August 10, 2026

Press Release – OFFICIAL STATEMENT

In solidarity with our sister nation and working youth of Colombia:

The Latin American and Caribbean Youth of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) express our deep solidarity and fraternity with the Colombian people, its youth and its workers, following the recent earthquake that affected our sister nation of Colombia on the morning of Monday, August 10, 2026.

We, the youth union members of the region, are closely monitoring the situation and extend our deepest condolences to the affected families. In the face of natural disasters, the unity and solidarity of the working class are our most powerful tools.

We reaffirm our historic commitment to struggle and brotherhood. In times of greatest difficulty, the unity of the working-class and popular youth of Latin America and the Caribbean is the fundamental pillar for rebuilding and sustaining the hope of our peoples.

Onward, Colombian brothers and sisters!

Long live Latin American youth!

Long live the World Federation of Trade Unions!

Long live Organized Peoples!

Sincerely,

Commission of Working Youth of Latin America and the Caribbean

For the sovereignty and dignity of the peoples.

Our voice is strong, our strength is throughout Latin America!

The post World Labor Supports Colombian People first appeared on Labor Today.

The post World Labor Supports Colombian People appeared first on Labor Today.

The silver mines in Real de Monte had dangerous conditions, with workers using mercury and hazardous materials to mine resources, while in return received low pay.

European workers (“white” by United States demographic standards), Mestizo (“Mixed-race”) and Native Americans made up the majority of the workers, while a small contingent of enslaved African heritage workers were also present at the mines.

From August 1st, 1766, to August 15, 1766, workers filed grievances to the Spanish viceroy. A work stoppage happened at this time. In response, the Spanish colonial government sent 300 soldiers to end the strike and force workers back to work. The strike was broken by the Spanish government, and the mines were reduced in scale by 1767. British leadership later took over operation of the mines.

Workers in Mexico celebrated this strike last week, also stating:

Yesterday, we commemorated the 260th anniversary of the first strike in Latin America, led by the brave miners of Real del Monte in Hidalgo.

Today, more than ever, we must keep their legacy alive within our miners’ union, “Los Mineros,” as we continue to fight—with strength, unity, and solidarity—for the rights, dignity, and justice of miners and the entire working class.

Long live the miners of Mexico!
Long live the workers’ struggle!
Long live dignity and labor justice!

The post First Workers Strike in North America Commemorated first appeared on Labor Today.

The post First Workers Strike in North America Commemorated appeared first on Labor Today.

The contract was due to expire on July 31st – ultimately, talks would begin in February, with British Petroleum seeking to cut 200 positions at their Whiting, Indiana refinery and introduce labor surveillance tools for AI training in an environment where the union had lost 300 positions to “independent contract workers.”

The United Steel Workers (USW) authorized to strike with a 98 percent vote after the company had turned down several offers.

USW, representing 30,000 workers, reached national agreements with all but four refineries. At the Whiting refinery, where the average worker makes 50 dollars per hour, management agreed to a 24-hour rolling extension of the previous contract. Local 7-1 held a rally outside the refinery gate after more than 3 weeks.
The company offered its best and final offer, which included an extended industrial peace clause, demanding a notification of 150 days before any industrial action from the union, a lumpsum one-time payment to all non-union workers of $7,500, and an introduction of a 10-hour work schedule.

The proposal was rejected by a 98.3 percent vote in early March. When the lockout finally began, Roxanne Brown, President of the United Steel Workers, stepped in and put the Union’s international behind the local.
The lockout has been going on since February of this year in Whiting, initiated in response to the USW refusing to sign a deal for staff reduction at British Petroleum’s largest refinery.

The post British Bosses Lock Out US Workers first appeared on Labor Today.

The post British Bosses Lock Out US Workers appeared first on Labor Today.

By James Dugan

Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry by William Z. Foster offers a potent plan for organizing labor to confront not only their bosses, but Monopoly Capital. Written after Foster suffered a heart attack and received treatment in the Soviet Union; its 28 pages are an instruction manual for the resuscitation of organized labor for the establishment of industrial unionism.

