United States
“All teachers, plant workers, custodians, we all need to band together to be protected”
Alabama loses two more educators to COVID-19
By Nancy Hanover, 7 December 2020
A veteran teacher recalls the victims and calls for uniting workers against the deadly return to in-person schools.
Trump incites fascist violence in Georgia
By Patrick Martin, 7 December 2020
In his first rally speech since his defeat in the November 2020 presidential election, Trump called for overturning the election result, demanded “revenge” against his political opponents and spoke about sending “the military in” to “radical left” cities.
One-quarter of Macomb County Jail inmates test positive for coronavirus
By Eboni Davis, 7 December 2020
The county as a whole has had more than 39,000 cases throughout the year, equal to nearly 4.5 percent of the entire population.
“There is a war against the people, and we have to unite under a common cause.”
New York City workers condemn mayor’s plan to reopen schools Monday
By Sandy English, 7 December 2020
The working class in New York City has rejected the plans of the Democratic Party to reopen schools in the largest district in the United States amid rising positivity rates and hospitalizations for COVID-19
The unseen plight of undocumented workers in the US during the pandemic
By Melody Isley, 7 December 2020
Deemed “essential” workers, but denied legal recognition and financial or medical resources, the undocumented work in high-risk industries where COVID-19 spreads at unrivaled rates.
Student government delegates at the University of Michigan speak out against the administration’s COVID-19 policies
By Jesse Thomas, 7 December 2020
The decision to reopen the university residence halls and conduct in-person learning immediately provoked opposition from the student body, culminating in a nine-day strike in September by graduate student instructors.
“It could have been prevented”
Sixth worker dies from COVID-19 at FCA’s Warren Truck plant
By James Brewer and Marcus Day, 7 December 2020
Warren Truck has been the deadliest plant among the Detroit Three’s factories in the US during the pandemic, based on the limited data available on workers’ deaths.
999 South Carolina teachers sickout
7 December 2020
Food prices, waste rise as food insecurity affects tens of millions in the US
By Alex Findijs, 7 December 2020
Supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic have forced farmers to destroy food and prices to rise while tens of millions of people struggle to put enough food on the table.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: The joke’s on who?
By Ed Hightower, 7 December 2020
Writer-performer Sacha Baron Cohen cannot resist mocking even the most undeserving targets, including a Holocaust survivor who tries to disabuse the title character of his (feigned) anti-Semitism.
SEIU Healthcare reaches tentative agreement with management in Illinois nursing home strike
By Alexander Fangmann, 7 December 2020
The union abandoned wage demands and any meaningful protections for workers in order to herd them back into facilities with active COVID-19 outbreaks.
COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death in the US
By Benjamin Mateus, 7 December 2020
COVID-19 is inundating hospitals across the US. The case fatality rate is already seeing an upturn, which means that hundreds of patients who will die in the next few weeks would have survived had they been infected just a month ago.
FBI gathered US website visitor logs under the post-9/11 PATRIOT Act
By Kevin Reed, 5 December 2020
As debate resumes in Washington, D.C. over renewal of special provisions of the PATRIOT Act, a series of letters released by the New York Times shows that US law enforcement and intelligence agencies are continuing to carry out electronic surveillance of the public.
US occupational safety agency fails to report hundreds of health care worker deaths
By Alex Johnson, 5 December 2020
The officially facilitated coverup of worker deaths has continued in the midst of exploding coronavirus infections and deaths over the past month.
Trump administration plans five federal executions before January 20, authorizes use of firing squads, electric chair and asphyxiation
By Kate Randall, 5 December 2020
The rush to carry out these executions in the weeks leading up to inauguration, and the regulation permitting various barbaric forms of putting prisoners to death, are in line with the violence being promoted by fascistic forces in and around President Trump following his electoral defeat.
As US stocks set record highs
November jobs report shows collapse of economic growth
By Jacob Crosse, 5 December 2020
As daily infections, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 continued to explode, Friday’s US employment report showed a disastrous drop in new jobs and a dramatic increase in long-term unemployment. Wall Street celebrated with record highs on all major stock indexes.
999 University of Michigan students speak out
5 December 2020
999 US autoworkers respond to strikes in Korea
5 December 2020
999 Student debt
5 December 2020
Pentagon to Biden: Latin America a major battlefield in war with China
By Bill Van Auken, 5 December 2020
The chief of the US Southern Command warned Wednesday that US imperialism’s “competitive edge” is eroding as a result of growing Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere.
