Earlier this week, six workers were killed at the Bhilai Steel Plant in Kolkatha following an explosion at a blast furnace. In another incident, Rakhi Sonkar, a worker at Swiss Auto, took her own life after being dismissed for being a few minutes late. Sonkar was an outspoken labour activist who was active in fighting for workers rights. Her fellow workers protested about her death, while in another area of Wazirpur, near New Delhi, thousands of steel workers are involved in a prolonged strike over low wages and unsafe working conditions.
Blog
-
Indian workers killed at work while others remain on strike
-
Thai military junta tighten controls on workers and dissidents
While a small group of unionists employed at KFC Thailand have managed to improve their position, for most workers the situation is getting worse. A new report has just highlighted the slavery-like conditions for migrant workers in Thailand’s fishing industry. Since coming to power the junta has unleashed a nationalist tirade against foreign workers, deporting tens of thousands of workers. At the same time, the crackdown against activists continues with more arrests, click here and here. Workers internationally need to act against the military junta.
No to the military
Free all political prisoners
Organising is not a crime
-
Korean workers on indefinite strike against ongoing repression
As reported previously, the suicide of Ho-seok Yeom, the chair of the local Samsung Electronics Service union, was a huge shock and highlighted the repressive nature of the giant Samsung Corporation. Samsung unionists have been on an indefinite strike against the company, click here for photos. This year South Korean workers have seen an increase in repression towards unionists and labour activists. South Korean workers have a proud history of organising and fighting back against huge odds. -
New report on global supply chain an indictment on drive for profits
What the massacres of thousands of workers at Rana Plaza, Tazreen and Karachi, in the last two years show, is that these deaths are not an unfortunate by-product, but an essential part of the global exploitation of our class. A new report once again highlights how the garment outsourcing model has essentially been structured to exploit workers as much as possible. To win we need to scale up our organisations to organise and fight at a global level.
Workers Change the World
-
Australian workers protest against anti-worker budget
In an impressive show of force, up to 40,000 workers defied anti strike laws to march in Melbourne against the massive cutbacks against workers’ living standards detailed in the latest government budget, see photos and video. These attacks by the conservative government are part of the ongoing offensive by governments and capitalists all around the world to make us pay for this latest crisis in the capitalist system. They want to make us work harder for less money so they can increase profits. We need to organise and take action together as a class. -
Thousands of Palestinians strike in support of jailed hunger strikers
As reported recently, hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli jails are on protracted hunger strike against their unlawful imprisonment. Unfortunately, their plight is mostly overlooked amid the many other crises of the region. In an attempt to press their case, support activists organised a strike in East Jerusalem earlier this week. For solidarity and updates on Palestinian political prisoners, click here. -
One month after being sacked, NXP workers continue their fight
As previously reported, workers at the giant Dutch corporation of NXP semiconductors are continuing to fight against the company’s union busting activities. It has been just over a month since 24 union officials were sacked by the company for their union activities. The company is located in a Special Economic Zones where union activities are often curtailed. The workers’ cause is backed up by global unions. For updates and solidarity, click here. -
Unionists fight dismissals at Turkish media company
Hot on the heels of the Soma mine massacre, the situation for workers in Turkey is becoming harder with more companies trying to destroy our organisations. This week, 45 workers at M&T Reklam, a large Turkish media company, were dismissed after they tried to organise a union presence to represent them in contract negotiations. This is a direct attack on all workers and our right to organise. The workers are taking action against the company. -
The Hidden History of Women’s Liberation
Wed, May 28, 2014
-
Pirate Party Protest Against Fascism as Nazis Enter European Parliament
Representatives from all parties in the Swedish parliament took the call of Pirate Party and protested against fascists and nazis who entered the European Parliament during the last elections in May 2014. The recent elections to the European Parliament saw many fascist parties entering the European Union’s own parliament. In France, National Front – whose founder
The post Pirate Party Protest Against Fascism as Nazis Enter European Parliament appeared first on revolution-news.com.
by Susan Rosenthal
BOOK REVIEW: Women and Class: Towards a Socialist Feminism (2011), by Hal Draper, August Bebel, Eleanor Marx, Clara Zetkin, and Rosa Luxemburg.* Edited by E. Haberkern.
The organic connection between women’s liberation and socialism has been shoved so deeply down the Memory Hole that most people know nothing about it. Women and Class brings this rich history to light, revealing important lessons that our rulers prefer we not learn.
Part 1: “The Class Roots of the Feminist Movement” explains how the world’s first revolutionary women’s movement developed during the French Revolution, disappeared during the reaction, then re-emerged when the working class rose again in the mid-1800s.
Part II: ‘The Debate in the Social Democracy” chronicles the resurgence of the socialist and women’s movements during the later 1800s and early 1900s with a focus on efforts to combat capitalist feminism (commonly called ‘bourgeois’ feminism) in society and also inside the socialist movement.
A movement of women
As Draper explains, various women (and men) had written about women’s rights prior to the French Revolution, but no organized movement of women was possible until the mass of society began to move.
During the height of the French Revolution, between 1789 and 1793, the masses rose against their feudal oppressors, and the mass of women was an integral part of that uprising.
Working women were central to the capture of the Bastille, key to returning the king to Paris from Versailles, crucial to the storming of the Tuileries, and actively involved in every protest, insurrection, and battle to defend the revolution. In 1792, the women of Lyons seized control of their city in response to intolerable economic conditions.
The emerging capitalist class rode to power on the back of this movement. After the last remnants of feudalism were dismantled, the Church disempowered, and the aristocracy defeated, the capitalists had to stop the revolution from growing into a force that would also sweep them away.
The Revolutionary Women
Having overthrown one class of tyrants, the masses were unwilling to submit to a new class of tyrants. Legal equality meant nothing to those with no property, so the left wing strained to push the revolution forward to achieve social equality and mass democracy.
In May of 1793, the most militant women organized themselves into The Society of Revolutionary Women (La Société des Citoyennes Républicaines Révolutionnaires) also called the Revolutionary Women (Femmes Révolutionnaires). They did not counter-pose women’s rights to the needs of the revolution; they fought for women’s rights to advance the revolution.
In order to bring the masses to heel, the Jacobins (the capitalist party) moved to crush the left opposition and, in particular, the Revolutionary Women.
In September 1793, the Jacobin government slandered and then arrested a leader of the Revolutionary Women, Claire Lacombe, on trumped-up charges. A month later, the RW meeting hall was sacked. After that, women’s societies were outlawed. The following year, all women were denied the right of association. These escalating attacks on the movement were resisted, but the newly-born working class was neither large enough nor economically important enough to build an alternative to capitalism.
The history of all battles is written by the victors, in this case, the capitalist class. As a result, the achievements of the Society of Revolutionary Women and its leaders – Claire Lacombe, Etta Palm, and Pauline Léon – have virtually disappeared from the record. Instead, histories of the period highlight the writings of bourgeois feminists like Olympe De Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, and George Sand who had nothing but contempt for the mass of women who had fought to change society from below.