Foster advises cooperation between progressive and Left-wing elements in the labor movement noting that “only these elements [ ] have the necessary vision, flexibility and courage to go forward with such an important project as the organization of the 500,000 steel workers in the face of the powerful opposition of the Steel Trust and its capitalist allies.”

Foster says “The organization movement must be industrial and national in character. That is, (a) it must include every category of workers in the steel industry, not merely a thin stratum of skilled workers at the top; and (b) the drive must be carried on energetically and simultaneously in every steel center, not simply here and there spasmodically in individual mills or steel centers.’ For workers to build a class-oriented trade union movement of an industrial character, they need to look no further than Foster’s work.

His emphasis on creating a mass movement of the steel industry, a nationally critical industry, balances comprehensive motivation with rigorous self-criticism, optimism, and determined organizational discipline. To accomplish this, Foster says, “Hard work and sobriety are basic essentials for success. Chair-warmers and irresponsibles should be made to feel unwelcome in the organizing crew.”

Foster’s plan includes specific tactics for outreach members of racial and ethnic groups, youth and women. Foster suggests how an Amalgamated Association (A.A.) or mass organization could be constituted using demonstration, print, and broadcast. Foster posits that this should be balanced with focused interpersonal and relational work for developing and defending the members and organization.

His strategy’s hallmark is its inclusivity and remarkable efficiency.  Foster is thoroughly defensive of the membership and its work of uniting each of society’s layers of preexisting strata, forming the A.A. from the matrix his plan forms within these. This plan integrates his era’s primary social institutions including fraternity and church, to form the platform and to give physical space from which to mount the overall effort.

Industrial unionism gathers membership by forming flexible alliances, overlaid by a firm organizational structure focused on growing the union at every level, industry wide. Rank and file members need to be empowered to actively recruit members and build the union. His methodology offers the most capable means for workers to defeat the trustified industries.

The post Organized Steel Defends Workers and Democracy first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Organized Steel Defends Workers and Democracy appeared first on Labor Today.

By James Dugan

The working class is misinformed. The state’s “official” information is suspect. Workers are responsible for calling them out. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) “unemployment rate” is widely accepted as the standard measurement of unemployed Americans at any given time, but it’s not what you think it is. It is not the number of people filing for unemployment, as many assume. Instead, it is a composite figure based on a monthly poll of 60,000 households, taken by the Census Bureau.

Poll respondents are asked scripted questions, and their answers are tabulated into categories which somewhat overlap and are used by the BLS for its “calculation”. The BLS creates the statistic in this way, “because that’s how it’s always been done” according to one BLS source. The truth is, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t measure the joblessness rate but it does conceal systemic racism and an economy in steep decline.

Instead of the false BLS figures, workers should refer to a valid source of information. One such source is the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) True Rate of Unemployment (TRU) report. While the BLS reports 4.4% unemployment, the TRU reports 24.9%.

The BLS unemployment rate ignores incarcerated unemployed workers who outnumber white workers 5:1. As this economy continues to devastate these workers, predominantly male blacks and Hispanics, the official reporting is that “all is well”. By excluding nearly 2 million locked up Americans from the official count, the real economic conditions of the working class never come to light. The TRU unemployment rate accounts for the vast numbers of nominally employed make up today’s working class. The TRU rate, by including the incarcerated sector of unemployed workers, highlights these as the most segregated sector of the working class. The racial disparities dividing workers are staggering, but the BLS would have the working class remain ignorant.

According to the TRU, fully one quarter of the American working class straddles financial catastrophe, despite having a job. This sort of worker, known as the “functionally unemployed” are defined as workers who “don’t have a full-time job but want one, or have no job, or do not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $26,000 (in 2025 dollars) annually before taxes”.

The BLS unemployment rate hides prisoner unemployment to dress-up the racist American economy as racially neutral. Black men are disproportionately imprisoned in the U.S. and the BLS conceals that they’re also disproportionately unemployed. Workers should question the so-called facts, call out the lying monopolists, their cronies in office and corporate media, and use scientific means to describe their conditions.

Workers should consider their situation carefully in the United States, where the government hides the unemployed in prisons and incarcerates the highest percentage of its population in the world.

