USA/Canada

Wisconsin labour defeated, thanks to Democrats

Organised money defeated organised labour. That is the Democratic Party’s take on its humbling defeat in a recall election (6 June) called against incumbent Wisconsin Republican governor Scott Walker. That and the ever familiar lament that workers no longer seem capable of voting in solidarity with embattled public sector workers and their unions. 38% of households with union members voted for the incumbent, as did a majority of non-college graduates. Walker carried the 10 poorest counties in the state by a 13% margin. The Wisconsin results paralleled voter-approved public sector pension cuts...

Quebec: the movement spreads

Ludwic Moquinbeaudry from the Quebec students’ movement ASSE spoke to Solidarity . We are now focusing on the next big demonstrations. On the 22nd of every month we have had a big demonstration, and the next big demonstration will be June 22. We don’t know if we will break the records of the past demonstrations. We started the student strike [against tuition fee rises] on February 13 and for nine weeks the Government thought the movement would die by itself. Seeing that that strategy was not working, they started negotiations, and they tried to split the students. They expelled CLASSE from the...

Support Quebec's striking students!

In Canada, talks between the right-wing Quebec Liberal Party government and student groups resisting tuition fee rises have broken down. The government representative said after four days of talks that the gap between the two sides was too wide. The students are continuing their protests. Partly as a legacy of past struggles, particularly around the issue of Francophone Quebec’s status within Canada, tuition fees in Quebec have been much lower than in the rest of the country. Fees are currently $2,168 per year and the government wants to increase them by $1,625 over five years, taking them...

The Third Camp: “Neither victims, nor executioners”

We continue our symposium of recollections and reflections from activists involved in the “third camp” left in the United States with a piece by David McReynolds. Although not from the Trotskyist third camp tradition, David worked closely with many who were, including Max Shachtman. He joined the Socialist Party of America in 1951, and in 1958 was involved in negotiating the merger of the Independent Socialist League into the SP. In 1980, he became the first openly gay man to run for the US Presidency. My first contact with the term “Third Camp” was probably in 1950, at a joint conference of...

Their morals and ours: the case of John Edwards

John Edwards was once the shining hope of American progressives; today, he’s a disgraced former politician. Last week, his trial in federal court ended with an acquittal. The trial, and the public reaction to it, showed yet again a very ugly side to American politics and culture. While it may seem ancient history to Americans, it was only four years ago that John Edwards ran for the Democratic nomination for President on a moderately social democratic platform. This put him far to the left of the two front runners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. When the health care plans of the three...

International news in brief

Strike action by American workers increased dramatically over the past year. “Serious stoppages” (strikes involving more than 1,000 lasting at least one shift) rose from just five in 2009 to 19 in 2011. Days lost to strike action increased from 124,000 to over 1 million. The increase comes against the backdrop of a decade of pay stagnation for manufacturing workers, whose wages have mostly remained flat since 2000, despite a 50% increase in output. Racist attacks on African migrant workers in Tel Aviv Recent weeks have seen racist riots in working-class neighbourhoods of Tel Aviv as poor...

Quebec government tries to ban protest

The student movement in Quebec faces an all-out offensive by the government. For more than 90 days, more than 150,000 students in Quebec have been on an all-out indefinite strike against Quebec government plans to cut education funding and raise fees by 75%. Demanding free education funded by taxing the rich, students have mounted mass demonstrations and confronted police violence. The government made a weak offer to representatives of the student protests at the beginning of May — but, following discussion in dozens of mass meetings around the province, students voted to reject it. Now the...

Hundreds of thousands in Montreal support students and defy ban on protests

On 22 May 250,000 or more demonstrated in the centre of Montreal. They were supporting the students on strike for 100 days now against tuition fee rises, and defying the law passed on 18 May by Quebec's provincial government to limit protest. Theoretically the law compels the organisers of all protests of over 50 people to submit detailed plans to the police at least eight hours before the event.

John Carlos: "It's not about winning medals - it's about being a freedom fighter"

(In the 1968 picture, John Carlos is on the right.) There must have been at least seven or eight hundred people at the 21 May public meeting organised by the rail workers' union RMT and the firefighters' union FBU. The meeting was addressed by the legendary John Carlos , one of the black athletes who raised his fist at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics as part of a protest against racism and poverty (see here ) - and a number of equally inspiring speakers from anti-racist struggles in Britain, as well as trade unionists. Pretty much the whole room was on its feet again and again for standing...

Neither Washington nor Moscow: those were the days

We continue our series of recollections and reflections from activists who were involved with the “third camp” left in the United States — those “unorthodox” Trotskyists who believed that the Soviet Union was not a “workers’ state” (albeit a “degenerated” one), but an exploitative form of class rule to be as opposed as much as capitalism. This week, we publish contributions from people of two generations, David Finkel, who is now an editor of the Against the Current magazine in the US, and Marty Oppenheimer, who has been active in developing radical sociology. They organised under the slogan...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.