After 53 days on strike, members of International Association of Machinists voted on November 4 to approve Boeing’s third contract offer. The most important gain for workers was a significant wage increase — 38% over four years. Boeing also agreed to bonus payments and increased company contributions to employee 401K plans, but did not restore the defined benefit pension plan that the company ended in 2014.
“For three and a half weeks, Israeli forces have been besieging the northern Gaza Strip. Israel has almost completely blocked the entry of humanitarian aid, thereby starving the hundreds of thousands of people who live there.” That’s how the lead editorial in the October 29, 2024, Israeli daily Haaretz begins. “Given this, it’s no wonder that grave suspicions have arisen that Israel is effectively perpetrating ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza and that this operation is intended to permanently empty this area of Palestinians,” it continues, giving an accurate description of the latest stage in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
This article was authored by Bashir Abu-Manneh, who teaches in the School of Classics, English, and History at the University of Kent, in Kent, United Kingdom. Abu-Manneh addresses issues on strategy and tactics that are of vital importance to those working to end Israeli aggression and in support of the rights of the Palestinian people.
In an October 23 vote, striking members of District 751 of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) rejected the aerospace giant’s latest contract offer by 64%. The union did not release figures on how many of its 33,000 members cast a ballot. The New York Times headline on the vote referred to the rejection as “resounding.”
Just over a year since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, the war launched on Gaza by Israel in response is unrelenting: more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed, over 100,000 injured, nearly all of Gaza’s entire prewar population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and much of the territory reduced to rubble. Most Gazans blame Israel for this devastation. But a growing number also blame the leadership of Hamas for giving Israeli authorities the opening to unleash this onslaught. In addition, some Gazans point to the often-brutal punishment Hamas metes out to Palestinians who voice any criticism of the organization. Such opinions are expressed in this column written by a Palestinian in northern Gaza, and corroborated by other similar reports.
This is the second part of an interview with Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian American author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.” In the interview, Khalidi discusses two key points — among other important ideas. The first concerns the U.S. role in enabling Israel’s brutal war in the region that has now spread far beyond the Gaza Strip. The second is about the state of the Palestinian national movement.
In this interview, Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian American author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine,” discusses two key points — among other important ideas. The first concerns the U.S. role in enabling Israel’s brutal war in the region that has now spread far beyond the Gaza Strip. The second is about the state of the Palestinian national movement.
This article by Luis Feliz Leon, first published by Labor Notes, describes how the Teamsters and other unions are spinning off momentum from recent organizing fights to new battle fronts across Amazon’s logistics chain.
Workers at Amazon’s massive RDU1 fulfillment center in Garner, outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, have taken the next step in their nearly three-year effort to win union recognition. On Labor Day, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (C.A.U.S.E.) started collecting signatures on union representation cards that will then be submitted to the National Labor Relations Board, petitioning for an election. World-Outlook interviewed C.A.U.S.E. co-founder and vice president Mary Hill via video to learn more about this important fight.
This article details how Boeing concealed information on a critical flight-control system in its 737 Max plane. Ethiopian Airlines pilots had requested the information after the 2018 catastrophic crash of the same type of aircraft operated by Lion Air, an Indonesian airline. Soon after the Ethiopian Airlines’ request, a 737 Max operated by this carrier nose-dived after taking off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, killing all 157 people on board. After a lengthy investigation, and facing criminal federal charges, Boeing reached a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department to pay damages in order to avoid a public trial. Families of many of those killed in these crashes are now trying to block this deal and force the case to a trial.
On October 1, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) invaded Lebanon, the fourth time Israel has done so since 1978. The ground invasion followed a brazen Israeli escalation: exploding personal electronic devices, intense airstrikes, and the assassination of an array of Hezbollah leaders, including the group’s general secretary Hassan Nasrallah. Hours after the invasion of Lebanon, Iran launched 181 ballistic missiles at Israel, escalating the shadow war between the two countries. These events have posed the genuine danger of an even wider regional war that could spread beyond the Middle East.
More than 45,000 dockworkers, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), in 14 ports along the East and Gulf coasts of the United States — from Maine to Texas — went on strike October 1. It’s their first walkout since 1977. The entire working class should embrace their cause. The labor movement can help win the battle for public opinion and a fair contract. A victory in the strike will reverberate across the country and help everyone trying to improve wages, benefits, and job safety.
In the September 10 nationally-televised presidential debate Donald Trump declared, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating, the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in this country.” This reprehensible, wild, and utterly false claim was directed primarily at Haitian workers who have moved to Springfield in the recent past. It’s an example of the “Big Lie” technique: amplifying a falsehood over and over with the intention of persuading large numbers of people that the lie is the truth.