Washington, DC public schools return students to classes amid record-breaking COVID-19 spike
By Nick Barrickman, 5 December 2020
The sudden return of students to classrooms amid a devastating surge of COVID-19 cases and deaths is based upon businesses demanding a complete reopening of the economy.
Michigan educators, autoworkers and healthcare workers: Unite to stop COVID-19 and save lives now!
Michigan Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, 5 December 2020
Urgent and far-reaching action is needed to save thousands of lives across Michigan this winter. Join our committee now!
999 US academics/Gates argue for distributing vaccine based on race
5 December 2020
Number of infections among UPS airline pilots doubled in one month
By Steve Filips, 5 December 2020
One hundred pilots for UPS Airlines were infected with coronavirus last month, double the amount for the rest of the year, the pilots’ union announced on Nov. 30.
999 (12/3) Outbreak at Michigan Prison
5 December 2020
State Supreme Court rejects Trump suit in Wisconsin
By Patrick Martin, 4 December 2020
The decision by a Republican-majority court was one of a series of setbacks for Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Hundreds evacuated in the face of fast-moving Southern California wildfire
By Rafael Azul, 4 December 2020
That the continuing fire season has caught California with insufficient resources with which to combat the record spate of wildfires is an indictment of the capitalist profit system.
Cleveland Heights Teachers Union calls off strike hours after picket lines are formed
By Isaac Finn, 4 December 2020
On Wednesday morning, many educators in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District set up picket lines, only to be informed hours later that the strike had been cancelled.
New surge of COVID-19 cases at GM Fort Wayne amid reports of expanding outbreaks at other factories
By Shannon Jones, 4 December 2020
There have been 21 new confirmed COVID-19 cases so far this week at the GM Fort Wayne, Indiana truck plant, while management has been seeking to withhold income from infected workers.
Cancellations and postponements as disaster in college football continues
By Andy Thompson, 4 December 2020
The University of Michigan has canceled its game this upcoming weekend against the University of Maryland after 12 people in the program tested positive for coronavirus.
New US unemployment claims top 712,000 as mass layoffs continue
By Jacob Crosse, 4 December 2020
Historic job losses coupled with the out-of-control spread of COVID-19 have left millions of workers on the brink while Wall Street continues to set record highs
Kremlin girds itself for a Biden presidency, while still refusing to acknowledge his electoral victory
By Andrea Peters, 4 December 2020
The sense in Moscow is that however much hopes for an easing of tensions with the US were dashed by the realities of Trump’s four years in office, the situation is likely to become even worse under Biden.
999 Pentagon warns about China in Latin America
4 December 2020
999 Democrats' silence on Trump's speech
4 December 2020
999 Washington DC school reopening plans
4 December 2020
Capitalism’s winter of death
Immediate action is necessary to save hundreds of thousands of lives!
By Statement of the Socialist Equality Party, 4 December 2020
Unless urgent measures are taken to shut down nonessential production, a quarter-million lives could be lost to the COVID-19 pandemic within the next three months.
Introduction to The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History
By David North, 4 December 2020
This is the introduction by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North to a volume, available for delivery in January 2021, containing the main interviews and essays published by the WSWS exposing the New York Times’ racialist falsification of American history.
999 RF Cmte statement: GM declares autoworkers are "not essential workers"
4 December 2020
The DSA pays tribute to David Dinkins
By Fred Mazelis, 3 December 2020
The DSA’s extraordinary tribute to Dinkins shows exactly why this organization is the bitterest opponent of socialism.
“I just have been in a fog since the incident”
Two years since the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, California
By Linda Rios and Alexa Castro, 3 December 2020
While environmental conditions, such as strong winds and low humidity, factored into the severity of the disaster, the event was largely due to negligence by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the utility company which provides electricity to northern California.
Author of Ten Days That Shook the World
100 years since US socialist journalist John Reed’s death
By Sandy English and James Macdonald, 3 December 2020
John Reed’s life became devoted to documenting the struggles of the oppressed. His greatest work was Ten Days That Shook the World, an indelible, eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Illinois nursing home workers strike in second week as pandemic surges: Build rank-and-file-committees to save lives
By Jessica Goldstein and Kristina Betinis, 3 December 2020
The strike of some 700 Chicago-area Infinity Healthcare workers entered its second week as the state records COVID-19 deaths.
