Rajesh and Tilak Raj were young boys in their early 20s, hailing from Below Poverty Line families. They must have had dreams, like any other young men of their age. They must have had some aspirations. But the poor and the oppressed cannot even afford to dream for long. Like always, reality got in the way.
Can the Working Class Change the World? It’s a fundamental political question in every economy and society, relevant to all concerned with and aware of class interests tangled in exploitative production relations. Politics in countries has centered around this question of class power. At times, the question has shaped geopolitics on the world stage. Michael D. Yates re-examines the question in his recently released book Can the Working Class Change the World? (Monthly Review Press, New York, October 2018). Read More »
TECH giant Google was hit by an unprecedented global walkout today as female staff led colleagues off the job in protest at sexual harassment.
Workers left their desks at 11.10am local time in offices from Tokyo to San Francisco, including in Singapore, Zurich, London and Dublin.Read More »
The centrality of tea garden workers of Assam in writing its history, finds its corollary in their total absence in the current discourse in political activism or the academia. Labour invisiblized is not mere metaphor. Over 8 lakh current and around 40 lakh ex-tea garden workers in the over 875 big plantations, and many more in the over 2,73,000 small tea gardens, work a daily grind in ever worsening conditions away from the spotlights animating social discourse in the region. Only when a Laxmi Orang is stripped and thrashed in the heart of Dispur, or a Bogidhola erupts in anger or 21 die in a month in a Doyang tea estate, does the question of the situation and lives of this most exploited sector of tea workers even come up as a social question (and even then it remains in the sidelines).Read More »
SCOTLAND’S largest city was brought to a standstill today as women workers made history in the largest ever strike over equal pay.
Care workers, cleaners and school dinner ladies were among 8,000 women council employees and contractors staging a two-day walkout in Glasgow.Read More »
UNIONS vowed today to fight plans being cooked up by the Tories for a renewed attack on public-sector wages via the introduction of regional and performance-related pay.
Millions of public-service workers, including NHS staff and local authority workers, could find themselves financially penalised under such plans, which the unions fear will be announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond in next week’s Budget.Read More »
WASHINGTON—Faced with a management decision to impose its “last, best and final offer” on them, AFL-CIO support staffers – janitors, cafeteria workers, accountants, secretaries among them – walked an informational picket line in front of federation headquarters during their lunch hour on Oct. 10.Read More »
