Gasoline prices are surging once again. In Michigan, Indiana and Ohio they increased by close to a dollar per gallon in less than a week! Throughout the country, gas prices are now two dollars per gallon higher than they were just two months ago, when the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran.
Higher prices mean higher profits. The six biggest oil companies in the world are now making 30 million dollars per hour more in profits than before the war. That’s 30 million dollars more profits every single hour, day and night! For the oil companies, that’s tens and hundreds of billions of dollars in extra profits from the war.
The oil companies are not alone. The entire capitalist class in this country is cashing in on this war. Fat orders pour in for the military contractors and all of their suppliers. Energy, chemical and agricultural companies take advantage of shortages to boost their prices on their existing stock, feeding a new wave of inflation. Meanwhile, profits soar. The stock market hits new records.
The business press is jubilant. “American corporate profits keep shrugging off global tumult. Earnings expectations are through the roof,” announced The Economist (April 20). “Corporate America Is Minting Money … Profits grow for many companies in the face of war, rising oil prices and inflation …” announced the Wall Street Journal (April 26).
But those price increases and shortages spell starvation and ruin for the already impoverished populations in the poorer countries of the world. And even here, in this supposed most privileged country, it is the working population that pays the price. Millions of working people can’t afford to buy enough gas for their car to go to work … and put food on the table. Farms and mom-and-pop shops are being squeezed out of business.
All those profits, trillions of dollars—that’s blood money.
The news media and the politicians present this war like it is some kind of wrestling match between the U.S. and Iran. In response to the U.S. and Israeli military attacks, Iran blockades the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off vital shipments of energy and other primary materials that feed the world economy. So, the U.S. Navy blockades the Iranian ports, initiating a siege of the Iranian economy.
Who’s going to win? That’s the question they all ask.
But the U.S. and Israel didn’t just bomb Iran’s military installations. Their bombing campaign was aimed at destroying the Iranian economy and demoralizing the Iranian population. The U.S. and Israel targeted Iran’s roads, bridges and ports. They bombed vital industries, including the country’s main steelmaking and petrochemical factories. They even bombed a lot of residential neighborhoods.
It is the Iranian working class that has paid the price. Thousands have been killed and wounded, while millions have been forced from their homes. At least two million people have been thrown out of work. And the cost of living has soared, with the annual inflation rate reaching 67% per month. The damage is so extensive, it will take decades to rebuild. And that’s assuming the U.S. and Israel don’t resume their bombing and missile attacks—which is a real possibility.
No, Trump and the rest of the U.S. rulers are no friends of the Iranian people—no matter how much they pretend.
The U.S. is not bombing Iran in order to spread democracy, which is the usual horrible lie that the U.S. superpower always tells when it bombs and murders in other countries. No, the U.S. and Israel, its junior partner in the Middle East, went to war against Iran for one reason and one reason only. They want to weaken a regime that did not always obey U.S. dictates, a regime that is also allied with Russia and China, the U.S.’s main global rivals, over whom the U.S. superpower is also trying to impose its domination. The U.S. superpower is thus opening up a new chapter in human history of war, chaos and destruction. It is a future of barbarism.
This is sheer insanity. Another future is possible. Humanity has within its reach all the means to get rid of poverty and want. The wealth and technology are there. They’ve been there for a long time. But that possibility can only be realized by the working class when it enters into a period of struggle, fighting to wrest the power away from the capitalist class. And when the U.S. working class enters into this fight, it will find it has powerful allies: the working class in Iran … and around the world.
Talking to Congress about the Iran war, the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the Democrats and some Republicans were the worst problem with the war. He said the Iran war had only lasted two months, unlike the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars were the never-ending wars. He said this administration was taking care of a problem that had lasted 47 years and doing it quickly and sharply.
Maybe. The current war in Iran has lasted decades, cold and hot, due to U.S. interference. There may be a “ceasefire,” but bombs are still being dropped on Lebanon, the U.S. military has a blockade of Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed. Gas prices and trade disruptions are tearing up economies around the world.
And while we are speaking of the Democrats and the Republicans, who pursued the war in Vietnam? Democrats and Republicans. Who pursued the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Republicans and Democrats. And it was not Congress that lobbied to end those years and years of war; it was instead some of the population.
These “let’s have a war” leaders do not give a damn what happens to vets and their families, except when the politicians are out campaigning. And with their fat salaries, pensions and benefits, they don’t even see the cost the population pays.