Massive service cuts to public transit planned in Massachusetts
By Will McCalliss, 3 December 2020
The impacted services include local and commuter train, bus and ferry transportation, with the planned changes to be implemented in different modes of transportation at varying times in 2021.
Bipartisan $908 billion “emergency relief framework” receives support from Democratic congressional leadership
By Jacob Crosse, 3 December 2020
Limited details reveal a proposal that includes generous handouts and protections to corporations while excluding another round of stimulus checks and reducing unemployment funds for workers as the pandemic enters its deadliest phase.
Police department in Mississippi pilots program linked to home security cameras
By Scott Burris, 3 December 2020
Software developed by the security company Fūsus allows police departments to access home security cameras like Amazon Ring and create a real-time cloud network of public and private video streams across entire cities. The implementation of this program is an attack on privacy and other democratic rights.
Facebook speech falsely claims massive vote fraud
Donald Trump’s Mein Kampf
By Patrick Martin, 3 December 2020
Trump is deliberately inciting fascist forces through his baseless claims of a “stolen election.”
Mobilize the working class to halt school reopenings in New York City!
The New York City Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, 3 December 2020
Everything now depends upon the building of rank-and-file safety committees in every school and neighborhood across the city, completely independent of the UFT and the Democrats who are conspiring to reopen schools.
US coronavirus pandemic deaths heading towards 3,000 per day
By Chase Lawrence, 3 December 2020
The explosion in deaths is a consequence of the criminal “herd immunity” policy pursued by both Democrats and Republicans which has entailed the reopening of schools and nonessential production in order to maintain profit making and ensure a continued rise in the stock market.
Nurses union in New York state ends strikes as COVID-19 hospitalizations surpass 100,000 for first time
By Jerry White, 3 December 2020
The nurses who went on strike at two New York state hospitals Tuesday gave voice to the anger of millions of health care workers across the US and internationally who are battling the pandemic with inadequate staffing and protections.
UAW keeping workers at Ohio Ventra parts plant on the job without contract during pandemic
By Zac Thorton, 3 December 2020
Forced to continue working under a contract which expired in July, workers at the parts plant are reaching their breaking point as UAW maintains silence over negotiations.
Hundreds of nurses strike in Albany and New Rochelle, New York
By Josh Varlin, 2 December 2020
Nurses at both Albany Medical Center and Montefiore New Rochelle walked out Tuesday over staffing, PPE and other pandemic-critical issues.
zzzz999 College sports and coronavirus developments
2 December 2020
Los Angeles school district plans full reopening as COVID-19 outbreaks mount in schools
By Dan Conway, 2 December 2020
Despite claims that they do not intend to fully reopen schools, behind closed doors the school district is in fact planning such moves with the teachers union.
Sixteen-year-old Wisconsin high school student dies of COVID-19
By Fabian Salgado, 2 December 2020
Even though Isai Morocho’s school was not meeting in person, his father, mother and brother all work in-person jobs, allowing for endless possible encounters with the virus.
zzzzz999 Two years since Camp fire destroyed Paradise
2 December 2020
Amid pandemic surge in school-aged children
Chicago Public Schools unveils reopening plan
By Alexander Fangmann, 2 December 2020
The Chicago Public Schools reopening plan ignores the deadly reality of COVID-19 and will result in the needless deaths of even more Illinois teachers, students and family members.
Health care workers in the US speak out: “We have PTSD”
By Bryan Dyne, 2 December 2020
The dire situation facing frontline health care workers during the pandemic is only getting worse as the number of hospitalizations in the US surpasses 100,000.
zzz999 John Reed 100 years since his death
2 December 2020
Who is Biden’s top economic adviser Brian Deese?
By Jerry White, 2 December 2020
The executive from the giant investment firm BlackRock played a leading role in the destruction of autoworkers’ jobs and living standards during the 2009 restructuring of GM and Chrysler.
Music and aerosols: What the research reveals about the performing arts during a pandemic
By Benjamin Mateus, 2 December 2020
The Skagit Valley Chorale rehearsal on March 10 was one of the nation’s first super-spreading events. A University of Colorado study provided a critical recognition that the virus that caused COVID-19 spread predominately in the aerosol form.
Faurecia parts workers launch Rank-and-File Safety Committee in Saline, Michigan
Faurecia Saline Rank-and-File Safety Committee, 2 December 2020
Autoworkers in Saline, like their brothers and sisters at Faurecia Gladstone in Indiana, join a national network of rank-and-file committees that is fighting for a complete shutdown of the auto industry with full compensation for workers.
