Striking Chinese miners occupied a town and fought street battles with police for three days in February. The occupation of Yangjiazhangzi, in China's north eastern province of Liaoning, was only brought to an end after detachments of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) forced the 20,000 workers to retreat. Read more...

Dave Stockton looks at the recent upsurge in workplace struggles in the former Soviet Union Read more...

On Friday 21 January thousands of indigenous Indians stormed Ecuador’s parliament building in the capital Quito.

A state of emergency was announced on 5 January to try to forestall planned strikes and demonstrations. But the mass of protesters ignored the government’s decree. Sweeping aside the troops guarding the building they occupied the parliamentary chamber and demanded the resignation of the country’s President, Jamil Mahuad. Read more...

In the old Stalinist states trade unions were a prison house for the workers they claimed to represent. Lesley Day charts the changes capitalist restoration has made. Read more...

For three weeks in December French workers took to the streets in mass protests, strikes and occupations. Paul Morris explains the events and their aftermath. Mathieu Roux of Pouvoir Ouvrier (French section of the LRCI) examines the response of the French left. We also print translations taken from the bulletins and newspapers issued by Pouvoir Ouvrier during the strikes. Read more...

After many years of “good-bye to the working class”, in which, “new global questions facing humanity” seemed to make all orientation to the working class appear hopelessly out of date, a discussion has recently broken out in Germany over the “rebirth of the social question”. One prominent German trade union leader, Schmithenner, summed it up;

“The ‘social question’, which many people thought had been resolved, has announced its return with a vengeance…and this return of the traditional battlegrounds of social conflict within the capitalist market economy comes at a time when the idea that post-materialist culture and lifestyles were now all that mattered had carried the day in scientific and political discussions.”1 Read more...

When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 she had united the Tory party around the goal of breaking the strength of the British trade unions. Read more...

When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 she had united the Tory party around the goal of breaking the strength of the British trade unions. This, the Thatcherites argued, was essential for the restructuring of industry and the restoration of British capitalism’s profitability. Read more...