The largest federation of unions in the U.S., the AFL-CIO, sponsored May Day rallies in cities across the country. Likely at every rally, top union bureaucrats paid tribute to those who died to fight for the 8-hour day.
Did any union official at any rally propose to fight TODAY for an 8-hour workday? Did speeches describe today’s outrageous conditions of union workers on mandatory overtime, 12-hour workdays and 7-day workweeks?
Did any union official say that workers need not wait for the next election? That workers need not wait for the next contract to mobilize?
What was NOT said is telling. Since no proposal was made to mobilize at multiple workplaces, the default logic in capitalist society is that elections are somehow, magically, the answer to workers’ problems.
The national AFL-CIO asked that workers on strike be invited to these May 1 rallies. That was a great thing. In Detroit, nurses came to speak from Genesys Hospital in the Flint, Michigan area. On strike for over 200 days against Henry Ford Health, these striking nurses displayed a seriousness and readiness for struggle—a militancy—that the bureaucrats lacked. These nurses described their fight as one for humane medical care. They explained that the only force for patient safety, in a health care system cutting costs at every turn, is healthcare workers.
So far, there have been three No Kings rallies since the re-election of Donald Trump. The May Day rallies were the latest event to voice opposition to Trump Administration actions. At all four of these events, the Democratic Party politicians were not the main speakers. But they were the main beneficiaries.
In a political system dominated by Democrats and Republicans, both parties, between elections, have always set up forums that keep voters engaged. A few problems get discussed, dissent is expressed, and then by default, voting is presented as the only option for workers and the population to have a better life. As if!
It is good to express dissent. It is a way to live an honest life in an oppressive society. But even better is to build a working-class party that prepares working-class people for the fights that are coming. A party that increases understanding of the powerful leadership role the working class can play.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling that further weakens the Voting Rights Act. The ruling is going to lead to more gerrymandering of Congressional districts and will make it harder for any black person to get elected to Congress. From 1901 until 1965, the year the Voting Rights Act was passed, at any one time there were never more than 2 black representatives in Congress. Today there are 67 black representatives.
But it wasn’t the Voting Rights Act itself that changed the situation. The Voting Rights Act came about as a result of the massive mobilization and protests of the black population during a civil rights movement that started shortly after World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s, many protests were organized against the racist “Jim Crow” laws in the South. These laws, accompanied by the threats and violence from the KKK and racist authorities, meant that very few black people in the South were able to vote.
Despite the violence used against them, the protesters, year after year, continued to confront the police, the local authorities and the racists. By the mid-1960s, there were rebellions breaking out in the streets of major cities, North and South. In the face of rebellions that could have threatened to bring down the whole capitalist system, the federal government, under the Democrats, wanted to cool things down. Congress passed some “Civil Rights” laws. When he signed the Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon Johnson, who was a known racist, had the nerve to say, “We Shall Overcome.”
Johnson and other politicians tried to claim credit for the gains that the black population had won through their own struggles—struggles which brought down many of the “Jim Crow” laws and had at least pushed back the open racism of the system. Politicians, like Johnson, tried to convince people to now put their faith in this system, its government and its laws.
But racism has always been part of the capitalist system in this country and that capitalist system remained in place. As the rebellions and struggles for civil rights died down, the things that had been gained were taken away, bit by bit. The Civil Rights Act has already been weakened several times in previous court rulings.
But even when the Civil Rights Act had been in full effect, there never has been any real democracy for the working class, black and white. Starting after the American Revolution, the right to vote was only given to white men with some wealth. Slaves had to win their freedom during the Civil War and then the right to vote during Reconstruction and then again during the civil rights movement. Women didn’t win the right to vote until 1920.
Even with the supposed right to vote, there is no real democracy if the outcome of which class is going to run things is predetermined. That’s how the U.S. Constitution was set up. It mandated two senators to be elected from every state as a way to take voting power away from the working class in the largest cities. The Electoral College was set up for the same reason, and to ensure that the ruling class had the ability to overrule the results of any presidential election.
Both Republicans and Democrats have always manipulated voting districts to their advantage, and today both parties are engaged in a frenzy of gerrymandering which has nothing to do with representing the will of the voters.
For over 150 years, the Republicans and Democrats have taken turns running the government on behalf of the capitalist class. And to ensure that they are the only two parties, there is a “winner takes all” system making it very difficult for any third-party candidate to get elected.
Both parties tell the working class that we live in a democracy where your votes count. But where is this democracy? Certainly not here under capitalism.
