USA/Canada

Pages from Labor's History

In the history of the American labor movement there is a moral and a lesson for the labor movement of today: the need for and the inevitability of independent working-class political action. In the past century the voice of independent labor politics has often 'been low, but seldom mute; and in innumerable instances it was loud, clear and full of promise. Even before the Civil War the organization of workingmen's parties often coincided with the limited successes of unions of skilled craftsmen. The first of these parties dates back to 1828—in New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere—when suffrage...

Jim Crow and the Democrats: The negro fight needs a new party

A recent column by the N. Y. Post's Murray Kempton gives an incident which lights up the relationship between the rising tide of the Negroes' struggle for civil rights and contemporary American liberalism. Inasmuch as liberalism is the dominant political ideology of the labor movement, such an illumination also reveals a good deal about the relations between the Negroes' heroic battle for democracy and the political views and actions of the unions. According to Kempton, the "First Lady of American Liberalism," Eleanor Roosevelt, tendered her resignation from the national board of the National...

Vanguard or Tail-End? The experience of the Liberal Party

The Liberal Party of New York is a unique type of political organization. Nothing like it exists anywhere else in the United States. Despite this uniqueness, an understanding of the Liberal Party can be very helpful to anyone who wants to understand American labor politics at mid-century, precisely because this party exhibits in a striking and harshly developed form many of the characteristics and trends which exist in the rest of the field of labor politics in a less clear-cut way. The Liberal Party is and has been since its inception a bundle of paradoxes and contradictions. It is a party...

The Social Meaning of Labor's Politics

Behind the facade of a war-economy prosperity, two tremendous phenomena have occurred, both of them still unfolding: the unification of the labor movement and the struggle of the American Negro. It would be a mistake to observe these in isolation from one another. The two big parties must enlarge their activities in their competing efforts to win these two largest segments of the population; the labor and Negro movements must, in turn, be deeply involved in these efforts. It is easy to dismiss the significance of labor unity and its political meaning in favor of the more spectacular struggle...

Why the Tea Party can take hostages

On 1 October US Congress failed to agree a budget, causing many government offices to close. Showing a vigour in its cause which we’d like to see Labour display in ours, the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party refused to agreed the budget unless Obama’s healthcare law was gutted. Barry Finger explains the background. Far right monies bundled together by conservative “social welfare” groups are said to be defying a hapless public powerless to thwart the House Republicans from exercising veto power over the budget process, in their effort to impose more austerity and defund the Affordable...

Workers of the world, awaken!

Workers of the world, awaken! Break your chains. demand your rights. All the wealth you make is taken By exploiting parasites. Shall you kneel in deep submission From your cradles to your graves? ls the height of your ambition To be good and willing slaves? CHORUS: Arise, ye prisoners of starvation! Fight for your own emancipation; Arise, ye slaves of every nation. In One Union grand. Our little ones for bread are crying, And millions are from hunger dying; The end the means is justifying, 'Tis the final stand. If the workers take a notion, They can stop all speeding trains; Every ship upon...

The fast food workers' fightback

In America, fast food workers employed by chains like McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut have struck back against low pay and bullying managers. Regional strikes in November 2012 and April 2013 were followed by a nationwide strike on 29 August. The workers’ headline demand is a $15 per hour minimum wage (most currently earn slightly more than $7). Workers also want union recognition and an end to management bullying. The fast food workers’ movement followed a similar, and ongoing, struggle of Walmart workers, the world’s biggest private-sector employer. The movement has a profound...

New Socialist Movement Can Now Be Built - Toward a rebirth of socialism!

The crisis of Stalinism has opened the way for a regroupment and reunification of the socialist movement, especially in the United States. For almost a quarter of a century, American radicalism, and even liberalism, was predominantly under the leadership or influence of Stalinism, whether it appeared under the name of the Communist Party or the Communist Political Association (as it was renamed for a short time). During this period, the Stalinists succeeded not only in overcoming the stagnation and factional exhaustion of the twenties, but in establishing themselves as the largest, most...

US fast food workers fight for $15

On August 29, low-wage workers in some 50 cities across the United States walked off the job at various fast-food restaurants as part of the latest action in the “Fight for 15” campaign for union recognition and a $15 an hour wage. Here are reports from activists in [two] of the cities where Fight for 15 workers walked off the job: More than 100 people in San Diego, California marched and rallied in front of a Wendy’s restaurant to demand a raise and union rights for fast-food workers. Six workers from Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Subway left work and spoke to the gathering of fellow workers and...

Sacco and Vanzetti - Labor's martyrs

Click here to download as pdf Click here to download as mobi Click here to download as epub Or read online here: The Palmer Raids The death of Andrea Salsedo Who were Sacco and Vanzetti? Vanzetti's first trial The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti Sacco is also identified The hnourable and virtuous prosecution witnesses "Consciousness of guilt" The working class organizes its protest Court motions and mass movements The case gets a "new complexion" The Department of Justice is caught redhanded The Madeiros confession The militants demand a protest movement Thayer replies to the protests Governor...

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