Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Elon Musk’s $1 trillion payout and the case for expropriation
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth of $461 billion, has been awarded by Tesla with a $1 trillion pay package over 10 years, putting the CEO on course to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
This agreement would place Musk’s annual compensation at approximately $50 million per hour, or 3 million times higher than the starting wage at a Tesla factory of $18 per hour.
In 1987, it was widely seen as a scandal when financier Michael R. Milken, the “junk bond king” who was later convicted of securities fraud, received $500 million in a single year. Under Musk’s pay deal, the Tesla CEO will be making nearly that amount every single day.
The fact that Tesla’s shareholders approved Musk’s unprecedented pay package the very week that the Trump administration cut off food stamp spending for tens of millions of people, and as millions of federal workers went unpaid amid a government shutdown, starkly expresses the fact that the enrichment of Musk and his fellow oligarchs takes place through the impoverishment and immiseration of the working class.
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In order for Musk to achieve this payout, Tesla must deliver 20 million vehicles, put in place 1 million robotaxies, sell 1 million humanoid robots, and grow its valuation from $1.5 trillion to $8.5 trillion. The only way to achieve these milestones will be through a massive intensification of the exploitation of the working class: both directly in Tesla factories and through the slashing of social spending and the injection of the resulting savings into the financial markets.
Thus, the awarding of Musk’s pay package is, at the same time, a declaration of intent by the ruling class to massively impoverish the working class through layoffs, austerity and the destruction of social programs.
The rise of Musk’s wealth embodies the vast enrichment of America’s financial elite. His net worth, which stood at $33 billion in March 2020, has since surged to $469 billion, a 14-fold increase. During this time, the 10 richest individuals in America had their wealth increase six-fold.
Musk’s wealth is built on a series of financial bubbles, each bigger than the last, and propped up by government bailouts and subsidies. Tesla, the source of most of Musk’s wealth, embodies this speculative mania. Last year, Tesla made just $5 billion in profit, and its global sales, revenue and profits are either stagnant or declining. Despite this, its stock share price has doubled since April.
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To the extent that investors buy and hold Tesla’s shares, it is as a vehicle for speculation: not because they believe it will realistically sell more cars in the future, but because they believe its stock will increase in value.
But this is the case with the entire US stock market, which is in the midst of a massive bubble in technology stocks, whose valuations have no connection to the social impact—significant though it may be—of artificial intelligence and robotics.
Tesla accounts for just part of Musk’s fortune. Musk owns substantial shares in the private company SpaceX, a vast portion of whose revenues come directly through the Department of Defense. Musk has been one of the leading beneficiaries of the wars of American imperialism.
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SpaceX likewise operates Starlink, the world’s largest satellite internet network, which has received millions of dollars in Pentagon contracts, including to provide networking for US/NATO proxy troops in Ukraine.
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In the final analysis, Musk sits atop a paper fortune, whose connection to underlying economic activity is largely a cover. It is, in the classic definition of a Ponzi scheme, indistinguishable from a normal business as long as the money flowing in exceeds the money flowing out.
It is this social reality that explains Musk’s fascist politics. Musk's constant promotion of antisemitic dog whistles, embodied in his Nazi salute at the inauguration of Donald Trump, expresses the character of the capitalist oligarchy as a whole.
The Trump administration’s escalating conspiracy to establish a presidential dictatorship expresses the interests of this oligarchy, which is waging a war on the working class, slashing social spending—spearheaded by Musk during his tenure as the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The main targets are all basic social programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
This frontal assault on the social rights of the working class is accompanied by an ever more direct fusion of the state, the oligarchy and the military. President Donald Trump, himself a billionaire, assembled the leading figures of the US financial oligarchy at his inauguration. At a White House meeting in September, Trump and the oligarchs—including Bill Gates (Microsoft); Tim Cook (Apple), Sundar Pichai (Google) and others—pledged mutual fealty, with Trump declaring his support for expanding the technology bubble while the technology oligarchs praised his administration.
The scene at the White House, followed just weeks later by a gathering of the same oligarchs with Trump and the British Monarchy at Windsor Castle, underscored the observation of Vladimir Lenin in his 1916 work, Imperialism: “The difference between the democratic-republican and the reactionary-monarchist imperialist bourgeoisie is obliterated precisely because they are both rotting alive.”
The determination by the financial oligarchy to defend its wealth, privilege and power through the impoverishment of the working class and the assault on democratic rights will inevitably lead to the growth of resistance by the working class.
But this resistance must be armed with a clear understanding of its tasks. There can be no return to a “normal” capitalism. Any reduction in the rate of exploitation of the working class will lead to a total collapse of the financial bubble and is therefore completely and totally impermissible for the capitalist class. The financial elite, and all of its vast apparatus of repression and subversion, will fight tooth and nail to defend its wealth and social privileges.
In the late 1850s, American society faced what William Henry Seward called “an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces,” which meant that the United States had to become “either entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a free-labor nation.”
Today, there is a similar “irrepressible conflict”—between capital, which is determined to destroy democratic forms of rule, and the working class, which is the vast majority of society, in the US and internationally.
This conflict can be resolved only through the expropriation of the oligarchy. The wealth hoarded by the billionaires must be seized and the major corporations, banks and industries—those that determine the conditions of social life—placed under public ownership and democratic workers’ control. Only in this way can the immense productive capacities of modern society be freed from the parasitic grip of the capitalist class and used to abolish poverty, inequality and war.
Such a transformation will not come through appeals to the morality of the rich or tinkering around the edges of capitalist society. It requires the conscious, organized intervention of the working class itself—the building of a mass, independent movement of workers in every industry, city and country. The working class must mobilize its collective power on an international scale.
The fight against inequality, austerity and dictatorship is, necessarily, a struggle for socialism—the reorganization of economic life on the basis of human need, not private profit.
2. IMF calls for radical reform of the European welfare state
The enormous costs of rearmament, the consequences of the international trade war and the profit demands of banks and companies are incompatible with the welfare state, as it emerged in Europe after the Second World War. Pensions, healthcare and many other government services can no longer be financed in their current form. Rigorous austerity measures and further deregulation of the economy are inevitable.
These are the main conclusions of the International Monetary Fund’s report on the economic situation in Europe, which the IMF’s European director, Alfred Kammer, presented to a gathering of bankers in Brussels November 4. The report, titled “How can Europe Pay for Things it Cannot Afford?” paints a dramatic picture of the financial and economic situation.
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Editorials in the media leave no doubt as to what this means. “It is high time that governments cut back on sprawling social welfare systems. Not with nail scissors, but with a scythe,” writes T-Online. Politicians need the “courage to impose tough cuts on citizens—including their voter base.”
And further:
Anyone who sees how difficult it is for the SPD to cut even a few million from the welfare state fat, or how irresponsibly France’s left-wing parties prevent any cuts to the luxurious pension system, may doubt that Europe is capable of saving itself from this mess. But there is no alternative; that is the bitter but true message from the IMF.
Workers should take this threat seriously. There is indeed no alternative as long as capitalist private property remains untouched and profit interests take precedence over social needs. Anyone who promises—like the Left Party in Germany or Mélenchon’s LFI in France—that all one has to do is vote for them and they will then stop and reverse social cuts without touching capitalist rule is a fraudster.
The attack on the social gains that European workers won in fierce class struggles after the Second World War began more than 40 years ago. And reformist and supposedly left-wing parties have regularly capitulated to the dictates of the financial markets.
