Early on the morning of April 1, a historic victory for the American working class was won. Amazon, the second-largest employer in the US, owned by the second-richest person, and a bastion of anti-union resistance by the bosses, has been dealt a serious blow. The JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York has become the first Amazon facility in the US to be officially unionized, after a majority of 2,654 to 2,131 voted to organize with the upstart Amazon Labor Union (ALU). A simultaneous vote is still underway in Bessemer, Alabama. This is taking place at the same time as a national wave of organizing in Starbucks, a breakthrough for the service industry.

The deep economic crisis in Sri Lanka, which has entered an acute phase in the first months of this year, has resulted in the eruption of mass, spontaneous protests. The masses cannot take any more. More protests are planned across the country, at which the comrades of the Marxist tendency, Forward, will be distributing leaflets in Sinhalese and Tamil. We publish an English-language statement below, which that leaflet is based upon.