Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. The Nexteer rebellion: The working class vs the trade union apparatus
On Friday morning, for the third time in less than two months, 1,300 workers at the auto parts plant voted down a pro-company tentative agreement brought forward by the United Auto Workers apparatus.
2. Labor share of income hits record low as corporate profits soar
Workers’ share of US economic output has fallen to its lowest level since the government began keeping records in 1947, according to data the Commerce Department released Thursday.
3. Kenyan court blocks US offshore Ebola camp as epidemic accelerates across central Africa
Following intense domestic backlash and a strike threat, Kenya’s High Court halted a bilateral agreement with the Trump administration to open a 50-bed foreign Ebola containment facility.
4. Sri Lankan court case continues over violent attack on SEP members
For decades, establishment parties and leaders of their affiliated trade unions have sought to discredit the SEP by branding it a “foreign-funded” group and associating it with NGOs. Such allegations are political smears aimed at undermining the SEP’s intransigent struggle against all forms of capitalist rule and its uncompromising opposition to the Sri Lankan ruling elite and its attacks on the working class.*****
The attempt to equate the SEP’s international political collaboration with NGO financing is particularly reactionary. The SEP is an internationalist socialist party. Its political collaboration with the ICFI is not a financial or organizational dependency of the type alleged by the defense, but a conscious political association based on shared socialist principles and the perspective of unifying the working class internationally.
The SEP openly fights for the unity of workers across national boundaries. Its perspective is based on the understanding that the root cause of the problems confronting workers and youth in Sri Lanka—war, austerity, unemployment, repression, and social inequality—is the global crisis of capitalism, which can only be resolved through the unified struggle of the international working class.
The party’s affiliation with the ICFI is a matter of Marxist political principle. Its international connections are openly acknowledged and flow from its socialist and internationalist program. The World Socialist Web Site is the daily Marxist publication of the ICFI. An international campaign launched in response to the attack on Wasantha and Fernando won wide support from workers and young people around the globe.
5. Australian unions endorse Labor’s war and austerity budget
The unions’ endorsement of Labor’s budget is a clear statement that they stand ready to enforce the brutal cuts to social spending, jobs and wages demanded by the federal government and the corporate elite it represents.
6. Australia: Victoria’s Labor government oversees police state raids against anti-war protesters
The political logic underlying these operations is suppression of all opposition amid mounting attacks on social conditions and expanding imperialist violence.
7. Students protest against New Zealand budget cuts
Members of the IYSSE spoke with students in Wellington who opposed the increase in student fees and other attacks, and the diversion of billions of dollars to the military.
Democratic officials have responded to the federal rampage not by opposing ICE, but by deploying state police to disperse the protests.
After voting down three sellout agreements, workers at Nexteer are determined to defeat UAW-management collusion.
10. Miles Davis at 100, a complex figure reflecting a complex time
The jazz world is celebrating the centenary of jazz trumpet master and bandleader Miles Davis, one of the 20th century’s most impactful musicians.
11. Peru declares state of emergency as measles epidemic exposes crisis of capitalist-run public health
The outbreak has exposed once again the catastrophic failure of the capitalist state to guarantee the most basic conditions of life for the working class.
12. Colombian elections: how pseudo-leftist President Gustavo Petro paved way for ultra-right
That a fascistic figure like De la Espriella is running second in the polls is the direct product of four years of Petro's government.
13. West Bengal’s BJP government seeks to stamp Hindu-supremacist rule on India’s fourth largest state
The new BJP government in West Bengal is using communalism, repression and anti-poor demolition drives to divide workers and impose the burden of economic crisis, now aggravated by the Iran war, on the working class.
14. European warmongers seize on Russian drone crash in Romania to escalate war
The growing intensity of drone strikes between Ukraine and Russia has made incursions into neighbouring countries a regularity, presenting opportunities for the European leaders to warmonger.
15. Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
Australia:
Bangladesh:
India:
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.