This began with François Mitterrand, who was elected French president in 1981 on a promise of social reform and, after less than two years, switched to a brutal austerity program. When the Social Democrats returned to power in most European countries after two decades of conservative rule, it was British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who led the most comprehensive attack on working conditions and social benefits to date. And in July 2015, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of the pseudo-left Syriza party capitulated to the austerity dictates of the IMF, ECB and EU, which the people had rejected in a referendum just a week earlier.
As a result of these policies, a filthy rich oligarchy has emerged, owning billions, while the majority of the population finds it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. The oligarchy defends its wealth by any means necessary. In the struggle for markets, raw materials and profits, trade wars and military force have replaced “free competition,” while internally, resistance to war and social cuts is suppressed with dictatorial measures.
This is most evident in the United States, where Donald Trump is establishing a presidential dictatorship and sending troops into the cities. But Europe is following the same path, as the IMF report makes clear. The “deep cuts into the social contract” it declares inevitable can only be enforced through authoritarian measures.
However, there is an alternative to this development. It can be stopped by the working class. To do this, action committees must be formed to defend jobs, wages and living standards, resist war and dictatorship, and coordinate these struggles. They must become the starting point for a socialist transformation of society. Nothing can be achieved without infringing upon the fortunes of the billionaires and their control over banks, corporations and real estate. These must be socialised and placed under the democratic control of the workers.
This is the perspective advocated by Socialist Equality Party and its fraternal parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International.
3. Online meeting November 16: Build rank-and-file committees to fight layoffs and hunger!
All workers and youth who are determined to fight against war, austerity, and fascism are invited to attend
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) and the Socialist Equality Party (US) are holding an online public meeting on Sunday, November 16 at 12pm US Eastern Time. Register here to attend.
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The government shutdown, having now lasted more than a month, is deliberate economic blackmail aimed at starving workers and dismantling social programs. For want of $8 billion in food stamps, 42 million Americans are left to starve. Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a new pay package to make him the world’s first trillionaire. Congress claims there is no money to feed the hungry, yet it allocates endless trillions for war, Wall Street and corporate bailouts.
Behind these policies stands the dictatorship of the financial oligarchy. The ruling elite is looting society, destroying jobs and public services and preparing an authoritarian regime under Trump to enforce its program. The same profit system that casts aside millions of workers is responsible for the mounting toll of industrial explosions, plane crashes and other disasters.
The Socialist Equality Party and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) are holding this online public meeting to discuss the way forward. The working class must organize independently through rank-and-file committees in every workplace and community, linking struggles across industries against layoffs, austerity and war.
4. Ellison-owned Paramount launches McCarthyite blacklist of actors opposed to Gaza genocide
A civil war is raging in the film, television and music fields between artists opposed to the mass murder in Gaza, as well as Trump’s fascist policies, and the upper echelons of studio executives and owners.
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All in all, [Larry] Ellison is a piece of work, an appalling product of the transformation of American politics and media into the playground of the super-rich.
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The open declaration by Paramount that it has launched a blacklist of anti-genocide actors and others should be viewed as a declaration of war by the oligarchy against freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
No return to McCarthyism! The stranglehold over film and television by reactionary parasites like the Ellisons needs to be answered by the growth of consciously socialist opposition in Hollywood and elsewhere. These giant firms need to be expropriated and turned into publicly owned entities, democratically controlled by the artists and workers who create everything of value.
5. Trump seeks Supreme Court help in denying food to millions, as hundreds of flights are cancelled
The longest government shutdown in United States history continued Friday. The Trump administration doubled down on its hunger policy aimed starving 42 million Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients as part of an ongoing war on the working class, aimed at shifting the entire burden of the crisis of capitalism onto workers and their families.
In major cities and small towns across the United States, home to the most billionaires in the world, workers and their families are lining up to receive emergency food rations. From Philadelphia to San Antonio and Seattle, workers, retirees and students are queuing up at churches, mosques, synagogues and community centers for food.
While the administration claims there is “no money” for food stamps, it is spending millions of dollars a day on war and repression. On Thursday night, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced yet another war crime in the Caribbean, a “lethal kinetic strike” in international waters that killed three so-called “narco-terrorists” without charges, trial or any pretense of due process.
The US government has billions of dollars to deploy thousands of troops to menace Latin American governments and murder boaters, but the Trump administration is arguing in court against funding SNAP, the largest anti-hunger program in the US.
On Friday, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s appeal to stay a previous injunction that required the administration to fully fund the SNAP program.
Following Friday’s ruling, Trump’s Justice Department immediately filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. Late Friday evening, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by President Joe Biden, temporarily blocked the lower court’s order requiring the Trump administration to resume full SNAP payments.
In its appeal Friday before the District Court, Justice Department lawyers argued that the injunction “makes a mockery of the separation of powers.”
The claim is laughable. Trump himself has shredded the supposed separation of powers and the Constitution. In the last 10 months, the administration has waged undeclared wars across the Caribbean and Pacific, illegally bombed Iran, imposed tariffs and taxes by decree without congressional approval, and, through manufactured “national emergencies,” unilaterally deployed military and federal forces in major cities to detain and deport immigrants and harass and kidnap workers and students.
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The administration complains that the court “tarred USDA’s decision as arbitrary and capricious by pointing to President Trump’s public comments warning that SNAP benefits would not be available unless Congress reopens the government.” According to the brief, “the President was simply stating the facts.”
In reality, Trump’s statements and the government’s legal reasoning expose a conscious effort to use hunger as a political weapon. The appeal warns ominously that if funds are transferred to provide food assistance, there is no guarantee that Congress will replenish them—an explicit acknowledgment that the administration and its allies in Congress intend to let the programs collapse. The appeal states:
[T]his Court should allow USDA to continue with the partial payment and not compel the agency to transfer billions of dollars from another safety-net program with no certainty of their replenishment.
The same government that has showered Wall Street and major corporations with subsidies, financed continuous war, slashed taxes for the rich and diverted funds during the government shutdown to pay the military and the immigration Gestapo, now declares that feeding the poor would impair the public interest.
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The shutdown crisis is not simply a temporary impasse but a manifestation of the global breakdown of capitalism. The ruling class can no longer resolve its contradictions through normal democratic procedures.
Hunger and unemployment are not the result of mismanagement but of class policy. The fight to end the shutdown cannot be entrusted to the Democrats or to the union bureaucracy but requires the independent mobilization of workers in every industry against the entire capitalist system.
6. Turkish government detains prominent journalists
On Thursday, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office summoned well-known journalists including Soner Yalçın, Şaban Sevinç, Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, Ruşen Çakır, Yavuz Oğhan, and Batuhan Çolak for questioning.
They were charged with “publicly disseminating false information” and “aiding a criminal organization.” The journalists questioned were then released with a ban on leaving the country, while some had their phones confiscated.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office announced that the operation targeting journalists was carried out as part of an investigation into the “Imamoğlu Criminal Organization.” Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) and presidential candidate for the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has been in prison since March on charges of corruption. Additionally, a separate arrest warrant was issued against İmamoğlu at the end of October on espionage charges.
Stepped-up political arrests, operations targeting journalists, and attacks on press freedom are the steps [being] taken by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government to use the judiciary to build an authoritarian regime.
Attorney Hüseyin Ersöz said, “Journalist Yavuz Oğhan was taken from his home by the police at 6:45 a.m. in a manner that we could call ‘de facto detention.’ This is not called ‘detention’ [officially] but has been frequently seen in recent times. No search was conducted at Yavuz Oğhan’s home. He was informed that he would be taken to the Istanbul Police Headquarters for questioning. When we requested to meet with him, we were told that ‘the operation was ongoing and we could meet with him an hour later.’”