This article describes an accomplishment by hundreds of Amazon drivers at a delivery station in Queens, New York. A majority of these workers recently signed union authorization cards seeking representation by the Teamsters. They also marched on their employer’s offices on September 16 demanding the logistics giant recognize their union and negotiate a contract.
“Fraud Foretold?”, an essay in the political journal New Left Review, and other articles have presented convincing evidence that the official results of Venezuela’s recent election, announcing the victory of Nicolás Maduro, are likely fraudulent. This article summarizes this evidence and outlines the political developments in Venezuela over the last three decades that are the root cause of Venezuela’s current political crisis.
SEATTLE, September 12, 2024 — Members of International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 751, representing over 33,000 workers, voted by a stunning margin today to reject a new contract proposed by the Boeing Company and endorsed by the union’s top officials. “About 94.6% voted to reject the contract and 96% voted to strike, more than the two-thirds majority required by union rules to authorize a walkout,” reported The Seattle Times. The strike began at 12:01 am on September 13
The following letter from the Amazon Labor Union – International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 1 was sent on September 4, 2024, to workers at JFK8, Amazon’s giant warehouse in Staten Island, New York. It is aimed at reaching out to all JFK8 workers and drawing them into a discussion on determining a course of action to overcome Amazon’s obstructionism and force the company to negotiate a contract.
This is a press announcement released by the United Auto Workers on September 4, 2024. It describes a union organizing victory by the Ultium car battery manufacturing workers in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
Based on interviews with many flight attendants, this article paints an accurate and damning picture of the economic and social conditions these workers face today. About 110,000 flight attendants are currently employed by 14 major, and many more regional, airlines across the United States. The dire job and living conditions facing thousands of flight attendants, graphically outlined in this article, are one example of the plight of millions of working people today.
This article reports on a successful union organizing drive at an electric bus manufacturing plant in Anniston, Alabama. A majority of the 600 workers at the factory run by New Flyer — a Canadian company — voted for union representation by the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA) in January 2024. By mid May, workers ratified a contract with major wage and benefit gains.
The 2024 presidential election is less than three months away. The U.S. working class faces the same challenge posed throughout its history. In this class-divided society, the wealthy minority that makes up the capitalist class has two political parties. The working class has none. We are presented with the claim — by Democrats and Republicans alike — that their candidate speaks for working people and will improve our conditions. That’s an illusion. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have defended and will safeguard the interests of the capitalist class. The second part of this article takes up the similarities and differences between Trumpism and Buchananism, the failure of Democratic Party liberalism, and the prospects of working-class political action independent of the two parties of the wealthy — Democrats and Republicans.
The 2024 presidential election is less than three months away. The U.S. working class faces the same challenge posed throughout its history. In this class-divided society, the wealthy minority that makes up the capitalist class has two political parties. The working class has none. We are presented with the claim — by Democrats and Republicans alike — that their candidate speaks for working people and will improve our conditions. That’s an illusion. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have defended and will safeguard the interests of the capitalist class. The first part of this article takes up the origins of Trumpism and its political continuity with the legacy of ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan.
This article was first published on August 6, 2024, by +972 Magazine, “an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists,” as its website says. The author, Mahmoud Mushtaha, is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza who was forced to flee his home and now resides in Cairo, Egypt. Mushtaha is also affiliated with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), “a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit project in the Gaza Strip,” per the organization’s website, which also says that WANN “tells the stories behind the numbers of Palestinians in the news and advocates for their human rights.”
“Sexual-Abuse Case Rocking Israel’s Military Broke After Doctors Sounded Alarm” read a front-page headline in the August 6 Wall Street Journal. “Wounds to alleged Palestinian victim were so severe they needed surgery, triggering Israel’s rare decision to investigate their own reservists,” the subhead continued. As appalling as this incident is, it is only one of many now coming into public view. This post includes an article from the Israeli daily Haaretz: “Torture, Sexual Abuse and Humiliation |Dozens of Testimonies From Palestinian Prisoners Describe Conditions in Israeli Jails During Gaza war.”
STATEN ISLAND, New York, August 1, 2024 — In an election for officers of the Amazon Labor Union–International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 1, held in July, the Democratic Reform Caucus candidates won all the positions. The union represents workers at Amazon’s giant JFK8 warehouse here. The results will be finalized after an August 6 deadline for filing objections.
SAN DIEGO, California — More than 700 delegates representing 2.3 million workers in nearly 2,000 union locals throughout California gathered here for the state AFL-CIO convention on July 16. Delegates unanimously passed a resolution opposing Washington’s inclusion of Cuba in its notorious list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism” (SSOT) and urging Cuba’s removal from it.