Trump campaign threatens Republican officials certifying election results
By Jacob Crosse, 2 December 2020
Following Trump’s lead, an attorney for the president suggested fired DHS Cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs should be “taken out at dawn and shot.”
Biden-Harris tech policy: militarism and censorship
By Kevin Reed, 2 December 2020
Democratic Party president-elect Joseph Biden is formulating policies and assembling a team committed to the use of advanced technologies for the purposes of warfare and suppression of free speech.
14-year-old Michigan youth who was brutally treated by police dies of COVID-19
By Valery Tsekov, 2 December 2020
Fourteen-year-old Honestie Hodges has died from complications of COVID-19 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, two weeks after being hospitalized on her birthday.
The coronavirus pandemic and the case for expropriating the financial oligarchy
By Eric London, 2 December 2020
As the deaths pile up in every country, the ruling class is taking advantage of the pandemic to orchestrate an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich.
The conspiracy to reopen schools
By Andre Damon, 1 December 2020
Despite a months-long media campaign claiming it is safe to reopen schools, every reputable scientific study has shown that closing schools is one of the most effective ways to contain the pandemic.
999 Jeff Bezos' "Earth Fund"
1 December 2020
999 Biden tech policy team backs censorship
1 December 2020
Biden economic team: Straight from Wall Street
By Patrick Martin, 1 December 2020
Behind a screen of racial and gender diversity, the Biden administration will be a government of, by and for the ruling class.
“Are any of these trucks worth any of our brothers and sisters dying?”
COVID-19 cases explode at GM Fort Wayne as UAW abets cover-up
By Shannon Jones, 1 December 2020
Management memos obtained by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter document 50 cases in the plant between November 6 and November 23. Eleven cases were reported November 20 alone, indicating the rate of infection is increasing.
Young people speak out about the unprecedented collapse in their living conditions since the pandemic began
By Noah Ryan and Nick Barrickman, 1 December 2020
Over half of all people between the ages of 18 and 29 in the United States have been forced to move in with relatives or friends since the pandemic began in March.
US Steel announces electric arc furnace in Alabama as crisis mounts in global steel industry
By Jessica Goldstein, 1 December 2020
Production for the American steel industry declined across the board in 2019 as a result of retaliatory tariffs, and global production sank even further in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
New York City educators denounce plans to reopen schools
By Sandy English, 1 December 2020
Educators throughout New York City have reacted with outrage at the plans of Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio and the UFT to reopen schools on December 7.
Evictions caused nearly 11,000 excess COVID-19 deaths in six months in the US
By Jacob Crosse, 1 December 2020
Data compiled by researchers at five major US universities illustrates the deadly consequences of throwing workers and their families out of their homes during the pandemic.
“GM’s one of the biggest liars out there”
GM Fairfax worker speaks out over management-UAW cover-up of COVID-19 spread
By James Tatsch, 1 December 2020
The coronavirus has been surging across Kansas and Missouri, with both states recording their highest totals over the proceeding days with no sign of abating.
Cleveland-Heights University Heights School District threatens to halt health care benefits if teachers strike
By Isaac Finn, 30 November 2020
A school district just outside of Cleveland, Ohio is threatening to cut healthcare payments to 500 teachers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Microsoft’s new “Productivity Score” helps employers spy on workers
By Mike Ingram, 30 November 2020
Microsoft has released new software that turns its Office 365 product into a full-fledged workplace surveillance tool, allowing corporations to spy on their workforce in multiple ways.
This week in history: November 30-December 6
30 November 2020
75 years ago: General Douglas MacArthur, the effective leader of US-occupied Japan, ordered the arrest of former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe and eight of the country’s other civilian and military leaders for war crimes, setting the stage for criminal prosecutions.
New York City schools to reopen amid explosion of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, deaths
By Bryan Dyne, 30 November 2020
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement is a warning to the working class in the United States and internationally that even as numerous coronavirus vaccines are nearing completion, workers and youth will continue to be sent into workplaces and schools to needlessly get sick and die.