The Turkish Journalists’ Trade Union stated, “Journalists do their job, they inform the public. Fabricated detention orders are a policy of discrediting. We do not accept this! Journalism is not a crime.”
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Turkey Representative Erol Önderoğlu stated, “The endless operations targeting critical journalism and attempts to discredit those who make their living from journalism are unacceptable injustices. Unless the judiciary is freed from this political shadow, journalists and justice will continue to suffer severe harm.”
The early morning raids and detentions of journalists are designed to intimidate the press and opposition. As demonstrated by the recent “political espionage investigation” against İmamoğlu, routine election campaigning and related journalistic activities are being portrayed as criminal acts.
The World Socialist Web Site condemns the intimidation campaigns against journalists. Their prosecution for news reports and articles demonstrates that press freedom is under serious threat and this must be opposed on principle.
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There is growing opposition worldwide to war, genocide, dictatorship, and social inequality. In Africa and Asia, Gen Z protests against inequality and attacks on democratic rights are shaking governments. Since October 2023, millions of workers and young people from the United States to Europe and Australia have staged protests and strikes against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and their governments’ complicity in the genocide. In the US, approximately 7 million people joined the “No Kings” protests on October 18 against Donald Trump’s attempt to establish a fascist dictatorship.
The working class must respond with its own independent political mobilization based on an international socialist programme. The struggle to resist the increasing repression of the Erdoğan government and defend democratic rights cannot be advanced without a complete political break from the capitalist system, which is the source of this repression, and from the establishment parties that defend the interests of the ruling class.
7. Bernie Sanders promotes nationalist poison in interview with New York Times
On November 3, the New York Times posted an extensive video interview with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on its “The Opinions” website. Conducted by Times editor David Leonhardt, the interview afforded Sanders yet another opportunity to posture as an opponent of oligarchy and authoritarianism, while never uttering the word capitalism or, for that matter, socialism.
What, however, made this interview particularly significant was Sanders’ concentration on promoting a nationalist perspective. He and his interlocutor Leonhardt insistently sought to associate opposition to social inequality and the interests of the working class with economic nationalism and the defense of the US nation state.
Nothing could more clearly expose the deeply reactionary role of Sanders and his pseudo-left supporters than their attempt to divert the growing opposition of the working class to Donald Trump and the corporate oligarchy along nationalist lines. In his 1933 essay “Nationalism and Economic Life,” Leon Trotsky explained that in the 20th century, world economy and the international division of labor had come to dominate over the national economy. Hence, the politics and ideology of nationalism played an essentially reactionary role. The foundation of the socialist politics of the working class was internationalism.
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In his recent interview with The Economist, fascist conspirator and adviser to Trump Steve Bannon said the White House had “a plan” for Trump to retain power in a third presidential term, in violation of the US Constitution. He called his politics “populist, nationalist” and noted that he borrowed many of his positions and much of his rhetoric from Bernie Sanders.
Sanders’ reactionary nationalism emerges clearly in his New York Times interview. Early on in the discussion, Sanders claims “the Democratic Party was the party of the working class,” but that in the 1970s it began to abandon the working class. He says:
No, what I think is if you talked to working class people during that period, as I did, if you talked to the union movement during that period, as I did, you said, Guys, do you think it’s a great idea that we have a free trade agreement with China. No worker in America thought that was a good idea. The corporate world thought it was a good idea. The Washington Post thought it was a great idea. I don’t know what the New York Times thought, but every one of us who talked to unions, talked to workers, understood that the result of that would be the collapse of manufacturing in America, the loss of millions of good-paying jobs because corporations understood, if I could pay people 30 cents an hour in China, why the hell am I going to pay a worker in America a living wage? We understood that.
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Highly significant, however, is the fact that to prove the Democrats abandoned the working class, Sanders invokes the nostrums of economic nationalism. He argues that the Democrats turned against the workers when they supported “free trade” with China. (In point of fact, the US and China have never signed a free trade agreement. In 1999, the two countries entered into a bilateral agreement that paved the way for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization and granted China Normal Trade Relations status with the US).
In other words, according to Sanders, American workers should consider workers in China (and Canada, Mexico, Europe and elsewhere) not as class allies in the struggle against capitalism, but as enemies in a zero-sum struggle for jobs and wages. They should also, in accordance with this perspective, line up behind “their” ruling class in economic and future military warfare against American imperialism’s rival powers around the world.
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Like all opportunists, Sanders speaks out of both sides of his mouth. At one point in the interview, he criticizes Trump for scapegoating undocumented immigrants, saying, “So Trump is clearly doing outrageous things that deny people their civil rights and that violate their basic humanity…”
But in the next breath he says:
Well, what I do think in terms of the Biden administration, so long as we have nation states like the United States of America and Canada and Mexico, you have borders. And if you don’t have any borders, then in a sense you don’t have a nation state. And Biden tried to make some progress at the end of his tenure. You saw the pictures in Texas of just all kinds of undocumented people and that does not resonate. And it’s not right. We need to have an immigration policy, but you also need to have strong borders, period.
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anders is not entirely uneducated politically. He knows enough about history and socialism, from his early years when he claimed to be influenced by Marxism and supported the Cuban Revolution, to understand that World War II was, in essence, a conflict between imperialist powers. While the Stalinists (as Sanders knows full well) cynically sought, in the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy, to promote the war as a struggle for democracy, the Roosevelt administration waged the war to secure the global interests of Wall Street and American corporations.
Strikes by workers, and the coal miners in particular, against brutal exploitation were met with state repression. The US Trotskyists who exposed the imperialist interests of the ruling class were sent to prison. In the aftermath of the war, a ferocious witchhunt was unleashed against the left, and socialists were ruthlessly purged from the trade unions in order to eliminate domestic opposition to the violent international operations of the CIA and military-industrial complex.
Sanders’ promotion of nationalist populism is duplicated by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations, which express the interests of privileged sections of the middle class. Last month, following the massive “No Kings” demonstrations across the US, Jacobin, the unofficial organ of the DSA, published an article by Meagan Day headlined “Patriotism Against Authoritarianism.”
Genuine socialism is grounded, from Marx and Engels to Lenin, Trotsky and the International Committee of the Fourth International today, on internationalism. “Workers of the world unite!” remains the rallying cry of the class conscious working class. It is the foundation for a struggle today against oligarchy, fascism and war.
8. United States: Minnesota, Wisconsin primary care providers carry out 1-day strike
More than 600 doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners carried out a one-day strike November 5 across 61 clinics operated by Allina Health in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is believed the strike that saw picket lines in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro region was the largest strike of doctors and advanced practice providers in the United States.
Workers first unionized in 2023 by joining the Doctors Council-SEIU. They are opposed to deteriorating working conditions, unsafe staffing ratios. Four clinics closed last week, and another is scheduled to be shuttered in January of 2026.
Allina’s 61 clinics and their primary care providers are separate from workers at its system of 12 hospitals. In terms of pay, the clinic workers have fallen behind hospital workers. And a curious issue has arose relating to nurse practitioners.
This mirrors national attacks on healthcare, with understaffing and overwork dominating almost every major healthcare facility in America. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is cutting hundreds of billions from Medicaid and allowing tax credits to expire for private Obamacare plans, which could end up leading to 4 million people losing coverage.
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An Allina management statement on the negotiations commented, “… the union’s request for significant compensation increases and extreme benefits proposals are simply not realistic or sustainable.”
What is really not sustainable is subordinating public health to profit. The world’s top 12 billionaires, including Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, have a combined net worth of $2 trillion. Bezos and Musk’s combined wealth of $741 billion is equal to the total wealth owned by the poorest 12 percent of the American population–some 41 million people. And this wealth is the product of the labor of workers all over the world.
