DETROIT (LNS)—Workers in the automobile industry—described by The New York Times as “among the cream of the nation’s industrial workers”—are feeling the squeeze of rising prices and falling real wages. Although pay raises have been won regularly from the big …
RICHMOND, Calif. (LNS)—Workers and students here fought together Feb. 3 to repel scab attempts to break picket lines during a strike against Standard Oil Refinery.
The League of Revolutionary Black Workers has moved onto the Wayne State University Campus. In a move to combat racism in employment and bad working conditions, members of the League have organized a group of thirty to forty black secretaries …
The League of Revolutionary Black Workers Demand: Halt UAW racism. 50% representation for black workers on the international executive board and international staff. Open skilled trades and apprenticeships to black workers. Recognition of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and …
“Quack, Quack I am a duck, You are probably human You can wear White Levis Some people have all the luck” —The Jefferson Airplane Some people aren’t so lucky. Strikers against the Levi-Strauss Company in Blue Ridge, Georgia have called …
From the May 3 Wall Street Journal comes some interesting information about the United Mine Workers (UMW) union that bears heavily on future energy schemes, especially those dictated by our peanut president. Carter’s new energy policy calls for increased use …
Reprinted from the Guardian. San Francisco—A major breakthrough in the San Francisco State College strike was achieved Feb. 7 when representatives of striking workers at the Standard Oil refinery in Richmond, across the Bay, joined with striking SF State students …
This was the centerfold of the May 1-7, 1975 (we were a weekly then!) Fifth Estate, as part of a special Mayday supplement. The drawing is by Gilbert Shelton, of “Fabulous, Furry, Freak Brothers” fame.
Wayne State University is a working class college in a working class town. It is located in Detroit, a city which has long since taken the United Auto Workers bureaucracy into its ruling class and blunted union militancy by cooptation.
Another letter has been engraved on the tombstone of the dying United Auto Workers bureaucracy as 300 members of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers gathered outside Cobo Hall Sunday morning, Nov. 9, to protest the racist practices of the …
The week of Oct. 5 through 12, the Ad Hoc Construction Coalition presented demands to 8 agencies that 50% of all workers in construction and construction-related projects in the Detroit area be black.
In the last August 1976 Fifth Estate [#275, Polish Food Riots] we gave a sketchy report (all that was then available) of repression against striking workers centering in the Polish cities of Ursus and Radom. This major strike wave which …
Huelga, the grape strike in the San Joaquin Valley, has given heart to those who lament the American labor movement as moribund, backward and sold out.
The autonomist political theorist and strategist Mario Tronti in his classic book Operai e capital argued that weapons for working class revolt have always been taken from the bosses’ arsenal.
Among the greatest obstacles to a working class revolution in the United States (and beyond) has been, and remains, white supremacy Far too many white people, past and present, have put their racial identity above their class interests.
[Part 2 of the interview appeared in FE #79, May 15-28, 1969.] Editors’ Note: John Watson, editor of the Wayne State University South End, has been involved in Detroit revolutionary politics for a number of years. Former editor of the …
This interview was conducted and transcribed by Dena Clamage. [Part 1 of the interview appeared in FE #78, May 1-14, 1969.]
In late August, a sizable crowd gathered in a downtown Detroit park well past its glory days to eat chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream…and learn about Sacco and Vanzetti.
147,000 workers at the General Electric Corporation went on strike October 27, 1969. Today, they’re still out of work with little hope of any rapid change in their bleak situation. General Electric’s (non-) negotiators have refused to budge a comma …
a review of Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain by Frank Mintz. AK Press, 2013, 326pp., $19, akpress.org
The failure of dissidents in the West to come to terms with the Yugoslav debacle & the subsequent slaughters weighs like a nightmare on the mind & spirit of anyone trying to sort through the complex realities of the present …
a review of Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present Edited by Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini. Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2011, 417pp, $19
FE Note: This is a response to “More Minneapolis Anarchy,” the letters beginning on page 15 of this issue.
The rule of Capital continues to erode in Portugal as the increased activity of rank-and-file soldiers, workers and peasants comes into increasing conflict with the Sixth Provisional military government.
Trying to make sense of the situation in Portugal with facts gleaned from reading the daily newspapers and watching the nightly news has become an increasingly impossible task.
Thirteen years ago the Hungarian people, led by the Budapest working class, launched an attack on the ruling police state. In the process, the despotism of the state was briefly eliminated and councils of workers emerged, signaling a dramatic break …
Sticks & Stones Dear Fifth Estate, In response to E.B. Maple (“On Organization: Two Reviews of The Camatte/Collu Pamphlet,” FE #279, December 1976), I can only say that calling me a “Leninist” does not make it so.
Hungary ’56 by Andy Anderson Black & Red-Solidarity 138 pp., $1.25 Revolt In Socialist Yugoslavia by Fredy Perlman Black & Red 23 pp., $.25
“We are bringing our legitimate grievances to the legal establishment of the white man’s government to give the racist monopoly capitalist system the opportunity to begin to redeem itself for the crimes which have been perpetuated against Black workers and …
At Blue Bird Food Products, a union plant on Chicago’s South side, thirty-five television cameras mounted on moveable tracks keep constant surveillance on 450 workers on the factory floor. In the monitoring room, an “expert” in time-study keeps detailed charts …
Atlanta—On Saturday, August 12, a crowd of 175 supporters and newsmen gathered at Atlanta’s Piedmont Park to watch 25 Atlanta students and workers take off and burn their Levi pants.
Reprinted from Internationalism No. 3 Unionism corresponded to a particular historical period of workers ‘ struggles. Its form was determined by its reformist content. Unions regrouped only a minority of the working class, just enough to be able to put …
FEer Kidnapped? [In response to Rich Take Non-Aspirin Over FE Ad, #274, July 1976] Dear Sirs (sic): We have kidnapped your staff member, E.B. Maple. If you do not deliver $300,000 in one dollar bills or the Chairman of the …
Editors’ Note: The so-called “riot manual” described on the opposite page [FE #84, July 24-August 6, 1969] should be seen for what it is—a battle plan for the subjugation of the black community, demonstrators, and anyone who challenges the way …
a review of El Socialism Salvaje: Autoorganizacion y democracia directa desde 1789 hasta nuestros dias (Wild Socialism: Self-organization and direct democracy from 1789 to the Present) Charles Reeve. Virus Editorial, 2020
It’s a rare case when someone can go home from the job and say they’ve done a constructive day’s work, and an even rarer case when 4,000 people from the same place can say it at the same time.
a review of Worker-Student Action Committees: France ’68, R. Gregoire & F. Perlman, Black & Red, PO Box 02374, Detroit MI 48202, 1969 (reprinted 1991). Available from B & R or FE Books, $3 plus postage.
A few years ago on my last job I kept waking up in the morning with big bubbles in my head, eat a bowl of corn chips and go to work, checking out the storm sewers for leaks and patching …
NEW YORK (LNS) — The three month old strike of 147,000 General Electric workers has been settled.
State Senator Roger Craig, along with Hijinio Rangel, a striking worker from Delano, California, will kick off the International Grape Boycott Day activities in Detroit on May 10th.