1.2 million people chose not to sign up for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance plans at the beginning of this year. More and more people are finding their coverage unaffordable and are dropping it.
Various analysts estimate that between 20 and 26% of those covered by the ACA will drop it by the end of this year. In Georgia, more than 33% have dropped ACA coverage.
Why? Because Congress allowed federal subsidies to expire at the end of 2025.
The size of the increase in costs for those no longer receiving subsidies varies with age, so people who retired early but are too young to receive Medicare have been hit the hardest. Their costs rose by over $12,000 a year, according to the New York Times. Others are switching to plans with less expensive monthly premiums but come with deductibles as high as $10,000.
Before the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, around 50 million people in the U.S. had no health care coverage; 16% of the population. It is certainly true that the Affordable Care Act never was affordable for many of those for whom it was their only available option. But it was substituted by the politicians of both parties to avoid providing true national health care to every American.
Nevertheless, with the subsidies in place, the number of uninsured fell to about 26 million people, or about 8%. Analysts estimate the number of uninsured to have gone up by about 5 million people already, due to the subsidies being cut off, meaning about 9.4% of the population are now without insurance, which is ridiculous in one of the wealthiest countries in the world!
As part of the Affordable Care Act, more than 40 states and the District of Columbia expanded eligibility to Medicaid to more low-income people who have no health insurance through an employer. Now Trump and his friends in Congress pushed through a bill that will put work requirements on many Medicaid recipients, starting the first of next year.
The new law requires those who are able to be a student at least part-time, or work, or take part in certain activities like community service for at least 80 hours a month, or about 20 hours a week. It allows exemptions for the disabled or those who can prove themselves to be “medically frail.” In some states, people who live in counties with high unemployment or those admitted to a hospital or nursing homes would be exempt from working, but not in all states.
Medicaid was put in place along with Medicare in 1965. It was a gain won during the period of the Civil Rights Movement and the beginning of other social movements of the 1960s. With those movements now long past, the wealthy capitalist ruling class is looking for ways to make cuts, and these work requirements are their latest attempts to make more.
To do so, they’re counting on the confusing bureaucratic burden of proving they meet the work requirements, to cause people to be disqualified from Medicaid healthcare coverage. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this will add 4.8 million Americans to the rolls of the uninsured by 2034 due to the new work rules.
Right-wing politicians and their friends like Dr. Oz, the current administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, try to make us view people on Medicaid as the ones making workers pay high taxes. Never mind that the corporations and the wealthy are the real parasites on this society!
The following is taken from speeches given at the meeting in Detroit on April 26.
Two months ago, Trump, aided by his partner Netanyahu, started the latest attack in the U.S. government’s continuing war against Iran. While Trump’s envoys were in the middle of supposedly negotiating an agreement with Iran, Trump suddenly ordered a sneak attack. The U.S. military, along with the Israeli military, began dropping bombs and firing missiles into Iran. Israel took advantage of the U.S. attack on Iran to bomb and invade Lebanon.
The consequences of this barbaric war have been devastating. While Trump acts like an unhinged madman, proclaiming himself doing “God’s work,” the war he ordered has killed thousands of people in Iran and thousands more in Lebanon. The U.S. hit military targets in Iran, but also bombed many populated areas, including Tehran, a city of almost 10 million people. On the first day of the war, a U.S. missile blew up a school, killing over a hundred young girls. Since then, the U.S. has bombed more schools and a number of hospitals in Iran. This is terrorism carried out by the U.S. government. Pure and simple terrorism.
In Iran, U.S. attacks have destroyed factories, steel plants and oil infrastructure, putting millions of people out of work and devastating the Iranian economy.
In Lebanon, Israel dropped bombs on Beirut, a city of over 2 million people. Netanyahu’s military forced a million people in southern Lebanon to flee their homes and many now have no home to go back to. Even after a ceasefire was called, Israel bombed out all the bridges going into southern Lebanon.
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In response to the U.S. attack, the Iranian regime has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. Not to be outdone and to show that he is in control of everything, Trump ordered his own blockade on Hormuz. Now a water route that is crucial for the whole world’s economy is shut down, and this blockade is disrupting supply chains everywhere. About 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas passes through the Strait. So do crucial supplies of fertilizer, helium that is needed for computer chips, and other chemical products. Supplies of all of these products are dwindling, and prices are going up around the world. In the U.S., we are paying higher gas prices. In parts of Asia, gas is running out. Farmers in Africa and much of the world depend on the fertilizer supply from the Middle East, meaning that food production around the world is being endangered and may be reduced.