What stands in the way is the labor bureaucracy which segregates the working class into separate locals, dispersing the workers’ collective power into isolated struggles, that can more easily be worn down and defeated by the corporations. In reality, there is the potential for a powerful nationwide movement, as shown by the ongoing strike in Grand Blanc, Michigan, and recent strikes by tens of thousands of healthcare workers in California.
Standing behind Allina CEO Lisa Shannon is an array of corporate interests who profit off of healthcare, as well as companies who want to shrink the cost of healthcare for their own workforce in order to increase their bottom line. They are dead set against any concessions to the Allina primary care providers that would certainly spark the struggle of this section of healthcare workers across the country.
Workers need a strategy based on mobilizing the power of the working class independently in a fight against the capitalist ruling elite. To ensure workers retain initiative and to prepare for an expanded struggle, healthcare workers should form rank-and-file committees, separate from the union apparatus. Allina primary care workers should reach out to all healthcare workers, as well as embattled federal workers and Minneapolis public school educators, who are currently in deadlocked negotiations.
A network of rank-and-file committees, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), should be organized in every workplace uniting the entire working class in order to coordinate the struggle to secure living standards, safe working conditions and the right to decent healthcare for all. Ultimately, the healthcare industry should be transformed into a public utility under the control of the working class.
9. Boston car wash workers seized by ICE amid intensified attacks on immigrants in Massachusetts
Federal immigration agents descended in force on a car wash in the Allston area of Boston on the morning of Tuesday, November 4. Witnesses described “over a dozen vehicles” surrounding the business, with one worker saying they counted 17 vehicles. The car wash manager characterized the raid as a gross overreaction. “Why bring in an armored vehicle?” he asked. “What are we, terrorists?”
The militarized operation is the latest and most brazen offensive in the Trump administration’s escalating war on the working class in the Boston area. The raid occurred around 9:30 a.m. while the car wash was open. As agents surrounded the business and blocked entrances, they told customers in their cars to leave. Nine workers were seized.
As of Wednesday, none of the nine workers have been identified or released. Coworkers and immigration advocates have confirmed that several of them held legal status, and valid work permits when they were detained. According to US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, all of them were documented.
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Car wash companies have seen an increase in the types of raids, like the one in Allston, because they are known to employ Latino workers. In Connecticut, several raids were made across the state. Last month, eight people were taken into custody during a raid at a car wash in Hamden, while others were seized in the towns of and Newington.
Car wash companies are also targeted because workers are working outdoors. Eisenhour said that the nine detained were the ones outside the car wash when the raid occurred. She said the immigration agents did not enter the car wash building and none of the workers inside were arrested.
“They don’t want to deal with getting any kind of warrant or permission to go inside, so they target people who are outside,” Eisenhour told the Globe. “That’s why car washes across the country have become a new target—because their employees are largely outdoors, so they’re much easier to target.”
In September this year the Supreme Court legalized racial profiling when it ruled that agents may racially profile individuals suspected of being in the country without legal status. This allows race and other criteria to be used as a pretext for detention.
As the militarized workplace raids increase, there is concern across Massachusetts for what has been called a “school-to-deportation pipeline,” which relies on the seamless integration of local and federal police power to terrorize immigrant communities. This was tragically shown by the case of Arthur Berto, a 13-year-old boy from Everett, who was arrested at a bus stop outside his school by Everett police and later seized by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Everett police are the subject of demands for a state probe as the police transferred custody of the boy directly to ICE, rather than releasing him.
He was immediately transferred to the Northwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Virginia, hundreds of miles from his family, where he remains after a remote hearing on Zoom in mid-October denied his bond.
Despite official denials and hollow promises from local politicians, a systemic integration of government agencies facilitates the targeting of immigrant children and their families. Mechanisms seamlessly connect local law enforcement and schools to federal immigration authorities.
The “school-to-deportation pipeline” functions through a simple but chilling process. When a minor is arrested and fingerprinted by local police, that information is uploaded to a national FBI database. ICE has direct access to this database, which effectively flags the youth for federal action, turning a local police encounter into the first step toward deportation.
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Local officials routinely insist that police do not hand people over to ICE, as with Everett Mayor DeMaria who insisted that his police force “did not hold the teenager [Berto] for ICE.” Yet he was forced to admit that federal agents appeared “after police entered his fingerprints into a national database.” Similarly, Chelsea City Manager Fidel Maltez said that police would “never call immigration on anyone,” a meaningless pledge when the automatic sharing of database information renders such a call unnecessary.
Michael Bradley of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association claims that federal immigration is “not in our purview to enforce,” and that local police “can’t interfere with their operations.”
In practice, local law enforcement acts as a feeder system for the federal deportation apparatus. Advocates at Lawyers for Civil Rights have called for statewide legislation that would exempt minors’ fingerprint information from the database.
The ICE crackdown in the state extends far beyond individual arrests. Its strategic aim is to cultivate a pervasive atmosphere of terror that is disrupting communities, with public schools at the epicenter of the crisis.
The quantifiable impact on education is staggering. The Chelsea Public Schools district has lost approximately 350 students this year, marking the largest drop in enrollment in a decade. The enrollment drop has created a potential budget shortfall of $6.6 million, which one school committee member called “catastrophic.” Enrollment of “newcomers,” or students new to the US, has plummeted by 74 percent.
Facing this federal assault, the local political establishment, dominated by the Democratic Party, has offered nothing but empty gestures. Their “sanctuary city” policies provide an illusion of protection while doing nothing to halt the underlying state machinery of repression. This failure is not a matter of incompetence but is rooted in the Democratic Party’s fundamental role: to manage the capitalist state and contain social opposition, not to lead a genuine fight in defense of immigrants.
The teachers’ unions, which are beholden to the Democrats, issue condemnations against ICE arrests of school pupils but has done nothing to mobilize workers against the assault on immigrants or any of the Trump administration’s attacks. Nothing has been done to mobilize the 117,000 members of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) or the 25,000 members of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts (AFT MA).
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The defense of immigrant workers and their families is the responsibility of the entire working class. It cannot be entrusted to the Democratic or Republican parties, or any other agency of the capitalist state. The only way forward is through the independent political mobilization of all workers—immigrant and native-born—united in a common struggle against the capitalist system, which is the root cause of war, dictatorship and the vicious persecution of immigrants.
10. Washington praises police massacre in Rio in Trump’s new political intervention in Brazil
On Wednesday, the US government sent a letter to Rio de Janeiro’s Security Secretariat congratulating it on the barbaric police massacre of 117 civilians committed a week ago.
“It is with deep regret that we express our most sincere condolences for the tragic loss of the four police officers who fell in the line of duty during the recent Operation Containment in Complexo do Alemão,” states the letter signed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of Donald Trump’s administration.
These words echo the criminal statement of Rio de Janeiro’s fascistic governor, Cláudio Castro (Liberal Party – PL) one day after the deadliest police operation in Brazilian history: “Yesterday, the only victims were the police officers.”
The imperialists in Washington concluded their tribute to the “tireless work of the state’s security forces” by affirming their “willingness to provide any support that may be necessary.”
The letter, which provocatively clashed with the position of the federal government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party - PT), represents a new US imperialist intervention in Brazil’s internal affairs.
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More than a diplomatic provocation, the letter issued Wednesday is one of several indications of Washington’s direct participation in the preparation of the massacre in Rio de Janeiro and in its instrumentalization in an ongoing fascist conspiracy in Brazil.