999 Jeff Bezos' "Earth Fund"
30 November 2020
999 NYC mayoral race
30 November 2020
999 Predictions of post Thanksgiving surge in the US
30 November 2020
“We are not criminals”
ICE detainees in New Jersey stage hunger strike over coronavirus threat
By Erik Schreiber, 30 November 2020
Nine immigrants held at Bergen County Jail in Hackensack are demanding release from the rat-infested facility where social distancing is not possible.
Trade unions stage scattered protests on Amazon’s Black Friday
By Kayla Costa, 30 November 2020
With opposition by Amazon workers growing against brutal work conditions and the lack of protection from the pandemic, the unions and their pseudo-left supporters are trying to contain resistance within the confines of corporate-controlled political parties and the capitalist system.
FCA ramps up production at Warren Truck despite death of temporary worker from COVID-19
By James Brewer, 28 November 2020
The worker who succumbed to the virus had been hired less than three weeks before he became sick and had told his coworkers that he had waited a long time to get the chance for a job at FCA.
Leaked documents from Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center expose worldwide conspiracy to suppress workers’ resistance
By Tom Carter, 28 November 2020
The leaked documents also expose the use of spies from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which has a long history of surveillance, infiltration and violence against the workers’ movement.
New ultra-right Supreme Court majority invokes religion to block COVID-19 safety measures
By John Burton, 28 November 2020
The Supreme Court struck down New York’s measures to control the spread of COVID-19 by limiting indoor events, including religious services, heralding the power of the new five-justice, ultra-reactionary bloc.
New IRS rule will push many US small businesses to the brink
By Jessica Goldstein, 28 November 2020
A new ruling by the Treasury Department will affect millions of small businesses that received a portion of the total $717 billion in relief funds from the US Small Business Administration through the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
Massive spread of COVID-19 in Kentucky schools and death of 15-year-old girl prompts statewide school closures
By Warren Duzak, 28 November 2020
Almost 10,000 K-12 students and 2,000 faculty members are presently in quaratine or isolation across Kentucky.
Michigan COVID-19 hospitalizations pushing medical facilities to occupancy limits
By Kevin Reed, 28 November 2020
The exponential surge in coronavirus cases in Michigan during the months of October and November has resulted in an alarming increase in the number of patients entering hospitals across the state with 53 facilities at 75 percent or higher bed occupancy.
California Highway Patrol evicts homeless families on Thanksgiving eve
By Jacob Crosse, 28 November 2020
Citing COVID-19 state mandated shelter-in-place orders, families and activists with Reclaim and Rebuild our Community attempted to take up residence in vacant publicly owned homes.
Ten years since WikiLeaks published the US diplomatic cables
By Thomas Scripps, 28 November 2020
WikiLeaks contributed to a growing recognition among workers and young people that state criminality and ruling class conspiracies are not accidents or the work of a few bad individuals, but the product of a whole social system based on the rule of competing oligarchies which must be overthrown.
Who is Alejandro Mayorkas?
By Meenakshi Jagadeesan, 28 November 2020
Biden’s pick for DHS secretary was a key figure in the Obama administration’s detention and mass deportation of immigrants.
UFCW ignores strike vote by West Virginia Kroger workers, pushes through sellout agreement
By Ray Coleman, 27 November 2020
The contract rammed through by the United Food and Commercial Workers would impose lower wages and higher health care costs onto essential workers in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Layoffs leave New York City-area nursing homes unprepared as the pandemic intensifies
By Erik Schreiber, 27 November 2020
Faced with increased costs, care facilities are cutting staff, jeopardizing the lives of elderly residents.
999 Warren Truck update
27 November 2020
Study finds meatpacking plants were responsible for 8 percent of coronavirus cases in opening phase of pandemic in the US
By Cordell Gascoigne, 27 November 2020
The findings of the study are an indictment not only of the major meatpacking companies themselves but the entire political establishment.
Censored Planet: University of Michigan research finds worldwide increase in internet censorship
By Kevin Reed, 27 November 2020
Data collected by a group of UM researchers has revealed that online interference is growing internationally and that “the world’s freest countries are not safe from internet censorship.”
US CDC plans to reduce quarantine time after potential COVID-19 exposure
By Benjamin Mateus, 27 November 2020
The purpose of reducing the isolation period to as little as seven days is to ensure workers will be back on the job faster, even though the CDC admits this will increase the transmission of the virus.
Meet the Censored: Andre Damon
By Matt Taibbi, 26 November 2020
Increased content moderation has been sold as a tool to control the far right, but the World Socialist Web Site was among the first to sound the alarm.
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