USA/Canada

How the “organising model” went global

On 29 March 2014, Workers’ Liberty, the University of London branch of the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB), Ruskin College UCU, PCS Independent Left, and Lambeth Activists will host the “New Unionism 2014” conference at the University of London Union. The conference aims to look at historical and contemporary struggles to transform the labour movement to make it capable of fighting for working-class power. Sessions will include a talk on “the fate of the organising model” by US labour movement activist Kim Moody. Kim was a founder of the rank-and-file journal Labor Notes...

The Chattanooga defeat

In a terrible setback for the US union movement, car workers at Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee have voted against being represented by a union. The New York Times reported (14 February 2014): "In a defeat for organized labor in the South, employees at the Volkswagen plant here voted 712 to 626 against joining the United Automobile Workers. "The loss is an especially stinging blow for U.A.W. because Volkswagen did not even oppose the unionization drive. The union’s defeat - in what was one of the most closely watched unionization votes in decades - is expected to slow, perhaps stymie, the...

Pete Camarata, 1946-2014

This obituary was originally published on the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) website, here . Teamsters mourn the passing of brother Pete Camarata, one of the founders of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, who died at his home in Chicago on February 9th. Pete was the real deal—a Teamster who stood for principle at a time when few others would dare to. Camarata attended a meeting of Teamsters for a Decent Contract in 1975, and quickly became a leader and inspiration to many Teamsters. He went home from that meeting to his own Detroit Local 299, where the young man was a steward who had...

"Left-wing cartoons and comics offer unique view of mid-20th century"

This review was originally published by the Labor and Working-Class History Association, and appears on their website here . To orders copies of the book, click here . This new book of political cartoons, In an Era of Wars and Revolutions: American Socialist Cartoons of the Mid-Twentieth Century , edited by Sean Matgamma, should be of interest to labour historians and those interested in mid-20th century Left politics. The title page of this unique volume of reprints indicates the art is “By Carlo and others.” Jesse Cohen, the artist who called himself “Carlo” was, along with Laura Gray, the...

Workers' Control of Industry in Bolshevik Russia

A MISTAKE MADE BY BOLSHEVIKI (From The Boston Traveler, Nov 21,1918) One of the big mistakes made by the Bolsheviki in Russia, was their failure after they got in power to keep managing brains in charge of businesses. They assumed that ownership of properties conferred upon them special magical powers which would enable them to operate businesses efficiently. If we may believe the dark reports that come from Russia, and there seems to be reason for doubting them, business has been paralyzed, factories are closed down and workers are everywhere down and workers are everywhere idle. The new...

The Origins of Work’s Control of Industry in Revolutionary Russia

A MISTAKE MADE BY BOLSHEVIKI (From The Boston Traveler, Nov 21,1918) One of the big mistakes made by the Bolsheviki in Russia, was their failure after they got in power to keep managing brains in charge of businesses. They assumed that ownership of properties conferred upon them special magical powers which would enable them to operate businesses efficiently. If we may believe the dark reports that come from Russia, and there seems to be reason for doubting them, business has been paralyzed, factories are closed down and workers are everywhere down and workers are everywhere idle. The new...

Hegemony is not in the DNA

The main theses of Leo Panitch’s and Sam Gindin’s book The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire, an important new book which Paul Hampton reviewed recently in Solidarity , are restatements of what the authors have argued in many articles. They are, I think, plain fact and important fact. The forty-odd years of turbulence since the end in the early 1970s of the 1950s-60s “golden age” of West European, Japanese, and American capitalism have not brought a relative decline of the USA and a rise of inter-imperialist rivalries. They have brought the extension of...

The 1930s: From the New Deal to the War Deal

It may be difficult to remember that the American economy ever fell to the bottom of the most severe and protracted depression in the history of capitalism, during the 1930s. The depression decade has almost been pushed into the backyard of history away from the loud and sustained paeans of adulations about the fabulous production of the 1950s. No wonder: it can hardly be pointed to as a strong argument in praise of American capitalism, especially since this was the last decade of a peacetime economy. The performance was scarcely impressive. "The Promise of American Life" has not been...

Third camp memories: an outsider's view

A contribution to our ongoing symposium of reflection and recollections of the "third camp" left in the United States. Click here to view the rest of the symposium. Somehow, a copy of the lively, Chicago-based American Socialist found me in the Spring of 1965, at the University of Illinois in Champaign (my home town), at a moment when I was months out of the DeLeonite Socialist Labor Party, and not quite yet in Students for a Democratic Society. Around this time, Hal Draper visited the campus and spoke movingly about the Free Speech Movement. Jump down a year or so and a couple of SDS chapters...

The Fair Deal Has Created the Climate in Which McCarthyism Flourishes - Does It Defend Democratic Rights?

Every spokesman and follower of the Fair Deal says and believes that one of its chief claims to the support of the American people and one of its most important objectives is its defense of, and efforts to extend, democratic rights. This is also one of the central aims of democratic socialism. What, then, separates and distinguishes the socialists, and specifically the Independent Socialist League, from the liberal Fair Dealers when it comes to the question of democratic rights? It would be wrong to question the personal sincerity of the Fair Dealers when they say that they are for democratic...

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.