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“Our Proposal is to hold an International Conference of Working Women”

2021-01-22

All around the world, women are mobilising more and more in the fight for true equal rights between women and men. Subjected to double oppression and double exploitation in every domain, as working women but also as mothers and as women, women are standing up against all forms of oppression, discrimination and violence, and against patriarchal domination. We, engaged as we are in those struggles and mobilisations in our respective countries, know that the particular demands of women are part of the more general struggle of the working class for its emancipation. However, and this is not contradictory, women have specific demands: equal pay, professional equality, legal equality, the setting up of structures for childcare, the right of women to self-determination, the right to choose regarding reproductive rights, and an end to the harassment and acts of violence they are subjected to as women. This is why we propose that an international meeting be held before the workers’ [...]

CHINA/HONG-KONG « The severe attack against the resistant force will accumulate the anger of the society » — Chan Ka Wai, Executive Director, Labour Action China, Hong Kong

2020-12-29

The Chinese Government wishes to devastate the resistant force in Hong Kong by the controversal Ordiance of Public Order. In the past, it was almost not used anymore, but now it is heavily used to limit the civil rights and to charge the activists. Moreover, it is a way to stop active social activists to join in the Legislative Council election next year because most of them have a criminal record with more than 3-month imprisonment. [...]

THAILAND “The people want a political reform, and the first step is to oust the military junta”

2020-12-09

It began among students and young people. The military regime that has been in place since 2014 (1) imposed a dark period for the democratic movement. The "flash mobs" of February 2020 (2) gave new hope. The second stage of the mobilization took place in the summer of 2020, when new strata of students and youth mobilized, contradicting a common belief that youth were largely apolitical. [...]

BURUNDI A census? The working class has no ethnicity

2020-12-09

Imperialism is always on the lookout for ways to continue the demolition of the productive forces, starting with the working class and its organizations. On October 26, 2020, a nationwide census of civil servants began, as announced by the Minister of Public Administration. One hundred and nine (109) questions were asked to the workers in this census! Ethnicity, bank account, union membership, geolocation, personal and private e-mail, number of children and other children in care, brand of cell phone, amount of salary and other income resources ... this is but part of the scope covered by these questions. [...]

UNITED STATES A massive repudiation of Trump… which makes independent workers’ politics more necessary than ever…

2020-11-20

On November 7, the French POID had intended to organize a mass rally. The rally was not authorized by the authorities. The POID then said they wished to demonstrate. The demonstration was banned. A video rally was organised with the participation of thousands of workers. Comrade Alan Benjamin editor of Socialist Organizer (Etats-Unis) spoke at the rally. We are publishing his speech. As I speak to you today, Joe Biden has not yet been declared the winner in the presidential election, though his victory is all but assured. He is just hours away from being declared the new president of the United States. Biden’s victory – with roughly 75 million votes – represents a massive repudiation of Trump and his policies. This vote against Trump was the expression in the electoral arena of the massive strikes of teachers, often illegal, against Trump’s drive to destroy public education. It was an expression of the 24 million people who took to the streets earlier [...]

BOLIVIA “A Genuine Victory of the People” — Interview with a Bolivian Labour Activist from El Alto about the Meaning of the October 18 Presidential Election

2020-11-15

On October 18, peasant women from indigenous peoples in a polling station. What is your assessment of the outcome of the October 18 presidential election that saw the defeat of the candidates who had supported the November 2019 military coup “Made in the USA” and overthrown President Evo Morales? The election marked a genuine victory of the Bolivian people. It was an overwhelming vote against the right-wing, racist military regime of Jeanine Añez, despised by the people. It was not a vote for the MAS (1) and its leaders. The victory of Luis Arce (the MAS candidate) was a big surprise for the political establishment who figured that the vote would be split evenly among the three candidates: Arce of the MAS, right-wing former President Carlos Mesa, and extreme-right-wing Santa Cruz separatist leader Luis Fernando Camacho (2). They expected Mesa to win with the backing of Camacho in the second round. But that’s not what happened. Arce obtained 53% in the first round, trouncing his [...]

BELARUS « The outcome of the struggle against the dictatorship depends on the working class » — Interview with a member of the strike committee of the Remontajstroy plant in the city of Soligorsk

2020-11-15

Our correspondents sent us this interview published on October 18 in the Polymïa (“The Flame”) newsletter, which states: “The eyes of the demonstrators are focused on the companies. Few dispute that the outcome of the struggle against the dictatorship depends on the working class. All hopes are focused on Soligorsk, the ‘miners capital’ (of the potassium mines operated by the Belaruskali company – editor’s note).” A workers’ general assembly by the Belaruskali company How was your strike committee formed? Our steel structure maintenance factory works as a subcontractor for Belaruskali. The strike committee was born from the coordination of the independent trade union and initiatives of workers who had read on the Internet how to constitute a strike committee. The committee was formed long after the beginning of the strike, because the strike had been spontaneous. Does your strike committee represent the majority of workers? Yes: the [...]

NIGERIA Popular uprising against police brutality and oppression

2020-11-15

Nigeria ranks first as Africa’s economy with the largest population in the continent. Currently, an important popular uprising is under way. It started at the beginning of October launched on the social networks to denounce police brutality and has now grown to a full-scale movement against the ruling power. If the origin of the movement was the brutality of the SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) a police body known for its brutality, the root causes reach much deeper. Actually, the decision of the ruling power to disband the SARS has not put an end to the protests. Though the country is an oil producer (almost entirely in the hands of four huge multinational corporations: Shell, Total, ExxonMobil and Chevron), it does has not benefitted from the economic repercussions, and Nigeria’s economy closely depends on oil revenues. Besides, the payment of the debt takes over 60% of the country’s revenues. The value of the Naira, the local currency is plummeting. Meanwhile the federal [...]

INDIA «This was the biggest failure of the right wing Modi Government during the pandemic» Interview With Milind Ranade

2020-09-29

Milind Ranade leads one of the largest trade unions of contract sanitation workers in Maharashtra, a state in Western India. Most of the union members are migrants and all of them belong to low caste–Dalits – (called untouchable in old days) community. It was a herculean task of organizing illiterate, hardly literate workers employed by the Municipal Corporations in different parts of the State. The organizing work began in Mumbai. Later in other cities like Thane, New Mumbai and Nashik, Panvel, Badlapur etc. Mumbai Municipal Corporation had engaged a large number of contractors for the jobs [...]

BURUNDI A new phase of the war and an escalation of arrests

2020-09-29

Early in the morning of 23 August 2020 a group of armed men coming from the RDC (Democratic Republic of Congo) sneaked into the hills above small fishing villages along Lake Tanganyika. The governor of Rumonge has said that they are “outlaws coming from the RDC”; they killed 11 people who were carrying goods stolen from the township of Bugarama. According to the newspaper Iwacu, all the declarations from people living in fishing villages scattered along the coasts of Lake Tanganyika from Gitaza towndhip to Muhuta, in Rumonge and all along to Nyanza-Lac testify to the same: “Several people stole into the country from RDC via Lake Tanganyika”. Other sources indicate that during the night of Sunday 30 August, armed gangs came in the near vicinity of the bridge over the Dama River, less than 10 kilometres from Rumonge. [...]