The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Parties are assisting workers everywhere in the building of an interconnected network of rank-and-file committees, to organize a united counter-offensive against inequality, exploitation, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapidly escalating imperialist world war.
There are now rank-and-file committees of autoworkers, educators, Amazon and logistics workers, postal workers, bus drivers, and many other sections of the working class.
Rank-and-file committees are of, by and for the rank-and-file workers, who have a different set of interests than management, the bosses, the politicians, and the trade union apparatus, who oppress workers in order to defend the profits of the ruling elite.
Contact us now to join a committee. If there is not already a committee in your workplace, industry or region, we will help you start one!
After workers voted down a second UAW-backed contract by 73 percent, local union officials called a membership meeting for Sunday. The following is a statement by the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee.
Days after making a splash in the local Calgary media by unveiling a new $75 million state-of-the-art warehouse facility, Coca-Cola Canada Bottling Limited unceremoniously axed an injured worker with 35 years at the company—essentially crying poor.
A “no” vote on the new TA and strike by the 1,300 Nexteer workers could spark a mass movement of auto parts workers and galvanize production workers at the Big Three factories.
Workers at the facility last month founded a rank-and-file committee affiliated with the national USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee, citing the failure of the American Postal Workers Union to enforce contractual rights or respond to safety hazards.
The result of the deal used to betray a three-day strike is that workers will be poorer due to inflation when the contract expires.
A contract locking in 4 percent annualized wage increases was already insufficient the day it was ratified. The war against Iran—a war of aggression waged by US imperialism that is now directly raising the cost of living for workers across the country—makes the inadequacy of this contract all the more stark.
Last Thursday, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 called off a state-wide strike at around 1:00 in the morning, announcing the deal and a snap vote.
The following statement was issued by the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee to workers at the Saginaw, Michigan auto parts plant who forced the UAW to conduct a strike authorization vote on Wednesday and Thursday.
On October 24, the World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees brought together a panel of leading scientists to explain how the virus that causes COVID-19 could be eliminated.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Workers in the United States and throughout the world must decide to act collectively and finally put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2022 must not be another nightmarish year of mass infections, illness and death!
The implementation of a scientifically guided and progressive response to the pandemic is possible only to the extent that these policies find the necessary social foundation in a mass movement of the working class on a global scale.
“The aim of this global initiative is to develop a genuine broad-based movement of the international working class, and to encourage workers in all countries to break out of the prison-like shackles in which they are confined by the existing state-controlled and antidemocratic unions, staffed by right-wing pro-capitalist executives.” – DAVID NORTH
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, with the political assistance of the Fourth International and the Socialist Equality Parties, will strive to unify workers in a common worldwide struggle, opposing every effort by capitalist governments and the reactionary proponents of the innumerable forms of national, ethnic and racial chauvinism and identity politics to split up the working class into warring factions.
All over the world the trade unions, including those which were founded through bitter struggles led by socialist-minded workers, now play the leading role in enforcing the dictates of management.
In this lecture, delivered in Sydney, Australia in January, 1998, David North explains this profound transformation through an historical examination of the trade unions themselves.
On August 3, 1981, 15,000 members of the union of air traffic controllers in the US—the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO)—went out on strike against their employer, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