On Monday, the PT leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Lindbergh Farias, filed a request for an inquiry against Governor Cláudio Castro for leaking confidential Brazilian reports to the United States government.
The complaint highlights that in May, Castro “made an official trip to the United States where he held meetings with representatives of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)” and “publicly announced the intention to establish a cooperation agreement... [with] the DEA, aimed at ‘strengthening the fight against trafficking and criminal factions.’”
In the context of his trip to the US:
It was reported that the governor forwarded a report and formal request to the North American government for Comando Vermelho and other factions to be classified as “narcoterrorist organizations,” under the argument that such groups threaten international security.
Castro and Rio de Janeiro police authorities have repeatedly referred to the victims of last week’s operation as “narcoterrorists.” “This operation has very little to do with public security,” the governor stated, adding: “it is a war.”
The operation was conducted as a blood-soaked political spectacle amidst the efforts by Brazil’s official political opposition—led by Castro and former president Jair Bolsonaro’s fascistic Liberal Party—to approve a bill that expands the definition of terrorism to encompass common criminal organizations such as Comando Vermelho (CV) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC).
The bill is an expansion of the reactionary “Anti-Terrorism Law” approved in 2016 under PT President Dilma Rousseff’s administration. It was introduced to Congress in March and was expedited in May, at the same time Castro was visiting the US.
On October 30, two days after the police operation, a delegation of far-right governors traveled to Rio de Janeiro with the declared purpose of launching an initiative for interstate coordination of repressive operations. Politically, the governors’ conference was a platform to promote the efforts to rebrand CV and PCC as terrorist organizations.
This campaign is being promoted in coordination with fascistic political forces not just in Brazil, but throughout South America.
On October 28 and 30, respectively, Argentina and Paraguay branded CV and PCC as international terrorist organizations. The governments of both countries, which border southern Brazil, act as representatives of Trump’s geopolitical agenda in the region.
The government of fascist President Javier Milei, on October 20, signed an “anti-terrorism agreement” and a “training accord” with the FBI, aimed at fully subordinating the repression apparatus of the Argentine state to US imperialism.
The Paraguayan government, in turn, is mobilizing massive military forces at the triple border area with Brazil and Argentina, where President Santiago Peña announced his intention to create an “anti-terrorist center” with agents trained by the FBI.
The legal redefinition of “terrorism” in Brazil obeys the same infamous geopolitical agenda of the “War on Narcoterrorism” which is the cover for a massive escalation of US imperialist aggression against Latin America.
The designation of Nicolás Maduro’s government as “narcoterrorist” is the pretext adopted by Trump to foment a war for regime change against Venezuela.
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The US may not be ready to invade Brazil with “F-35 fighters and warships,” as suggested by Eduardo Bolsonaro, or to bomb fishing boats in Rio’s Guanabara Bay, as his brother, Flávio Bolsonaro, advocated. But the hysteria about “narcoterrorism” being promoted by Brazilian fascists portends unprecedented interventions by Washington.
This narrative aims to establish a de facto state of “war” in the country to justify the abolition of democratic rights and the normalization of the violence witnessed in the Rio de Janeiro recent massacre against the working class as a whole.
Through the campaign against “narcoterrorism,” the same forces that promoted the coup attempt of January 8, 2023 are continuing their fascist conspiracy and actively preparing its second act. Trump’s dictatorial offensive in the United States is both their inspiration and their political base of support.
The ominous implications of Washington’s recent intervention into the situation in Rio de Janeiro become even clearer when considering the deep crisis of Cláudio Castro’s government, facing imminent threat of being removed from office.
Castro is being prosecuted by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) for diverting 500 million reais (around US$ 100 million) for hiring 45,000 irregular employees during the 2022 elections with the transparent aim of “buying” his reelection. On Tuesday, presiding Justice Isabel Gallotti voted for the removal from office of both Castro and vice-governor Rodrigo Bacellar and an eight-year ban on their running for public office.
The question that lingers is: what will Trump’s reaction be to Castro’s possible removal?
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The immense dangers posed to the Brazilian working class in the current situation are exacerbated by the criminal policy promoted by the Lula government and the PT.
On October 26, Lula met with Donald Trump for the first time during a conference in Malaysia. The Brazilian president offered his collaboration in pursuing US imperialism’s objectives in Venezuela and lavished praise on the White House’s would-be Führer.
“I am convinced that in a few days we will have a definitive solution between the United States and Brazil,” Lula declared shortly after the meeting. “I return to Brazil satisfied and certain that everything will work out for the Brazilian people,” added the president, who actually arrived in the country moments after the police massacre in Rio de Janeiro.
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It is urgent for the Brazilian working class to break with the PT and its pseudo-left backers and build an independent political leadership to fight imperialism and fascism through the methods of the international socialist revolution.
11. After collapse of the MAS, right-wing president takes power in Bolivia
Rodrigo Paz Pereira is set to become Bolivia’s next president this Saturday, November 8, after winning an October 19 runoff election. His inauguration ends two decades of rule by the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS).
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The vote represented a crushing defeat for the MAS, long regarded in pseudo-left circles as a flagship of the Pink Tide and “21st century socialism,” the slogan first advanced by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and then embraced by MAS leader Evo Morales.
The slogan and the party’s name notwithstanding, the MAS never implemented genuine socialist policies, instead paving the way for the return to power by the right by maintaining intact the capitalist state and its repressive apparatus and protecting the core profit interests of both Bolivia’s ruling oligarchy and foreign capital at the expense of the working class and oppressed masses.
Paz Pereira won the election largely by appealing to layers that previously voted for the MAS as the “lesser of two evils.” He campaigned on the basis of demagogic phrases about “capitalism for all” and promises to support small businesses and the large informal sector. He claimed he would not pursue a structural adjustment agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), like his rival Quiroga, and that he would maintain minimal social assistance programs, including cash transfers to the poorest sections of what remains the second-poorest country in South America.
These election promises will likely be shelved in short order. The week before his inauguration, Paz Pereira and his advisers flew to Washington for talks with the Trump administration and the major international financial institutions.
Among the first acts of the new administration will be to restore diplomatic relations with the US. The MAS government of Morales broke off ties in 2008, expelling the US ambassador along with the Drug Enforcement Administration and USAID, accusing them of fomenting a coup against his administration.
The US State Department was among the first to congratulate Paz Pereira on his victory. Washington declared itself “ready to be a partner with Bolivia,” clearly counting on the election furthering its neo-colonial agenda in Latin America. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared the election results “a transformative opportunity for both nations.”
The transformation that Washington seeks is to tie Bolivia to the war wagon of US imperialism as it prepares to attack Venezuela, while using loans and debt to impose a neo-liberal economic agenda, and break the country from its close economic and diplomatic ties with China and Russia.
In particular, the Trump administration has its sights set on Bolivia’s lithium resources, the largest deposit on the planet, crucial for electric vehicle batteries, which are also sought by China.
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The scion of Bolivia’s most prominent political dynasty, Paz Pereira improbably campaigned as an “outsider,” leaning heavily on the right-wing populism of his vice-presidential running mate Lara, an evangelical former police captain.
In reality, Paz Pereira is, by virtue of his background and experience, a highly conscious representative of the Bolivian bourgeoisie, whose great uncle and father were both presidents of Bolivia. His great uncle, Víctor Paz Estenssoro first assumed the presidency in 1952 on the back of a revolution led by armed tin miners. Having integrated the main union federation, the COB, into his government, Paz Estenssoro set about reconstructing the capitalist state and its repressive apparatus.
