Ali Raza | CBC News | Letter written to Jamaican labour minister before his visit to Canadian farms

Antonio Negri & Nicolas Guilhot | Sidecar | Europe and the war in Ukraine.

Aujourd'hui, nous disposons de toutes les connaissances et les technologies nécessaires pour surmonter les problèmes qui minaient les économies planifiées socialistes. Les arguments des pères fondateurs du néolibéralisme contre la planification sont désormais dépassés.

In my last post, I described how Western capital is planning to take over and control Ukraine’s resources and exploit its labour force to the maximum in order to boost the profitability of both Ukraine’s domestic capitalists (oligarchs) and foreign multi-nationals. However, there is a problem for Western capital and Ukraine’s oligarchs: it’s Russia.

Last week, Ukraine’s foreign private creditors agreed to the country’s request for a two-year freeze on payments on about $20bn of foreign debt. This would enable Ukraine to avoid defaulting on its overseas borrowings. Unlike other ‘emerging economies’ in debt distress, it seems that foreign bondholders are happy to help Ukraine out – if only for two years.

If approved by Cuban voters next month, the country’s new Family Code will stand as a social revolution, enshrining the right of all people to form a family regardless of sex or gender identity and recognizing a variety of family forms.

Supermarkets are staples of our lives. But their emergence in America was far from automatic: the supermarket was used as a key piece of anti-communist propaganda early in the twentieth century against the alternative of grocery co-ops.

It all started with a survey. In April 2022, members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), went door to door in the town of Warangal in Telangana state. The party was already aware of challenges in the community but wanted to collect data before working on a plan of action. Thirty-five teams of three to four CPI(M) members and supporters went to 45,000 homes and learned how people were suffering from a range of issues, such as the lack of pensions and subsidised food. Many expressed anxieties around the absence of permanent housing, with a third saying that they were not homeowners and could not pay their rents. The government had promised to build two-bedroom apartments for the poor, but these promises evaporated. With inflation eating into their meagre incomes and serious unemployment due to the collapse of the local bidi (cigarette) industry, desperation marked the people the communists met.

Parix Marx | We need the government to end the competition fallacy and use the tools at its disposal to ensure our telecom networks serve the public.

The F-35 fighter plane project is a complete failure. But if it ends up on the congressional chopping block, Lockheed Martin will do everything in its power to line up another trillion-dollar weapons manufacturing contract in its stead.

Liberals constantly urge citizens to accept difficult decisions to protect the capitalist economy. This wasn’t always the case.

The battle against layoffs at Florence’s GKN auto parts plant may seem like a dispute from a past era. Yet the workers’ plan for the green reconversion of the factory shows how labor can point the way to the future.

The U.S. blockade of Cuba fuels the fire that rages on in the country, despite denials by authorities in the United States.

Vijay Prashad | Anyone who stands for greater cooperation with China is vilified in the Western media as well as in Western-allied media from the Global South as an ‘agent’ of China or a promoter of ‘disinformation’. I responded to some of these allegations in South Africa’s The Sunday Times on 7 August 2022. The remainder of this newsletter reproduces that article.

Since August 2021, a wave of unionizations at Starbucks stores across the U.S. has caused many to wonder whether the labour movement is taking off. Prompted largely by the pandemic and driven by local organizing, unionization has brought Starbucks workers increased wages, better benefits, and greater protection. Despite significant pushback from the corporation, the unlikely yet sweeping success of the Starbucks unions proves what strong movements can do.

On August 5, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) held its second Working Class Summit. This was the first gathering since July 2018, and since the COVID-19 pandemic, economic instability, and continued government incompetence and political incoherence has made things worse. Inequality, job loss, and social polarization are all heightened. The first summit’s declaration called for a mobilization of workers in opposition to the “crisis of late stage capitalism.” In this summit, SAFTU has called for a national strike across South Africa for August 24 against the rising costs of living, load shedding, more privatization of state assets, and the wider economic crisis.

In its first contested election in almost 10 years, Canada's largest private-sector union has elected Lana Payne as the new national president of Unifor. She is the first woman to hold the position.

On Sunday, Gustavo Petro became the first left-wing president in Colombian history. Here, Petro speaks about his dream of a new Colombia founded on principles of solidarity and human dignity.

Nathan J. Robinson & Noam Chomsky | The 20-year war in Afghanistan is often spoken of as a well-intentioned failure. In fact, it was a major crime originating in bloodlust and an indifference to Afghan lives. The U.S. bears a major responsibility for the present suffering of Afghans and has an obligation to undo the damage it has inflicted.

They may be pushing the Online Streaming Act, but the newspaper lobby is doing the same and worse with the Online News Act