The damage that has already been done to the world’s economy may be irreparable.… At the very least, it will take years, or even decades, to put back together this economic system that depends on oil and other resources from the Middle East.
Today there is a supposed ceasefire in this Middle East war. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. But even if there is an agreement announced, it doesn’t mean that this war is over. Remember, Trump bombed Iran last June, and just 10 months later, Trump came right back and started another war.
What we do know is that the whole world is tied together economically, and the economic consequences of this war are going to lead to more wars in the future. The threat of more wars is even greater today because Trump started this war against Iran.
Trump is acting like a deranged madman, but it is important to understand that this war is not just about Trump. The whole capitalist class that Trump is part of, that class is behind Trump. If Trump was going against the interests of the capitalist class who run this society, they would have gotten rid of him.
No, this war against Iran is not about only Trump. Wars are about capitalism. Wars are the logical consequence of the normal functioning of the capitalist system. The capitalists of each country exploit the labor of their own populations. But the capitalists also compete with each other, looking for cheaper labor and control of raw materials and natural resources around the world.
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Today the number of active wars has reached a level unseen since the end of World War Two. Today nearly half of the world’s population live in countries affected by war.… Today we can say that we are already in World War Three.
The Trump administration has said that it wants the U.S. military budget to be increased to 1.5 Trillion Dollars. And on top of that 1.5 Trillion, the U.S. government wants another 200 Billion Dollars to pay for the war in Iran. All of that money would mean a budget increase of over 50% from this year to the next. That increase would be the biggest year-over-year increase since World War Two.
The corporations that produce weapons and war materials and who profit from war are being asked to increase production. The government has already talked to other companies, including Ford and GM, about producing military materials, like they did during WWII.
The Trump administration is now going to automatically register every young man for military service when they turn 18. Young men are required right now to sign themselves up, but about 20% of them don’t do it. So, Trump is going to make sure that no one can get away without signing up. Doesn’t it sound like they are preparing to restart the draft?
The population in this country is already paying a price for the war against Iran.… The government has already cut social programs, like Medicaid, food stamps, education and childcare, to pay for the current military budget. The government is now planning even bigger cuts to programs that people need in order to pay for their increased military budget next year.
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If we take a moment to think about it, we have been at war for so many years, in one part of the world or another, wars that most people don’t agree with. Using our wealth to kill and destroy. Why does it keep happening that we are sucked into conflicts that we don’t agree with?
Gas prices and grocery prices are on the rise. Jobs that provide a livable wage and affordable housing are few and getting worse. Those that have jobs are being pushed to do more and more and are seeing effects on their health. Household sizes are growing because people are unable to afford to live on their own. The cost of healthcare is so high that most people can’t afford it, with or without insurance.
The conditions we are living through now are not new. We have seen economic hardship, racial oppression and an out of touch government for a very, very long time. It is easy and accurate to blame Trump and his administration for what we are currently seeing in the Middle East. But the manipulation and oppression of the working class did not start with him. President after president, Democrat or Republican, there have been wars and there have been attacks on the working class.
Over the decades we have seen ordinary people like you and me rise up to confront these problems head on and push back on the capitalist steamroller. In the 1930s, during the time of the Great Depression, there were no jobs, no food, no housing, but the working class found a way to organize itself and fight back. People organized defense for those that were unemployed. Ford workers at the Rouge plant came together and marched to fight hunger. There were general strikes in Toledo, San Francisco and Minneapolis. Here in Michigan, we had the Flint sit-down strike where for 44 days, workers occupied the factories and were able to organize themselves to have the necessities for daily life. By 1936, there were over 2,200 strikes all over the country.
Faced with increasing pressure on their profits, the capitalist class was forced to recognize unions, and millions of unskilled industrial workers were organized into industrial unions. This worked to the advantage of the ruling class because they then used union leaders as a way to control workers.
Union leaders were used as tools to hold the workers back, instead of using their own power. There were huge decreases in the number of workers’ strikes. Strikes were stopped and workers were told to fall in line behind the Democrats.
