“Before engines, there were legs — welcome to the world of ‘legging’ through the tunnels.”

This striking 1961 photo captures a nearly forgotten craft: legging. In the days before engines, canal workers would lie on their backs atop narrowboats and push against tunnel walls with their feet, inching the boats forward through long, dark passages where horses couldn’t go.

It was exhausting, filthy work — damp air, mucky clothes, and pure muscle power. But this was the rhythm of Britain’s industrial waterways, where grit and determination moved commerce before machines took the reins.

Source

The UN General Assembly has appointed former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock as president of its 80th session. Initially, the German Foreign Ministry considered Helga Schmidt, a former OSCE Secretary-General and career diplomat, for this role.

Baerbock’s nomination reportedly sparked discontent within the Foreign Ministry. Some expressed concern her appointment could cost Germany votes, particularly from countries in the Global South, due to her outspoken anti-Russian rhetoric and pro-Israeli stance.

In mid-May, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, criticized Berlin’s choice as “a slap in the face”. It was Baerbock who had recommended excluding Russia and Belarus from the 80th VE-Day anniversary commemorations and expressed public pride in her grandfather, who served in the SS.

The original post of this article was not complete. Here is it in full.

http://classconsciousnessproject.blog/2025/06/10/the-contradictions-of-capitalism-explained/

Workers at Airdrie cotton mill, Glasgow, 1910.

The introduction of our new comrade Vikki Harper.

A better free transfer than James Milner!

Read her fantastic articles on our blog!

Class Consciousness Project.

4,000 cases of child labor exploitation recorded in the US. This is 4 times more than a decade ago.

The US Department of Labour says child laboir exploitation has reached a critical level. This follows from the agency's report . In the 2024 fiscal year, the country's authorities recorded more than 4,000 such cases. For comparison, ten years ago, about a thousand were identified. According to officials, the increase in figures may be due to both increased monitoring and increased awareness of the problem.

The most common industries where child labour is used are hotels, cleaning services, meat processing plants, and retail. For example, in 2023, there was a high-profile case involving the meat processing company Packers Sanitation, which employed more than 100 children for dangerous work at night. When violations were discovered, the company received a fine of $1.5 million and was obliged to tighten internal controls.

Here's a woman picketing for higher wages in 1938. She worked for a tobacco company in Richmond, Virginia, USA. .

Our comrade Chris discussing the ideas of Metro Mayor Steve Rotherham to "improve" Merseyside public transport.

vm.tiktok.com/ZNdAnx4mj/

The Soviet Union understood the fundamental role of public transport as a vital link between the worker and industry, community and service. It prioritised infrastructure that served the needs of the people, ensuring production and daily life were harmoniously connected.

Britain, by contrast, has blindly followed the American model of car-centric travel for decades. Our high streets have been gutted and replaced by soulless retail parks, isolated developments surrounded by vast car parks and deliberately awkward public transport links. These are built outside of working-class communities, severing the organic connection between home, work, and service.

Industry and public services should be rooted in the communities they serve, with homes located nearby or connected through efficient, affordable public transport.

As our comrade Chris rightly points out in his video, Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram has no real intention of providing a public transport system that serves the needs of local workers. His bendy bus scheme isn’t about improving access to work or easing daily travel—it's designed to funnel tourists to Liverpool’s attractions. Once again, workers are sidelined in favour of capital.

There is hardly another section of the proletariat which comes so closely into contact with industry and agriculture in its everyday economic activity as the railway and water transport workers. You must supply the cities with food, and revive the rural areas by carrying the manufactured goods to them. That is clear to everyone, but it is much clearer to railway and water transport workers, because that is their everyday work. And from this, I think, follow the exceptionally important tasks and the responsibility now falling to the railway and water transport workers.

- V. I. Lenin
The All-Russia Congress Of Transport Workers.

Collapsing Empire: Iran Throws Down Gauntlet
https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/collapsing-empire-iran-throws-down

"The Irish people will only be free, when they own everything from the plough to the stars"
OTD James Connolly was born in 1868
#SocialistRepublican