This is the last part of an article that appeared in the June 20, 2024, issue of the London Review of Books (LRB), a magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its author is Adam Shatz, LRB’s U.S. editor. Shatz’s essay begins with a list of recently published books that discuss Israel, Palestine, and Zionism. In reviewing those books, Shatz raises important issues that deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel, the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza, and a new wave of violence by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
KENT, Washington, June 28 — A King County jury yesterday convicted the police officer who killed Jesse Sarey five years ago. Jeffrey Nelson, a police officer in Auburn, Washington, was found guilty of both counts filed against him: second-degree murder and first-degree assault. It was a blow against police violence and a measure of justice for those victimized by it.
This is the second part of an article that appeared in the June 20, 2024, issue of the London Review of Books (LRB), a magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its author is Adam Shatz, LRB’s U.S. editor. Shatz’s essay begins with a list of recently published books that discuss Israel, Palestine, and Zionism. In reviewing those books, Shatz raises important issues that deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel, the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza, and a new wave of violence by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
This is the first part of an article that appeared in the June 20, 2024, issue of the London Review of Books (LRB), a magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its author is Adam Shatz, LRB’s U.S. editor. Shatz’s essay begins with a list of recently published books that discuss Israel, Palestine, and Zionism. In reviewing those books, Shatz raises important issues that deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel, the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza, and a new wave of violence by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
After months of U.S. opposition to a ceasefire in the war on Gaza, the United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted a U.S.-sponsored ceasefire plan in a near-unanimous vote on June 10. Yet no end to the war is in sight. Israel’s relentless assault grinds on. The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has passed 37,000 with over 85,000 wounded. On June 12, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, warned, “A significant proportion of Gaza’s population is now facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.”
STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK, June 18, 2024 — Workers at Amazon’s giant JFK8 fulfillment center here ratified affiliation with the 1.3-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). The results were announced today. According to an Instagram live stream of the tally provided by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the vote to affiliate with the Teamsters was nearly unanimous, with 98.3 percent approving. Of the nearly 850 workers who cast ballots, 824 voted YES and 14 voted NO. Ten ballots were deemed invalid. The newly chartered local will represent Amazon warehouse workers at JFK8.
World-Outlook extends its heartfelt thanks to all those who made our recent fund appeal a success. Thirty-five contributors donated nearly $2,400 in less than two weeks, exceeding our expectations. We plan to use this money to keep up with the website’s modest operating expenses, improve its quality, and expand our reach and readership.
The National Network on Cuba and the U.S.-Cuba Normalization Coalition have launched a new campaign that combines raising money to send crucially needed cardiac pacemakers to Cuba with boosting efforts to end Washington’s economic war against Cuba and to remove Cuba from the U.S. State Department State Sponsor of Terrorism (SSOT) list. That designation makes it almost impossible for Cuba to buy pacemakers commercially.
This article appeared in the May 27, 2024, issue of Trabajadores (Workers), the daily newspaper in Cuba of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC). Miguel Bautista, the U.S. unionist interviewed in the story, visited Cuba in late April-early May as part of the “Labor and Youth Activists” delegation organized by the Los Angeles Hands Off Cuba Committee.
For the first time in many months, World-Outlook is asking for your help in sustaining the publication. To continue to maintain our website and expand our list of subscribers, we need a new infusion of funds to cover future operating costs.
This is a statement by Shawn Fain, President of the United Auto Workers (UAW), released by the union May 17, 2024. Fain responds to the results of the union recognition vote at the Mercedes manufacturing complex in Alabama, which workers lost by a 56% margin. “While this loss stings, these workers keep their heads held high,” said Fain. “These workers will win their fair share. And we will be there every step of the way to support them.” His statement makes plain that the UAW remains committed to a nationwide union organizing drive, with whatever ups and downs lie ahead.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, as Israel steps up its bombardment and threatens an imminent, even more massive invasion.Meanwhile, opposition to Israel’s genocidal war continues to grow. It includes encampments and other protests by students on campuses across the United States. Many of these student actions have been violently suppressed by the police on the request of university authorities. Faculty members and others across the country have issued statements condemning this crackdown and defending the students’ right to free speech. They include a statement by the Academic Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), “An Open Call to Fellow Jewish Academics,” which World-Outlook is sharing in this post.
HAVANA, Cuba — Keffiyehs and Palestinian flags were among the most visible symbols as Cuban workers began massing at 4:30 a.m. on May 1 for the 200,000-strong rally hosted by the five municipalities closest to the U.S. embassy here. It was one of several May Day rallies in Cuba’s capital. Ten other mass gatherings took place in Havana alone. More than 4 million Cubans celebrated May Day — the international workers’ holiday — in avenues, town centers, and plazas across the island. They gathered within walking distance of their homes and workplaces instead of joining a single, massive march in each city, in order to save fuel, which is in short supply due to the ever-tightening U.S. blockade.
