The roaring twenties
Increasingly, big business leaders and bankers are talking about the possibility of an economic boom in the next few months. Earlier projections of economic stagnation and talk of the worst economic results in centuries have…
Solidarity
This year on May Day, let’s not forget the class war prisoners
The noted international trade union leader Dan Gallin used to say that what the labour movement needed is a “May 2nd Movement”. In other words, after all the wonderful speeches made on May Day, we…
Kyrgyzstan: One step forward, two steps back
The workers of Kyrgyzstan have had very little experience of trade unionism. Under tsarist rule, unions were generally not tolerated. The Bolshevik revolution allowed unions to exist — on paper. But they were quickly turned…
Why I rejoined the Labour Party
I have just re-joined the Labour Party. Some people will say that one should never leave the Labour Party. Whatever it did, whatever bothered you and made it difficult to remain a member, you should…
Belarus: The issue is working class solidarity – not “imperialism”
A few days ago, following up on a suggestion I made to LabourStart’s mailing list that people try out the secure messaging app Telegram, I received an interesting question. I had mentioned that pro-democracy protestors…
Why American unions are backing Biden
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is “lamentable”, “utterly useless”, a “creep” and a “shit”. Those are not the words of Donald Trump, but they are all used in an article in this newspaper last week….
The labour movement and the tragedy of Nagorno-Karabakh
The recent outbreak of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, seems like something out of another era. Turkey and Russia each support their own side. A century ago, the Tsar would have supported…
Why socialists should not support Howie Hawkins
The golden age of the Socialist Party in the U.S. lasted about a decade. By 1912 the party’s vote peaked when Eugene Debs won 6%. It was downhill from there. After more than four decades…
U.S. unions warn Trump: Don’t even think about it
A few days ago, the president of the AFL-CIO (the US’s national trade union centre) issued a powerful statement. The federation “categorically rejects all threats to the peaceful transition of power” said Richard Trumka, a…
Ukraine: Miners’ protest goes underground
Hundreds of mine workers have spent weeks underground in a desperate attempt to win concessions from their employers in Ukraine. The protests began on 3 September at the Oktyabrskaya mine, where 29 miners started the…