Workers' Struggles

Farmers in India launched a protest movement days after the government passed three reactionary agricultural bills in the parliament on 20 September 2020. This article will explore the Farm Bills, the struggle of Indian farmers, capitalist anarchy in agriculture and the revolutionary way forward.

The youth of Nigeria have risen up in revolt against the brutality of the hated SARS police unit. Neither concessions nor the whip of reaction have beaten the #EndSARS movement back, but only driven it forward. This spontaneous outpouring of rage must be put on an organised political footing, aimed squarely at the rotten capitalist regime.

For days, protests have rocked cities across Nigeria. It is organised around #EndSARS, a movement that is calling for a complete ban of the so-called “anti-robbery” wing of the Nigerian Police, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS – no relation to the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2). Set up in the mid-90s to combat incidences of armed robbery, which had become rampant as a result of deepening poverty under the corrupt military regimes, SARS has since then metamorphosed into a dreaded force associated with all sorts of evils.

Mass protests and strikes exploded across Indonesia on 6-8 October following the passing of the controversial Omnibus Law: a major series of counter-reforms also known as the “Big Bang” Law. Tens of thousands of workers went on strike, and in dozens of cities, school students took to the streets and engaged in running battles with the police.

The following statement was written by the editorial board of our German website, Der Funke, calling for solidarity with Albanian oil refinery workers struggling for unpaid wages and their rights.

A wave of protests is sweeping Iran. There were 331 strikes and demonstrations reported in August involving all sectors: from the oil-and-gas sector, to students in the municipalities, farmers and more.

In the early hours of 9 September, the lawyer and taxi driver Jorge Humberto Ordoñez, father of two, was murdered by two National Police agents after 16 taser discharges and a beatdown, as he begged for his life. This crime, which was recorded by witnesses, was the straw that broke the camel’s back and pushed the masses into the streets against police brutality and in demand of effective action against massacres, unemployment and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since August, a strike wave has spread through Iran like wildfire, involving workers across various sectors from the petroleum industry to public services; from Khuzestan in the south-west to Mashhad in the north-east.

The Central Trade Unions (CTUs), comprising 16 unions, called for protests all over India on 3 July, which took place throughout the country. Nearly 100,000 demonstrations occurred in all the states of India including Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha and Maharashtra. In these demonstrations, protestors agitated outside their union offices, in plants, and on streets and roads. This strike was accompanied by a coal workers’ strike against privatisation, lasting three days from 2-4 July.

On 9 July began the first day of strike action by couriers in Moscow. Most of the strikers are employees of the Delivery Club franchise owned by major Russian IT corporation, the Mail.ru group.

For the past few days, the Caribbean island of Curaçao has been shaking. There have been reports of riots, looting and fights with the police. The Dutch state is now helping the island government to “maintain order” by deploying the Dutch marine corps. What is happening?