The post Bureau of Labor Statistics Hides Racist, Lagging Economy first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Bureau of Labor Statistics Hides Racist, Lagging Economy appeared first on Labor Today.

We remember with horror US President James Monroe’s doctrine which declared that South America was the domain of the United States. The US government’s decision was done without the consent of any other South American government. Recently, President Trump’s America has repeatedly used this doctrine to justify foreign invasions, coups, piracy, and assassinations across the western hemisphere. The US has toppled democratic left governments in Peru, Chile, and Bolivia, and installed puppet right wing dictators. As during the period of the Monroe Doctrine these installed dictators served the interest of US multi-national corporations; crushing unions, restricting labor laws, and denying basic human rights to their people.

As international trade unionists we remember the example of the 1954 US military intervention in Guatemala where the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in a CIA coup to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company of America.

Today it is Venezuela who faces the guns of the US Empire, if we do not unite in international solidarity, it may be us tomorrow. An injury to one is an injury to all.

In conclusion, Labor United Educational League calls upon all trade unions, progressive organizations, and peace-loving people across the globe to stand unequivocally in solidarity with the Venezuelan people. Our solidarity must be active and material: we demand the immediate and unconditional release of President Nicolas Maduro, an end to the economic sanctions against Venezuela and the return of all confiscated oil tankers to the Bolivarian government of Venezuela. No more coups, no more invasions, no more kidnappings, no blood for oil for US corporations. Hands Off Venezuela!

The post Labor United Educational League Denounces the Kidnapping of Maduro first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Labor United Educational League Denounces the Kidnapping of Maduro appeared first on Labor Today.

In solidarity,
Labor United Educational League

The post LUEL Becomes An Associate Of The FISE/WFTU first appeared on Labor Today.

The post LUEL Becomes An Associate Of The FISE/WFTU appeared first on Labor Today.

Thankfully, there were no fatal crashes in these incidents, but it is a matter of life-safety and a matter of time before an accident occurs. Airplanes rely on air traffic control for coordination in takeoff and landing as well as flight tracking. These incidents highlight the challenge for air traffic controllers to do their jobs and safely coordinate air traffic.

Several issues are at the root cause of the outages. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has warned for decades that equipment in air traffic control towers is out-of-date and in many cases obsolete and not manufactured anymore. Infrastructure in the nation’s airports is outdated with some projections of modernization costing upwards of 18 billion USD. The need to rebuild and modernize air traffic systems was also echoed by Sara Nelson, the President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) in a statement issued on May 2, 2025.

Air Traffic Control Towers are also chronically understaffed and the workers that are there usually work long hours in order to ensure coverage. The recent outages though have seen workers either leave the job or go on trauma leave which has exacerbated the working conditions. Training for Air Traffic Control takes a minimal of 8 weeks, and the attrition rate due to stress on the job compounds staffing issues.

For the moment, air traffic in and out of Newark has been cut by 25% to accommodate the short staff and equipment issues. However, this is just a temporary fix on a much larger issue. Our airports are a critical public space for transportation and infrastructure to the nation. Workers should have full staffing levels and modernized equipment to ensure the safety of air passengers and safe working conditions.

We can’t forget that over 40 years ago, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO)warned us of the growing safety issues when they went on strike in 1981. Then President Reagan responded to this strike in fascistic fashion by firing all Air Traffic Controllers. The outdated infrastructure in our airports mirrors the out-of-date infrastructure of many of the systems that power the nation.

The post We Were Warned By PATCO Strike, Out-of-Date Air Traffic Control Towers Leads to Nationwide Blackouts first appeared on Labor Today.

The post We Were Warned By PATCO Strike, Out-of-Date Air Traffic Control Towers Leads to Nationwide Blackouts appeared first on Labor Today.

For decades organized labor has literally been drugged, stupefied, and dragged down to near extinction. Many will attest to rampant drug use, alcohol abuse, gambling, corruption, and general debauchery which could characterize many unions in years past as well as today. But the destruction of organized labor has in some ways made its rebirth possible.