His success was owed ultimately to the absence of a revolutionary leadership in the working class. This in turn was the result of the Pabloite revisionist perspective that prevailed within the Bolivian Trotskyist organization, the POR (Revolutionary Workers Party), which adapted itself to Paz Estenssoro’s petty-bourgeois nationalist MNR (Revolutionary National Movement).
This perspective relegated the role of the POR to attempting to push the MNR government to the left, rather than that of exposing before the working class the organic incapacity of this bourgeois government to complete the democratic revolution and wage a consistent struggle against imperialism, and fighting for a program of revolutionary class struggle for socialism.
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With a far-right pro-imperialist government set to return to power, the MAS on Thursday announced that it had expelled President Luis Arce, Morales’ former finance minister, who was swept into power in 2020 on a wave of popular anger against Áñez’s coup regime. In a transparent attempt to distance itself from the debacle that it created, the MAS accused Arce of failing to take the party’s advice on dealing with Bolivia’s protracted economic crisis and floated allegations of misappropriated party funds.
But the disintegration of the MAS and its repudiation by Bolivia’s working class and oppressed masses are the the product not merely of any individual mistakes or malfeasance on the part of the outgoing president. They are the inevitable outcome of the entire arc of development of not only the MAS, but the whole of the so-called Pink Tide that emerged in Latin America at the dawn of the present century.
As with similar Latin American governments, from Chavez/Maduro in Venezuela to Correa in Ecuador, Lula in Brazil and others, the MAS utilized pseudo-socialist, anti-imperialist and indigenist rhetoric to mask a policy that defended capitalist ownership and governed on behalf of the national and international bourgeoisie. In Bolivia, as elsewhere, the government was able to harness the commodities boom of the early 2000s, driven by China’s growth, to implement limited social assistance programs that failed to either transform class relations or fundamentally alter Bolivia’s status as one of the most unequal countries on the planet.
In Bolivia, the rise to power of the MAS, founded by Evo Morales, the leader of an organization representing the interests of coca-growers, followed the mass upheavals known as the “water war” and the “gas war,” which pitted workers and oppressed peasants against the attempts of reactionary oligarchic governments to privatize and sell off basic resources.
The role played by the MAS was to divert this mass rebellion back into the safe channels of bourgeois politics and limited forms of national reformism. After winning the 2005 election by a landslide, Morales and the MAS were able to tap into the precipitous rise in gas and mineral prices to fund cash assistance programs for children, the elderly and new mothers that reduced the rate of poverty by 40 percent.
In 2006, the government announced the “nationalization” of the country’s main export earner, the gas industry. In reality, production remained in the hands of giant transnationals, including Brazil’s Petrobras, the Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF, Total from France, British Gas and British Petroleum as well as the US Exxon Mobil Corporation. Operating under the guise of “joint ventures” with the Bolivian state corporation, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), the companies were persuaded to pay the government a larger share of earnings while still reaping generous profits.
With the collapse of the commodity boom in 2014, gas production was halved, and income from hydrocarbon exports plummeted.
The class character of the MAS government emerged with ever greater clarity. Allied with Bolivia’s agro-industrial oligarchs, it used its cooption of the trade union bureaucracies and social movements with positions and perks, and, increasingly, naked state repression, to guarantee capitalist stability. Strikes and protests were denounced as acts of “economic sabotage” and met with claims that social struggles only strengthened the right.
Meanwhile, Morales’ claim to represent the interests of the long-oppressed indigenous populations, expressed in the 2009 constitution’s defining of Bolivia as a “plurinational” state, also wore thin as the government repressed indigenous protests against extractivist projects backed by foreign capital.
The MAS’s political support was further eroded after Morales called a referendum in 2016 on overturning term limits in order to stay in office. After his proposal was defeated, he utilized MAS-controlled courts to nullify the results and ran for reelection in 2019, before the coup that forced him into exile.
Under Arce, the MAS deepened its austerity measures, effectively following the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund. It attacked the coup regime from the right on the issue of the COVID-19 pandemic, accusing it of having prioritized “health over the economy.” Its ending of preventive measures contributed to Bolivia having one the highest rates of COVID deaths in the Americas.
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The working class of Bolivia and throughout Latin America must draw the bitter lessons of the debacle suffered by the MAS and its paving the way for the return of the right to power. The struggle against imperialism and oppression can be waged only on the basis of the political mobilization of the working class, providing a leadership to the masses of oppressed peasants and the indigenous peoples.
This movement must be independent of every section of the bourgeoisie, including its “left” factions, and must be armed with a socialist and internationalist program, uniting workers throughout Latin America, together with the working class of the United States and internationally, in the struggle to put an end to capitalism. This demands the building of a new revolutionary leadership, that is, sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world Trotskyist movement.
12. “Poison pills” extend Trump’s trade war
China and members of ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) signed a protocol to upgrade the China ASEAN free trade area which Chinese premier Li Qiang said demonstrated the “shared commitment to firmly support multilateralism and free trade” in the face of “severe challenges” to the international economic and trade system.
The US, however, is determined to break these connections. As [Simon] Evenett remarked to the Financial Times, the US is out to “try and reshape the ‘factory Asia’ [which has seen greater economic ties with China] that has developed over recent decades.”
Another move in the same direction is the push by the US to have a 40 percent “transshipment” tariff applied to what it considers are primarily Chinese-made goods, but which are sent to the US from south-east Asia countries.
The recent summit talks between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping were greeted with sighs of relief that a “truce” in the economic war had been reached—at least for a year. In fact, as the poison pills [restrictions on relations with third countries] signed [by] two major agreements reveal, it is intensifying.
13. Video leak by IDF’s chief lawyer of gang rape of Palestinian sparks right-wing defence of torturers
The arrest and detention of Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) top lawyer, has sparked a massive scandal after she revealed that it was she who leaked the infamous video in August 2024 of soldiers raping a blindfolded Palestinian detainee.
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The very limited investigations into the barbaric conditions at IDF and Israel Prison Service facilities since the start of the war have not culminated in any reports. No disciplinary or criminal measures have been taken against those involved despite damning evidence from prisoners and reports issued by international organizations.
One army reservist serving at Sde Teiman told Ha’aretz last May, “Sde Teiman, as anyone who has been there knows, is a sadistic torture camp. Detainees entered it alive and left in bags”.
He said that the investigation was being conducted “as if all the hell we created there comes down to the question of whether or not an object was inserted into a prisoner’s buttocks. But I saw this hell… I saw people enter this facility with war injuries and then starve for weeks without any medical treatment. I saw them peeing and shitting on themselves because they weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom. Many of them weren’t Nukhba [Hamas] fighters, just Gazans who were detained for questioning and released to their homes after severe abuse, when it turned out they were innocent. It’s no wonder people died there. The wonder is that people survived.”
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Tomer-Yerushalmi explained in her resignation letter, two days before her arrest, that she had authorised the publication of the video to defuse attacks on military investigators and prosecutors working on the case to enable it to go ahead. In no small part, this was an attempt to protect Israeli soldiers from international prosecution and leave punishment to Israel’s sympathetic judiciary.
However, following Tomer-Yerushalmi’s admission that she leaked the video she faced such levels of abuse on social media that there were fears she had committed suicide. Even after she was found, the attacks continued, with far-right commentator Yinon Magal posting on X, “We can proceed with the lynching” and adding a winking emoji. Protesters gathered outside her house, shouting slogans such as “We will give you no peace”.
Tomer-Yerushalmi, whose job it is to ensure that the army follows the law, has been arrested on suspicion of fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and disclosure of official information by a public servant, with the right-wing media and politicians accusing her of “breach of loyalty,” “breach of trust,” “dereliction of duty,” and “disrupting investigative operations”.
