.
We urge students and young workers who are determined to prevent world war and fascism to join the IYSSE and take your place in the fight for the socialist future of mankind.
18. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk and Leon Trotsky
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.
