Americas

On 21 and 22 May, 2022, the congress of the Socialist Left (the Mexican section of the IMT) was held in Mexico City, with about 85 attending both in person and online. The event saw lively and enthusiastic discussions about the national and world political situation, and the tasks ahead for building the forces of Marxism in Mexico and across Latin America!

Just as all of the polls predicted over the last three months, Gustavo Petro led the first round of voting for the Colombian presidential election with an astonishing 8.5 million votes (40 percent). Sadly, despite Petro’s own prediction, he did not manage to win the election outright in the first round by gaining a majority of 50 percent or more. And despite the predictions of many, Rodolfo Hernández, the right-wing demagogue who has used social networks as his main means of campaigning, managed to surpass

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On the weekend of May 21, 2022, the Canadian Marxists who are organized in Fightback/La Riposte socialiste held their largest congress ever. Over 280 people came to Toronto from dozens of cities showing the impressive expansion of the organization over the past couple of years. While the Canadian left is despondent, the mood of this congress contrasted sharply, dominated by enthusiasm and optimism. The Marxists are advancing!

With the presidential elections in Colombia less than a week away, the ruling class has conducted an aggressive campaign of slander and threats with one objective: to prevent the election of Gustavo Petro, the centre-left candidate who leads the polls with a 38.8% voting intention. His nearest rival, the right-wing candidate Federico “Fico” Gutierrez has 24.6%. It is encouraging to note that the INVAMER poll in particular, found that Petro

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The Supreme Court’s position on Roe v. Wade would ban abortion access for millions of people in the US. In this podcast episode, Laura Brown (editor of Socialist Revolution) and Joel Bergman (editor of Fightback) discuss the reasons and impact of a repeal of Roe v. Wade, and provide a Marxist perspective to fight back against this egregious attack on abortion rights.

The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) has fired labor’s opening shots against the retail giant. Their organizing campaign at Staten Island warehouse JFK8 led to an electrifying victory in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) vote. Workers at the smaller LDJ5 warehouse held a similar vote shortly after that, but the ALU lost with 380 votes in favor and 618 votes against, with over a third of the workers not voting. One obstacle the union faced was the higher percentage of part-time employees at the smaller facility. Nonetheless, the ALU has a .500 batting average so far, which is impressive since it is trying to unionize through the NLRB, whose rules overwhelmingly favor management.

Sunday morning in Buffalo, NY saw scenes of horror as a white supremacist terrorist opened fire at a supermarket, murdering ten people and injuring three more. Almost all of those killed were Black, as the shooter had intentionally targeted a grocery store with a majority-Black clientele. This is an utter tragedy and an attack on the entire working class.

Over the past few weeks, a shortage of baby formula has grown into a nationwide crisis, leaving millions of families scrambling for safe food for their infants. With an out-of-stock rate of over40%, many parents are driving for miles and waiting weeks for backlogged deliveries—if they can find the right formula for their babies in the first place. A function of the irrational nature of the capitalist market, formula first started disappearing from store

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On 12 May, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) reported that inflation in April was 6%, pushing annualised inflation up to 58%, its highest level in thirty years. On the same day, hundreds of thousands of protesters arrived in Buenos Aires from all over the country, filling the Plaza de Mayo to participate in the Federal March organised by the unemployed workers’ organisation, Unidad Piquetera. The protest denounced hunger and poverty, and demanded work and wages.

“We’re not just at war to support the Ukrainians. We’re fundamentally at war, although somewhat through a proxy, with Russia, and it’s important that we win,” said US representative Seth Moulton during a Fox News appearance. He was perhaps being more frank than others, but the message has been coming loud and clear from official representatives of Biden’s administration. Asked what the US would consider success in the war, Biden’s Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said “we want to see Russia weakened”.

Yet another unprecedented bombshell has rocked the already polarized world of American politics and class struggle. In a leaked internal memo drafted by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the majority of that reactionary body outlines its case for the judicial overturn of Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 decision that ruled that the US Constitution protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. Now, as part of the cynical maneuvering by a segment of the ruling class to divert the class war into the so-called “culture war,” what should be a fundamental democratic right is to be unceremoniously trashed.

A wave of unionization in the United States is enthusing and inspiring workers all around the world. The first Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York, is now represented by the independent Amazon Labor Union. Every week, dozens of Starbucks coffee shops are filling to join Starbucks Workers United. A first group of workers at an Apple Store signed their cards to join the Communication Workers of America. There have been ...

After the successful vote to unionize the first Amazon workplace at the JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island, the newly formed Amazon Labor Union (ALU) called for a rally on Sunday, April 24 to support the workers at the adjacent LDJ5 sorting facility, who are voting this week on whether to become the second unionized Amazon site. Together, the warehouses are a key logistical point for Amazon’s operations in NYC, employing nearly 10,000 workers.