In the state ruled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s gang of criminals and fascists that is using “the most moral army in the world” to carry out the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza, the torture and abuse of detainees is routine, as B’Tselem’s report Welcome to Hell indicated. The Israeli rights organization described the horrific abuse of detainees in the Sde Teiman detention camp as the tip of the iceberg. Conditions were not unlike those of Abu Ghraib; the infamous jail used by the US to torture and abuse Iraqis.
Despite calls to shut it down, Israel’s High Court refused to close Sde Teiman in September 2024. Instead, the public uproar centres on the fact that the abuse was made public in the first place and by no less a person than Israel’s Chief Military Advocate.
Netanyahu has portrayed Tomer-Yerushalmi’s action as an attack on the nation, declaring “The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of the state of Israel and the IDF”, adding, “This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment”.
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The Palestinian detainee who was raped by the reservists in Sde Teiman was a civilian, not a Hamas fighter as the Israeli authorities had falsely claimed. According to leaked military documents, the victim was never charged with any crime and was among 1,700 Gaza detainees held without charge who were then freed in the prisoner exchange deal agreed at Sharm el-Sheikh on 13 October.
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Tomer-Yerushalmi’s resignation letter did not mention another allegation now under criminal investigation—that senior figures in the military prosecution department sought to conceal the source of the leak and may have misled Supreme Court justices in the process. This is now fuelling the drive by right-wing news outlet Channel 14 for a criminal probe against former IDF leaders and could trigger a wave of suspensions and resignations within the military’s legal hierarchy.
Netanyahu and his acolytes have seized on the scandal to renew their attacks on the judicial system, including calling for the firing of Gali Baharav-Miara, the Attorney-General, legislation to neuter its office, the closure of Army Radio, and to make the death penalty mandatory for anyone convicted of killing an Israeli citizen with a nationalistic or racist motive.
World leaders and the corporate media have largely remained silent about Israel’s crimes at Sde Teiman, in Gaza and the West Bank because Israel enjoys the support of all the imperialist powers now themselves slashing democratic rights and freedom of speech to suppress all opposition to their domestic and foreign policies.
14. Trump backs South Korea’s plans to build nuclear-powered submarines
In a move to significantly increase its militarization and preparations for war, South Korea intends to construct its own nuclear-powered submarines. US President Trump gave his support for the plan during his summit last week with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.
The acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines is a highly provocative move not only due to the vessel’s capabilities in warfare, but also in regards to possession of the nuclear fuel required, which is weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium. To date, only countries that also possess nuclear weapons have built nuclear-powered vessels.
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At least some of the submarines will be built in the US, at the Hanhwa Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, according to Trump, though it currently lacks the necessary facilities. The shipyard is owned by South Korea’s Hanhwa Ocean, which is expected to play a central role in Trump’s “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again” program, in which South Korea will help train, construct and modernize US shipyards.
The exact details of the plan or how South Korea will obtain the enriched uranium for the fuel have yet to be elaborated. However, Seoul plans to build at minimum four nuclear-powered submarines within the next ten years, though experts have questioned the feasibility of this. The South Korean navy is calling for vessels of 5,000 tons or higher, which would have ten or more vertical launching system (VLS) tubes to fire missiles. Currently, the largest submarine in the fleet is 3,600 tons.
Lee tried to downplay his government’s request while also making clear this is in line with Washington’s build up to war with China. Lee claimed, “We are not proposing to build submarines armed with nuclear weapons; rather, diesel submarines have inferior submerged endurance, which limits our ability to track North Korean or Chinese submarines.”
Lee stated that South Korea’s possession of a nuclear-powered submarine fleet would “ease the burden on US forces.” This is taking place largely behind the backs of the population while Lee came to office in June falsely posturing as an opponent of war.
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...the targets of US imperialism like China and Russia will have no choice but to consider that Seoul is pursuing a nuclear weapon in secret or could do so in the future. It also exposes the hypocrisy of Washington and Seoul in regards to North Korea, and the claims that the two allies are working to “denuclearize” the Korean Peninsula.
Other countries in the region are also pursuing the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. Australia plans to acquire the vessels through the AUKUS alliance, which includes the US and the United Kingdom. In Japan, the coalition deal of the new far-right government in Tokyo between the Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin no Kai calls for, among other remilitarization demands, developing submarines with “next-generation propulsion systems,” a euphemism for nuclear-powered.
This will be compounded by the fact that Trump also announced last week just prior to a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to resume nuclear weapon testing for the first time since Washington imposed a unilateral ban in 1992. All of this will only further increase tensions and a nuclear arms race in the Indo-Pacific.
A reporter from the World Socialist Web Site visited a food bank in Bellingham, Washington, approximately 90 miles north of Seattle, and spoke with volunteers and people who stood in line for food assistance because they have lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan (SNAP) benefits.
16. New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union calls off strike
On November 6 the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) announced via a Facebook post that it had cancelled a strike planned for the following day, after “meaningful” discussions with the employer, Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ).
Relations between FENZ and the firefighters have become acrimonious over 16 months of contract bargaining, with firefighters saying lives are being put at risk with thin staffing levels and unsafe equipment and trucks. Firefighters have rejected a pay offer of 5.1 percent over three years, i.e. less than 2 percent per year, well below the 3 percent inflation rate and soaring living costs.
About 2,000 firefighters held a one-hour nationwide strike on October 17, just days before 110,000 public sector workers, including 60,000 teachers, more than 30,000 nurses, 5,000 doctors, and about 20,000 other health workers, joined a “mega strike” on October 23. Many firefighters also turned out in support of the mass strike.
With about 3.5 percent of the working population protesting pay cuts and attacks on public services by the far-right National Party-led government, the strike was the country’s largest since 1979.
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Firefighters should be prepared for a sell-out from the secretive closed-door negotiations. Throughout the months of talks, the union has remained publicly vague about its actual claims and objectives. The NZPFU statement proclaimed that, after months of bargaining, it was “refreshing to be able to have intelligent and thoughtful discussions” with the employer last week.
FENZ meanwhile has launched a restructuring drive to cut $50 million annually by slashing jobs and “stopping or slowing” non-core activities. The government has warned of a reduction in insurance levies that fund the agency in 2026 and told FENZ to save $60 million from the $800 million budget by 2029. According to the union, a commitment made in 2022 to hire 230 extra firefighters is now at risk.
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Healthcare workers, teachers and firefighters have all rejected proposed pay offers ranging from 1 percent to just over 2 percent per year—well below the 3 percent annual inflation rate and a 4.6 percent increase in food prices.
The union bureaucracies, having called the “mega-strike” for fear that opposition would escape their control, are now seeking to demobilize workers. They have called no further joint action, signalling their willingness to return to backroom bargaining with the government.
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The Socialist Equality Group (NZ) is holding a public webinar tomorrow, November 9, at 4:00 p.m. which will discuss the political lessons of the “mega strike” and the way forward in the fight against austerity, pay cuts and imperialist war. Speakers will explain why workers should adopt a socialist perspective and build rank-and-file committees opposed to the pro-capitalist union bureaucracy and the whole political establishment, including Labour and its allies. We urge readers to register here to attend this important discussion.
Several media reports indicate that the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is close to reaching a sell-out agreement with Canada Post that would enforce sweeping attacks on our jobs and working conditions.
A new round of bargaining commenced on Monday, November 3, with CUPW releasing a statement that praised the assistance offered by a government-appointed mediator and proclaimed the union bureaucracy’s readiness to “overcome the disagreements between the parties” and “secure ratifiable collective agreements at the bargaining table.”
