It is said that where labour is cheap, life is cheap. This is never more so than in the recent horrific deaths of over 400 garment workers crushed in a collapsed building in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

As battles against school closures and other attacks on public education rage in a number of cities, notably Philadelphia and Chicago, an important election is taking place in the largest local teachers’ union in the country, the United Federation of Teachers in New York City.

A socialist perspective on fighting women’s oppression by Hannah Sell, on behalf of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales)

Over the last three years, workers at Golden Farm Supermarket in Brooklyn, NY have worked successfully with New York Communities for Change and the local community in Kensington to force their employer, Sonny Kim, to pay minimum wage and to recognize their union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union/United Food and Commercial Workers (RSDWU/UFCW).

On November 29, 2012, workers at dozens of fast food restaurants in New York City walked off the job, formed pickets outside, and raised demands for higher wages, better hours, and union rights as part of the Fast Food Forward campaign.

Socialist Alternative Leaflet Distributed at the Mass Protest in Chicago March 27

For most people in the U.S., the Occupy movement may be a fading memory, but the tremendous gulf between rich and poor that Occupy brought to the surface only continues to grow. No one knows more about the depths of poverty in the U.S. than the sprawling low-wage work force: serving food, stocking shelves, cleaning buildings, washing dishes, ringing up customers, and all the other basic services which keep this country running.

Over 500 Tshwane workers, mineworkers’ delegates, trade union and community activists packed Lucas Van Den Bergh Community Hall in Pretoria for the launch of the Workers & Socialist Party.

A consortium of corporations want to build the Gateway Pacific Terminal - North America’s largest coal export terminal north of Seattle in Bellingham, WA.

Breaking news: about 5pm tonight, Monday evening, Feb 25th 2013, union lobbyists learned that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was working in secret to pass a measure that would end collective bargaining over health care for Illinois public employees. It's not clear at the time of writing whether this would include educators.

Hundreds of striking municipal workers meeting in a Pretoria park loudly cheered, sang and toyi-toyied after hearing speeches from visiting CWI members Peter Taaffe and Alec Thraves.

The discussion on South African perspectives reflected an organisation thoroughly rooted in struggle, in particular in workers’ struggle. The conference heard reports from the various strike committee members and mineworkers who attended as delegates and visitors. The discussion had to both reflect on the lessons of the past seven months of struggle and consider the looming new clashes in the mining industry.

Social Security Act was born out of intense working-class struggle from all around the country. 1934 and 1935 saw mass movements that were winning real victories; there were local general strikes and demonstrations of tens of thousands of workers in places as widespread as San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Toledo, Ohio. Additionally, the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) won millions of new workers into its ranks, largely due to its militant tactics and ability to improve people’s lives. It was only out of fear of these movements and the growing socialist organizations that the Democrats enacted the New Deal, which included Social Security.

Heroic workers are taking a stand, and socialists give them our unconditional support. It’s part of a campaign called Fast Food Forward, backed by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and New York Communities for Change (NYCC), and it is the biggest attempt ever to organize fast food workers.

The label “right to work,” a term created by corporate interests, is intentionally deceptive. This legislation doesn't provide the right to a job for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers in Michigan. What it does is undermine the democratic basis of workers’ right to organize.