Then there was the Black mobilization, which occurred over generations, from 1943 to 1971. It started with the civil rights movement, whose focus was to overturn Jim Crow laws but quickly morphed into so much more. There was the Alabama bus boycott in 1955, which eventually spread to over 150 cities. There were sit-ins at lunch counters, and the Freedom Riders. By 1963, a younger generation was fed up with treatment they received and began to take it to the streets. There were huge uprisings all across the country, and a revolution seemed possible. But as many of you know, it was violently pushed back. The Black mobilization had the human forces and the determination, but they were not prepared to take the fight up and over the obstacle directly in front of them. They were not organized on the basis of class. So, the population was, once again, only given small crumbs and saw only a few gains. But as soon as things quieted down, many of the gains were taken back. And just like with the strike wave in the ’30s, the black population was told to just follow the Democrats and change would come. Once again workers were told to stay within the system, told that now is not the time to form your own party, to have your own voice.
Both the strike movement in the 1930s and the Black mobilization in the 1940s to 1970s rocked the foundation of this class society, but that wasn’t enough to tear it down and build anew. In both examples, the working class was fighting against oppression and had the forces to do it, yet the corporations and their politicians were able to organize themselves to undermine working-class actions. They used the movements’ own leaders, they used the media, churches, politicians, labor spies and even organizations like the KKK, to try and stop the progress of the working class.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans serve the capitalist class. We need a party to represent us, the working class. In order to do that, we must begin to organize ourselves on a class basis. Not by race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. The capitalist class are able to divide and conquer when we shrink ourselves into small buckets rather than standing as a class, the working class.
We are trying to build this party. Our votes have increased year after year, we can see that people like what we are saying. But our party is still small. We need to spread the idea that working-class people need and can build their own party. We have no PAC money and no big corporations throwing money at us, so you won’t see television and billboard ads. This idea spreads through you and then those you know, and then who they know. This idea is not a Michigan idea; this idea needs to spread to every state. We have no borders.
But really, we all should know that it is going to take more than just a vote to change this society. Just look at who is in office. It is going to be the forces of those voters to push, tug and fight for the change that is necessary.
When we look back at history, whether it be the strike movement or the Black mobilization, people were ready to do all that was necessary to change their conditions. We must do the same. We must stop accepting the same old excuses: “It’s not the time to vote for a third party.” Or, “It’s a wasted vote.” We need to build the confidence in ourselves, as a class.
The Working Class Party will not be built by one or two or even ten people, it will be built by you. And it can only be built when the working class looks past our differences and begins to fight on the basis of what we have in common. The whole pie is ours, not just the crumbs. We grow the ingredients, we make it and we bake it. It is now time for us to eat it and leave them the crumbs.
We are the working class, and we must begin to stand up and protect others within our class, like the capitalists protect their own. Let us fight to build the Working Class Party.
This article is translated from the April 25 issue #1370 of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in Guadeloupe and Martinique, two islands that are French overseas departments in the Caribbean.
Textile workers demonstrated for three days in the industrial zone of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince and free trade zone Ouanaminthe.
In Port-au-Prince, at the call of textile unions, several thousand workers demonstrated from April 13 to 16 along the road leading to the SONAPI industrial park. They walked off the job to join the march. They demand a higher minimum wage. Among their angry shouts: “I get paid on Friday, and by Saturday, I already have to borrow money.” “When you’re hungry, you don’t joke around!”
Using the war in Iran as a pretext, starting April 2 the Haitian government decreed 37 and 29% higher diesel and gas prices respectively. A gallon of gasoline now costs $6.50 (850 Haitian gourdes), while the average worker’s daily wage is only $5.23. The government set the minimum daily wage in 2022 following worker protests and hasn’t raised it since.
Owners of companies which reopened after making deals with gangs have intensified exploitation with increased production rates to fulfill U.S. orders. Soaring transportation costs have led to higher food prices. Workers can’t afford basic necessities and are cutting even further back on meals.
Workers demand an increase in the daily minimum wage to $22.90 and an immediate cut in fuel costs. The transportation sector joined the movement. Motorcycle, car, and bus drivers also demand lower fuel prices and the elimination of subsidies.
The government did not react. Gangs attacked a neighborhood near the industrial area and the airport, interrupting a flight on April 20. The unions called for another demonstration on April 20. Despite pressure from gangs, several hundred workers returned to the streets, marching under police surveillance. They would not give up.
During the 2022 mobilization, workers whose wages are lower than in textile, such as supermarkets, warehouses, and security, demonstrated and won a pay raise.
Workers’ strength always comes from their solidarity in struggles. They never got help from any government. What they got, they won themselves. In their fight against oppression by the bosses, textile workers show the way to overcome oppression by all capitalists and gangsters.