In a separate release, the union politely asked the pro-big business Liberal government, which has given its full backing to plans to eliminate two-thirds of the 55,000-strong workforce at Canada Post, “to ensure that any decisions… are made… with Union input.” To secure its place at the table and protect its anti-worker corporatist ties with management and the government, CUPW is prepared to assist in the dismantling of the post office as a public service and the transformation of the fraction of the membership that remains into Amazon-style gig workers.
The latest developments pose urgent tasks for postal workers, and in fact all workers throughout the public sector across Canada. Former central banker and current Prime Minister Mark Carney has made it clear that his Liberal government views the destruction of Canada Post in its current form as a testing ground for the types of attacks the ruling class plans to mount against all workers to intensify worker-exploitation, further swell the fortunes of the financial oligarchy and make Canadian imperialism war-ready.
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There is enormous opposition to the current state of affairs, but this opposition must be organized and infused with a socialist perspective! Without workers, nothing gets done. What is required is for us to transform our strike into a broader movement mobilizing the social power of the working class as a whole.
18. United Kingdom: Resident doctors strike to go ahead after Labour government opposes pay increase
The announcement of five days of strikes from November 14 by resident doctors in England marks a new stage in the confrontation between National Health Service (NHS) workers and the Starmer government.
The months-long talks between the British Medical Association (BMA) and Health Secretary Wes Streeting broke down this week exposing what these negotiations always were—an attempt to buy time, dissipate rank-and-file anger, and stall further action after the five-day strike in July. The union sat on a live strike mandate for months, allowing momentum to ebb while Streeting repeatedly declared that “there is no new money” for doctors’ pay or training.
18. RMT foists sellout deal on London Underground workers
On November 4, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) announced the end of the dispute on London Underground.
A press release boasted: “RMT secures three-year no-strings pay deal on London Underground.” The cursory statement nevertheless testifies to how the struggle launched by 10,000 London Underground workers to oppose a facto pay cut of 3.4 percent for 2025/6—with the RPI inflation rate at 4.5 percent—and against crippling, unsafe workloads has been sabotaged by RMT officials.
The RMT’s attempt to present the settlement ending the dispute as achieving the aims London Underground train drivers, engineers, signalling and station staff were fighting for is based on distortions and evasions over the central demands for a pay rise and a shorter working week.
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The World Socialist Web Site requested further information on the deal from the RMT but has not received a reply. What is in the press release is damning.
Fact versus spin
- Pay: In a sleight of hand, Year 1’s 3.4 percent is described as “equivalent to February 2025 RPI , but the award is backdated to April and RPI has been consistently over 4 percent since then. The following years are at best pay stagnation: Year 2—RPI at February 2026, effective April 2026, with a minimum 3 percent; Year 3—RPI at February 2027 + 0.2 percent, effective April 2027, with a minimum 2.5 percent.
- Shorter working week: There is no reference to reducing the working week from 35 to 32 hours—a core strike demand. Instead, the press release refers vaguely to “commitments addressing work-life balance… including ‘fatigue-friendly’ rosters.” Similar evasive language is applied elsewhere on unresolved issues: “further discussions on staff travel, and a consistent Boxing Day payment of £400.” Dempsey had stated that existing shift patterns cut life expectancy by up to ten years, yet the deal substitutes concrete measures to prevent workers premature deaths with empty “commitments.”
- No strings: Dempsey claims the deal “departs from the recent industry approach of linking pay to flawed productivity.” But he had already accepted TfL’s cost cutting framework with productivity increases telling BBC Politics Live, “We’ve helped to deliver a £166 million surplus in London Underground. We’ve got ridership up to record levels, and we are doing that with 2,000 fewer staff than we were before the pandemic.” If these are not strings, then what is?
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The deal is designed to ensure no strikes over pay and conditions for the next 2 and a half years, with the Financial Times stating, “The agreement announced on Tuesday banishes the prospect of future strikes”. Dempsey has bound the hands of workers based on a miserly pay award, empty promises on tackling fatigue and ditching the shorter working week.
These issues will reassert themselves with full force amid continued understaffing of stations and the safety risk posed to workers and the public. The central issue is to take this struggle forward through workplace organization at depot and station level, independent of the union apparatus.
19. Australia: Polymetals accelerates reopening of Cobar’s Endeavor mine after fatal explosion
Less than two weeks after an unexplained explosion claimed two lives, the mine’s owner is rapidly proceeding towards fully reopening the site.
In the early hours of October 28, two miners were killed and a third injured at Endeavor Mine, 40 kilometres north of Cobar in far west New South Wales (NSW).
An initial investigation by the NSW Resources Regulator appears to indicate that the deaths of 59-year-old Ambrose Patrick McMullen and 24-year-old Holly Clarke, and injury to 24-year-old Mackenzie Stirling, were caused by the premature detonation of a ballistic disc explosive.
But this leaves many questions unanswered. The explosives are widely used, and generally thought to be extremely safe. Multiple failsafes are built into the equipment and its use follows well-known safety procedures.
Multiple investigations are underway, by the NSW Police, NSW Resources Regulator and the company itself. The regulator, which is responsible for workplace health and safety issues in the mining sector, told the World Socialist Web Site it would not release preliminary findings from its investigation until late November.
The regulator’s initial report, published late last week, warned that it may have to ban the ballistic discs, and recommended that mines use alternative methods.
Amid this uncertainty, the mine’s owner, Polymetals Resources Ltd, called almost immediately for a “staged” return to work. The WSWS warned that, while Polymetals claimed last week that only exploratory drilling, processing and electrical work would be resuming, the announcement was a clear statement of intent to proceed with a full reopening as soon as possible.
That warning has been quickly confirmed. On Thursday, the company issued a statement to investors and the financial markets, making clear that the return to work is proceeding far more swiftly than previously indicated.
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Less than two weeks ago, two workers were killed and another injured in an incident that has not been explained and which everyone involved agrees should never have happened. But, besides the temporary cordoning off of one section of the mine—and even this can be accessed “as necessary”—“no other restrictions” have been imposed.
The decision to reopen and recommence the use of explosives has been left entirely in the hands of the company!
What do the unions have to say about workers being herded back into a possible death trap? Not a single word. Since their initial phoney professions of concern, and vows to “get to the bottom of this” in the hours and days following the tragedy, the Mining and Energy Union (MEU) and Australian Workers Union (AWU) have not said a thing.
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The swift resumption of work at Endeavor is thus an existential issue for Polymetals, a relatively small company that is “all in” on the financial success of this mine. But it is also, literally, a life and death question for workers, who are the ones who risk paying the ultimate price if last week’s disaster is repeated.
Mining workers cannot afford to entrust their lives to their employers, who are compelled under capitalism to operate on the basis of totally different priorities: returning ever-growing profits to shareholders, whatever the cost to workers.
Neither can the so-called safety regulator be trusted to make sure those who go to work also come home. It has given the go-ahead for this reopening, despite publicly voicing major concerns over the explosives used. The same goes for the unions, which have washed their hands of the whole thing.
This means workers need to take matters into their own hands. A rank-and-file committee of Endeavor workers should be established as the means for workers themselves to oversee the investigation and determine when and if it is safe to return. They must insist that workers receive full pay throughout the investigation, so no-one is forced to choose between providing for their family and coming home safely.
Through such a committee, Endeavor workers can make a powerful appeal for support from their counterparts in other mines, in Cobar and throughout the industry. Until the cause of last week’s tragedy is conclusively determined and rectified, miners everywhere could be in danger.
20. Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
Bangladesh:
India:
Pakistan:
Australia:
21. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
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.
