The small town of Longview on the southwestern coast of Washington, has become ground zero for both the labor and Occupy movements. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is engaged in a crucial battle with EGT, an international conglomerate of grain exporters. EGT is trying to operate the first grain terminal in 70 years without ILWU labor, attempting to break the power of the ILWU.

The Occupy movement has played a big role in building solidarity for the labor movement in recent months. From supporting the Sotheby workers in New York City, to the LA port drivers and longshore workers on the west coast, many in the Occupy movement are looking to link up with the unions to build a powerful movement of the working class.

Longview, Washington has become ground zero for one of the most important, intense battles in both the labor and Occupy movements. It's crucial that unions, Occupy activists, workers, and young people everywhere mobilize to Longview to help defend living wage union jobs when the EGT multinational corporation attempts to load grain on a ship without ILWU labor.

President Nazarbayev has imposed a State of Emergency in the city until 5th January. The city of Zhanaozen s completely blockaded. But on the outskirts and in the outlying villages as dark settles you can hear the sound of gun fights and grenade explosions. The young workers are not prepared to give up their resistance. Witnesses are trying to film these "Special operations" on their mobile cameras. In the city, as before, the lights are off, mobile communications are constantly interrupted, the internet is blocked. Despite the fact that the centre is in control of the troops, all the oil pumping stations of "OzenMunaiGaz" are not working.

According to reports from the Public commission for investigating the bloody events of 16-17th December in Aktau, young workers from the “OzenMunaiGaz” company who have been arrested in Zhenaozen are being thrown into the open yard at the remand prison and are having water thrown over them. The temperature is currently MINUS 17 CELSIUS. The torturers are attempting to get the workers to admit to rioting and to give evidence against their friends.

The province of Cajamarca has become a political epicenter where the masses have organized a general strike against the abuses of the mining industry. President Ollanta Humala has betrayed his election promises and besieged the town for two months, "for the sake of piece and quiet." This has meant democratic rights being denied to the population, and continued increased profits for the mining industry at the expense of the environment.

The December 12 west coast port blockade marked an extremely significant step forward for the Occupy movement. This coordinated disruption of international commerce significantly expanded upon the successful shutdown of the Port of Oakland six weeks before on November 2. By directly disrupting international trade and taking up common causes with the labor movement, the Occupy movement escalated its tactics from its initial approach of symbolic occupations of central squares to actively shutting corporations down and cutting into their profits.

In the largest day of strike action in Britain since the 1926 General Strike, millions of workers came out yesterday to demand an end to the budget cuts and attacks on pensions.

Steve Edwards, President of AFSCME Local 2858 and member of Socialist Alternative's National Committee, speaks about actions at Occupy Chicago in this video which first appeared courtesy of "Labor Beat".

Around the country, Socialist Alternative activists are playing an important role building the Occupy Wall Street protest movement and putting forward proposals for how it can grow in numbers and power. Here are four recent speeches from Socialist Alternative members at occupations in Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bellingham, WA, discussing next steps for the movement.

Once again, attempts to break up the Occupy movement through police violence have backfired on city authorities. Occupy Oakland's call for a general strike tomorrow, November 2nd, in response to the brutal police attack on October 25th, promises to be a major show of strength by organized labor in Oakland. Solidarity demonstrations across the country will show the potential power of the working class and also help to raise consciousness about the role of police as defenders of big business interests.

In the face of growing police repression of Occupy Wall Street protests across the country, and now that Occupy Seattle faces a critical juncture, we are urgently appealing for support from activists, workers and students in Seattle, around the U.S. and internationally.

The recent strike by unionized teachers in Tacoma demonstrated how union solidarity, and refusal to bow down to injunctions can defeat an arrogant school board set on breaking teachers unions and weakening public education.

Greece was paralysed on Wednesday and Thursday this week by a 48 hour general strike called by the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and the public sector Civil Servants’ Confederation (ADEDY). Up to half a million workers and youth took to the streets of Athens on Wednesday and around 100,000 on Thursday. Wednesday’s demo was the largest union demonstration in Greece since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974 and with the exception of a popular uprising in 1965, the largest since the end of World War II!

For those of us on the left who have observed the SEIU-centered Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, as Steve Early so aptly describes them in his book title, there is little that is farcical and much that is tragic about the outcome. If Early is correct, what hung in the balance was nothing less than a possible resurgence of the beleaguered American labor movement. Many problems in the labor movement pre-dated Andy Stern’s SEIU, but deception reached ridiculous new lows, and much of the labor left fell into Stern’s purple “progressive” trap.