This article is translated from the April 25 issue #1370 of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in Guadeloupe and Martinique, two islands that are French overseas departments in the Caribbean.
Thousands of workers, union members, and retirees demonstrated in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, over mid to late April. Facing an economic crisis marked by hunger and disease, protesters demanded higher pay.
Marchers heading toward the Miraflores presidential palace were stopped by tear gas grenades fired by the security forces of interim president Delcy Rodriguez.
A few days earlier, Rodriguez gave a televised address calling on workers to be patient. She promised a moderate increase in the minimum wage on May 1, so as not to trigger inflation.…
She told them to wait! But wages have been frozen for four years in Venezuela. The monthly minimum wage is worth about 240 U.S. dollars. The government provides compensation bonuses which are slightly higher. But a family needs two and a half times that, just for food.
Four months after the U.S. military kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, and then took over Venezuelan oil revenues by executive order, Rodríguez and her team appear to satisfy Washington. Tax breaks and royalties have been introduced to attract investors. The head legislator, Rodríguez’s brother, declared, “Venezuela is becoming quite attractive from the perspective of foreign investment opportunities.” Venezuela’s foreign minister affirmed his “willingness to move forward in a new phase of constructive dialogue” with Washington.
There is no reason why working people’s situation should remain catastrophic. Workers refuse to remain in poverty. Their demonstrations also target the U.S. embassy, which represents the new masters of capitalism in Venezuela. This could be the beginning of bigger struggles!
This article is translated from the April 25 issue #1370 of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in Guadeloupe and Martinique, two islands that are French overseas departments in the Caribbean.
A wave of strikes and workers’ demonstrations across India has taken place since January. It began with demonstrations by construction, oil, and steel workers, and then spread to other sectors.
Workers demand higher wages, a reduction in standard work hours to eight hours per day, and overtime pay. Protesters denounce appalling working conditions. Workers are forced to work up to 16 hours a day for a pittance. It is impossible to survive on their wages. The situation has worsened with the rising cost of living caused by the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices and consequently food prices skyrocketed in just a few weeks. Some workers even deserted the factories to return to their villages. Their wages were too low to sustain them.
Protests intensified in parts of northern states Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, where factory workers blocked roads and clashed with police. Haryana promised on April 9 to increase the minimum wage by 35%. This raises so-called unskilled workers’ monthly pay to just under $160.
In the Sarai Khawaja district of Haryana, auto parts factory workers protested on April 14 and 15, demanding the new minimum wage immediately. The day before, approximately 42,000 workers protested at 83 industrial sites in nearby Noida. These protests forced the government to increase wages by over a fifth, with back pay effective April 1.
Unions believe these increases are not enough. They demand a minimum monthly wage around $316 (30,000 rupees). They planned big May Day demonstrations.
In India, as elsewhere, when prices rise, wages must follow. Workers will need to build enough leverage to force this reform on employers.
This article is translated from the May 1 issue, #3013 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
At least 2,490 dead and 7,725 wounded since the alleged ceasefire of March 2. That is the grim toll declared on April 24 by the Lebanese Ministry of Health, after weeks of Israeli bombings and shelling of southern Lebanon under the pretext of destroying “Hezbollah military infrastructure.”
On April 26 alone, 14 villagers in southern Lebanon were killed in intense bombardments. After drones broadcast an evacuation order to inhabitants of seven villages in the Nabatieh area, a frantic exodus resulted in massive traffic jams on the roads leading out of the “yellow zone.” Around 230 square miles are now occupied by the Israeli army. Between 55 and 70 villages have been reduced to rubble—ostensibly to protect neighboring Israeli villages targeted by Hezbollah rockets. The threat to Lebanon has even spread to the northeast, with bombings in the Bekaa Valley.
The predominantly Shiite inhabitants of these villages, and thousands of displaced families who have sought refuge there, are subjected with or without warning to daily surveillance drone and fighter jet sorties and bombings. They are forced to evacuate in panic. Those who try to return or refuse to leave find their homes dynamited and their farmland devastated.