An important and increasingly sharp debate is taking place today on what is antisemitism, or to use a more accurate term — Jew hatred. The Statement from Concerned Jewish Faculty Against Antisemitism we are publishing below, now signed by more than 1,000 Jewish faculty members across the United States, is a welcome and important contribution to this debate.
Palestinian American Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He is also the author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” and other books. In this interview, he explains the causes of the current war in Gaza and outlines his views on how the conflict in Israel and Palestine can be resolved. He also answers the smears of “antisemitism” leveled against the student protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
Iran’s theocracy took power through a counter-revolution in the 1980s. The clerics crushed the independent struggle of Iranian workers and peasants who had carried out a popular uprising in 1979. That social revolution had reverberated across the region and the world. The mobilization of working people toppled the U.S.-backed monarchy of the shah — a brutal and hated regime. Since it tamed the mass struggle, the theocracy has held on to power through periodic brutal crackdowns on any expression of opposition to the Islamist regime. This article sketches the origins of this regime that underlie its current trajectory, including the damage it has inflicted on the Palestinian struggle.
Iran and Israel traded direct airstrikes on each other’s territory, for the first time, in a confrontation in April that raised the danger of a full-blown regional war. Both governments, however, stepped back from the brink after Israel chose to launch a limited strike in response to Iran’s large but ineffective rocket barrage aimed at Israel. Having avoided further direct military conflict, both countries returned to their long-running shadow war, in which Iran’s strategy is to arm and direct allied militias such as Hezbollah. These developments also shed light on Tehran’s pretentious “support” for the Palestinian liberation struggle. The clerical regime uses such posturing to prop up its dictatorial hold on power in Iran and its reactionary reach through proxy armies across the Mideast. Many Palestinians in the occupied territories, as well as working people and others in Iran, are beginning to see through such grandstanding and now openly oppose it.
This statement appeared today on the Substack page Zeteo. The author is Johnathan Ben-Menachem, a graduate student at Columbia University and a participant in the recent protests on that campus. The ongoing student actions oppose Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and demand that Columbia “Divest all finances, including the endowment, from corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”
MIAMI — An important frontline engagement in the battle of ideas took place on the main campus of Florida International University (FIU) here on Friday, April 12. About 25 people attended a showing and discussion of the documentary “Cuba’s Life Task: Combatting Climate Change.” The film was made by Helen Yaffe, a lecturer on economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and a frequent visitor to Cuba who is widely respected for well-known books about the Cuban Revolution.
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted by a 73% margin for representation by the United Auto Workers (UAW). It is a huge accomplishment for the workers involved, for all auto workers, and for the labor movement and working class across the United States. The results have historic significance. The UAW failed in two previous attempts to organize VW, in 2014 and 2019. Other efforts to organize auto plants in the South have also been unsuccessful. In Chattanooga, workers won for the first time in a foreign-owned U.S. auto plant. It was also the first Southern auto factory where workers approved a union through an election since the 1940s. Chattanooga workers opened the door to extending unionization of other auto plants in the South and beyond, as part of the nationwide organizing drive the UAW launched last fall.
This article is based on interviews with Palestinians in Gaza, describing attitudes of Gazans toward Hamas.
Graça Machel published this appeal on April 4, 2024, in Project Syndicate (PS), a magazine in South Africa. Machel is a member of the Elders, “the group of independent global leaders that I co-founded with my late husband, Nelson Mandela,” as she explains. She is also the founder of the Graça Machel Trust, a women’s rights organization based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Machel was born in Mozambique. She is the widow of Mozambique’s former President Samora Machel (1975–1986) and South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela (1998–2013).
Shawn Fain, President of the United Auto Workers (UAW), gave a speech to Mercedes-Benz workers in Alabama, on March 24, 2024, which we are sharing in this post. The UAW has made progress in its effort to organize auto workers in this factory in Vance, Alamaba, as part of a nationwide campaign to organize non-union auto assembly, parts, and battery plants. The union announced the organizing drive on the heels of the significant victory in its strike against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis — the Big Three — last year.
In early March, Pramila Patten, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC), issued a report on the Official visit of the Office of the SRSG-SVC to Israel and the occupied West Bank. The report concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gaza periphery, including in the form of rape and gang rape, during the 7 October 2023 attacks.” It also stated: “The mission team was unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would require a fully-fledged investigation.”