With now considerably less influence, the labor bureaucracy has been unable to suppress growing militancy outside the trade unions. The workers of today in some respects do not carry on the same Gompersism that plagued US labor in the past. Many different trends in labor exist today and the working class is struggling to see who can answer their need for a strong labor movement.

We are meeting today at a time when the labor movement is struggling to integrate thousands of new organizers, new shops, and new perspectives. There is immense potential for what US labor can achieve today, but for our movement to put itself into position to utilize all of the culminating experience in the struggle for better working conditions we must support and defend a class-oriented trade unionism. No other perspective will be able to answer the needs of the American working class.

There are many who claim to be “pro-union”, “progressive” or “troublemakers” and who seek to fill the role of leader of the workers. But underneath their pro-union facade is objectively a policy of subservience to the bosses. In the interest of job security and temporary gains the long-term outlook of the working class is forsaken. Support for the struggle between the workers and the bosses turns to labor management and ways to improve production so companies retain a “competitive edge.” All initiative from the workers in the running of their own union is done away with. Organizing the unorganized is a long forgotten idea, and what little organizing does happen only comes on a silver platter in spite of the union. 

Our members live this reality every day and we unite today to say no more. We are done with the corruption, the stalling, and the sabotage of our institutions. Millions of Americans demand better from the so-called “pro-union” leaders in the labor movement who sit on mountains of wealth and ignore the South. Content with the section of the workers they are given by the bosses, these misleaders of labor employ the most backwards tactics to all but ensure that workers never achieve any sort of foothold not only in the industrial restructuring of the nation or for class-oriented trade unionists to lead our unions.

But we can’t achieve a class-oriented trade union movement unless we invest in the education of the rank and file. Which is why so much of what we do involves the Harry Bridges School of Labor. So that we can foster an environment free from the class collaboration taught by the AFL-CIO, and so we can give the rank and file of our unions the tools needed to put US labor back on the path of class struggle. This Congress represents the continued fight of honest rank-and-file members for class-oriented trade unionism!

The post Class-Oriented Trade Unionists Must Lead the Way—Opening Speech to LUEL’s 1st National Congress first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Class-Oriented Trade Unionists Must Lead the Way—Opening Speech to LUEL’s 1st National Congress appeared first on Labor Today.

The worst of these derailments happened on January 4^th due to negligence from radio communication failure. About 22 passengers and 3 crew members were reportedly hurt in that collision.  The last of these derailments happened January 10^th on the above ground F line in Coney Island, near the New York City Aquarium, due to a missing bolt on the forth car of the train. Thankfully, this took place in winter when the trains in the area aren’t as busy, if this happened six months later this derailment could’ve been catastrophic.

Transit workers have complained that all three of these incidents are indicative of MTA bosses continually putting service and speed before worker safety. Trammell Thompson from the Progressive Action caucus in Transport Workers Union Local 100 has called the safety railings in the vicinity of the F train derailment “rickety”. The MTA continually promotes their safety record with only 23 derailments in the last three years, but in reality are they maintaining the safety of the system or have they just gotten lucky no one has died yet?

We have even talked to Bus Operators who work at the Transit Authority who have told us about the cuts in maintenance on the buses run by the New York City Transit Authority. One Bus Operator who asked to remain anonymous told us, “The MTA puts out alerts on their BusTime app telling riders they’re running limited service because they don’t have enough drivers, but we sit around the yard for hours waiting for buses that they can get away with saying are safe for service but most really aren’t.” He went on to say, “We have drivers who at this point pick their work to pull out at times they know there aren’t any buses … I myself have had days where I didn’t pull out a bus at all.”

It is seems obvious to us here at LUEL that the MTA has started to institute their own version of “Precision Scheduled Railroading” on the New York City Transit Authority. Last year when the New York State Budget was passed MTA Chairman Janno Lieber successfully lobbied for budget cuts for the MTA despite the State added billions in new guaranteed funding to the Transit Authority. With “leadership” like this its only a matter of time before a tragedy at the level of East Palestine comes to the New York City Transit system.

The post Subway Derailments Shine Light on Safety Questions in New York City Transit first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Subway Derailments Shine Light on Safety Questions in New York City Transit appeared first on Labor Today.