The Israeli government, in appealing for Israel’s “existential survival,” is putting the same zeal into razing southern Lebanon as it did with Gaza. Proof of this includes the sickening publicity given to a certain far-right rabbi and reservist in combat boots who was highlighted as a figurehead in recent celebrations of Israel’s independence from England. This fascist-leaning religious figure is held up as an example by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cronies for his “extraordinary contribution to society and the state.” He made a spectacle of himself operating an armored bulldozer, flattening still-smoldering ruins in Gaza. He is now wreaking havoc in southern Lebanon. He boasts of razing “50 houses a week” under the protection of Israeli planes, tanks, and artillery. If further proof is needed, he is shielded by Netanyahu’s order to the army to “strike hard in Lebanon following Hezbollah’s ceasefire violations.” The tired pretext of pro-Iranian Hezbollah’s attacks only strengthens Hezbollah’s supporters’ determination in the face of the permanent war that the Israeli government imposes on the populations of the region.
The recent agreement between U.S. leaders and the Lebanese prime minister explicitly authorizes Netanyahu to carry out unlimited destruction, if it is meant to “defend against attacks.” The great powers, particularly the foremost, U.S. imperialism, give Israel free rein to resume occupying southern Lebanon and then possibly annex it outright. What is emerging is endless war endured by the inhabitants of the region—including those who still believe they are being protected by Netanyahu.
What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of April 26, 2026.
In cities around the country, union leaders signed onto the call for a May Day demonstration.
It’s true the working class needs to return to its roots, like the general strikes in the 1870s which shut down big cities. Out of that struggle, workers began to impose their demands on capitalist society. They also began to forge their own history. In 1886, May Day, the workers’ holiday, was born.
For decades, workers who struggled paid tribute to May Day, that is, to the struggles their class had carried out before.
In 1905, a new fighting organization was born, the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. The IWW was in part a union, in part a political party whose goal was to organize all workers into one, big organization, irrespective of their trade, independent of their nationality or race. The IWW was based on this conviction: “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common.… Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the earth.” It was a call for revolution.
At the same time, a working-class party developed—the Socialist Party, which declared that it would not “conciliate the capitalist class, but organize to fight against it.”
The SP was represented by Eugene Debs, who had led the great railroad strike of 1894. That strike brought Debs to understand that a union was not enough, that a working-class party was needed.
Debs may have been a candidate in elections, but he also understood that elections could not do away with capitalism, that revolution had to be the aim toward which the working class worked. But Debs used his election campaigns to cross the country, speaking to the working class about its own power, its capacity to build a humane society. And he used his campaigns to denounce the wars into which capitalism was dragging the peoples of the world.
Speaking about the push of capitalism for war, Debs was arrested and thrown into federal prison. While in prison in 1920, he won nearly a million votes. His votes reflected the workers’ growing realization that they had a special role to play. Their class could build another world, one without war, one without exploitation.
The next big movement of the working class, that of the 1930s, flooded into massive struggles. Workers took over the factories where they worked. They shut down whole cities in general strikes that went far beyond any single trade or skill. Out of those struggles, revolution could have developed.
But in that movement, a destructive idea took hold—that it was enough to have a union, that politics was a diversion. The unions that grew up were based on that idea.
Instead of workers building their own political parties, the workers’ energies went into support for the Democrats (or in some cases, the Republicans). It was a terrible mistake. It robbed the working class of its own political perspective. And the unions shed much of their readiness to organize their struggles as a class.
The leaders of the new unions supported the move of the two big parties to engage in the massive slaughter of World War II, and the U.S. wars that came afterward, in Korea and Viet Nam.
The unions did not do what the IWW had done, confront the wars, the racism and the anti-immigrant nationalism endemic to capitalism.
Today, the latter-day leaders of those same unions pretend to resurrect May Day. But they use it to campaign for the Democratic Party.
Yes, workers need to return to May Day, to its history of struggle, its opposition to capitalism, and opposition to capitalism’s wars.
But that won’t come from the kind of bureaucrats who worked for decades to bury May Day. It will come from the working class itself.
This international best-selling book, written in the middle of WWII by a German Jewish woman, revealed to the world what was happening in Nazi Germany. It tells the story of a militant communist who with six others escapes from a concentration camp in Germany. The story shows the reader the many layers and sides of Fascist Germany through the eyes of this single man. For the first time, many readers got to see what fascism really was, how the working class was turned on itself, and the horror of the vise it tortured the population with. You see the working class never giving up, and tentatively pushing back at great risk and sacrifice, with hope for a better tomorrow.
Homebound is a 2025 award-winning Indian drama directed by Neeraj Ghaywan with Martin Scorsese as Executive Producer. It tells the story of two young men from a high poverty rural village. Together they look for ways to escape the poverty, to win respect, and to help support their aging parents. They are up against the bigotry of caste, class, and religion, and the lack of opportunities in rural areas. They try for government jobs as constables. Every step of the process is full of obstacles, and even when one of them passes the exam, the wait list is years long and is stymied by bureaucracy and privilege.
