Alabama miners are determined to fight, but the UMWA is isolating the strike and working to defeat it.
That's why we're building independent rank-and-file committees of miners, linked with committees of autoworkers, educators, and Amazon workers, which will break the isolation imposed by the corporate-controlled unions and unite the working class.
The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) now includes committees of rank-and-file autoworkers, educators, Amazon workers, postal workers, and bus drivers.
If you are a rank-and-file mine worker, fill out this form now to contact us and start building a committee.
You can also text us at 205-614-9370
“The aim of this global initiative is to develop a genuine broad-based movement of the international working class, and to encourage workers in all countries to break out of the prison-like shackles in which they are confined by the existing state-controlled and antidemocratic unions, staffed by right-wing pro-capitalist executives.” – DAVID NORTH
“It is very frightening for workers and their families when they don’t know why this happened. Everyone needs answers—not just the residents of Cobar but people all over Australia.” – Cobar miner’s wife
The company’s presentation to shareholders included a token reference to the deaths of Ambrose McMullen and Holly Clarke in its Cobar mine, but the overall tone of the presentation was jubilant, declaring from the beginning “2025 is a milestone year.”
The 2010 mine disaster, which killed 29 workers, and the cover-up by successive governments, demonstrate the urgent need for workers to build rank-and-file committees, independent of and opposed to the union bureaucracy and all capitalist parties.
“I don’t think what the company has done in sending workers back on the job is right at all,” a Cobar worker said, referring to the October 28 mine explosion that killed two workers.
“The only way we will see justice is if we reveal the truth, hold accountable those responsible for the conditions that put us in harm’s way, and set up our own shop floor organizations to take control.”
An inquiry, organized by workers and not corrupt union bureaucrats, is needed to arm workers with the knowledge they need to defend themselves and go on the offensive against the regime of corporate dictatorship in the workplaces which makes these deaths inevitable.
Workers must fight for workers’ power and workers’ control over production, harnessing the surplus created by new technologies to improve, not lower, the standard of living for the masses.
“The path forward lies in organizing independently—through the creation of rank-and-file committees democratically controlled by nurses themselves—to wage a genuine fight for your demands.”