Other choices are equally perilous and cruel: long hours in a factory, prejudice in an office job, work as a migrant in the big city, or expensive university classes. And then COVID hits.
The movie is a tender and beautiful telling of friendship, hope and love of family in the face of a heartless and cruel system. And it questions, why does it have to be this way?
The GEO Group is one of the two largest private prison operators in the United States. In 2025, due to new contracts with the federal government for ICE detention centers, they made record profits. The GEO Group is a major donor to Trump.
The GEO Group has had many problems in their prisons over the years.
Their private ICE prison in Michigan, North Lake Processing Center, is located in rural northern Michigan, near the city of Baldwin. It is the largest ICE prison in the Midwest, and can hold as many as 1,800 prisoners, with over 1,400 people imprisoned there now.
The prison was built in 1999, contracting with the State of Michigan to hold youth offenders. The State had to close it down due to complaints. It was reopened in 2025 to house ICE prisoners. Recently, it has been reported that there have been hunger strikes there. The news from inside is hard to get because prisoner families are allowed little or no communication with the prisoners.
The news getting out from the inside tells of the lack of proper food, lack of medical care, sleep deprivation (the lights are kept on until midnight and then turned on again at 5:00 a.m.), lack of outside communication, prolonged and illegal detention, cold temperatures, electrical outages, lack of interpretation services, and more.
In December 2025, a 56-year-old prisoner there died. His family has still not received adequate information on how he died. They believe it was due to lack of health care at the prison. He had lived in the United States for 30 years after immigrating from Bulgaria. He was arrested in Chicago in 2025 after he showed up for his routine Green Card hearing. His only “crimes” had been traffic offenses. He was sent to Baldwin where he died.
There have been protests at the prison ever since it was announced in early 2025 that it would be reopening as an ICE prison.
As in many other states, Michigan’s public schools continue to be underfunded for what is really needed—for students, teachers, and other school employees and buildings.
Because, while it may be true that for two consecutive years schools have received increases in per pupil funding, these increases fall below the rate of inflation.
Are these increases enough to cover the higher costs of electricity, diesel fuel for buses, health care and supplies? The answer is no. And many teachers, and even administrators, will attest to this. Recently, a school superintendent in a district northeast of Detroit wrote, “Politicians will take credit for ‘record investments’ but when the increase doesn’t keep pace with rising costs … it’s a cut dressed up in a better language.”
“Kids Over Corporations” was the rallying cry at teacher union protests at May Day rallies—from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Madison, Wisconsin, to throughout the country.
And elsewhere, teachers are raising their voices, whether it’s in the recent teacher strike in southeast Los Angeles County; or in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where 96.8% of the members of the teachers’ union voted, and 99% of them voted “No!” to a contract that offered them a pitiful wage increase and proposals to increase class sizes!
“Because of budgetary concerns,” four schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community Districts are to be closed, as early as June 5. Four more schools … on top of the 200 school buildings that have closed in Detroit since 2000!
Yes, there are all sorts of reasons given for the need to close these schools: lower enrollment; federal funding cuts that have affected state money to the schools, inflation, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But ANYONE who really gives a damn about the future of our children, who in the vast majority are children of the working class, has to have this battle cry: “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired!” Sick and tired of being told the money is not there, when anyone with two eyes and a brain can see that it is there in this wealthiest country in the world.
The Trump administration was ordered to refund the tariffs it previously collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) because the Supreme Court struck them down in February 2026. But only businesses would be refunded for these tariffs, worth $166 billion (plus interest reaching $650 million each month). The consumers will get zilch in return, although we paid for these tariffs through skyrocketing prices!
When these extra tariffs were first imposed, U.S. companies cried out that they could do nothing about the taxes and had to raise the prices of their goods. And they did so, passing close to 100% of these taxes on to consumers.
The Budget Lab at Yale estimated that these price increases amounted to about $1,680 per household in 2025. These tariffs became an additional burden on us on top of already high prices caused by the inflation that hit after the COVID epidemic began.
For companies, the tariff refund looks very much like a windfall increase in net profit. Walmart is applying for $10.2 billion, Target for $2.2 billion, Nike for $1 billion, and General Motors for $500 million. Quite a gain out of nothing!
They won’t reduce prices even after they’re refunded. So, we will continue to get robbed at the cash register even more.