UAW Divest From Genocide
UAW International: DROP ISRAEL BONDS

The United Auto Workers International holds over $400,000 in Israel military bonds. Join hundreds of UAW members in demanding they divest.

Our union is a global beacon of solidarity and worker power. We were one of the first major unions to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and an arms embargo on Israel. Thousands of our Arab members are impacted directly by the genocide. All of us are touched by US policy which has sent $17 billion US tax dollars to Israel this year, all while we lack healthcare, robust free public education. In 1974, workers at UAW local 600 staged a one-day walkout in Dearborn which successfully pushed the IEB to divest from Israel bonds. UAW must again take a clear stand in support of human rights, justice, and our members’ well being. Join the UAW Arab Caucus and UAW Labor for Palestine in calling on the IEB to divest.

Join us in emailing the UAW International Executive Board. Tell them to divest from Israel bonds.

Act Now: mailxto.com/uawiebdivest

For Lebanon, For Palestine, For US all

من أجل لبنان، من أجل فلسطين، من أجلنا جميعاً

#Labor4Palestine #UAWDivestFromGenocide

Instagram post here.

Labor for Palestine Supports Palestinian Trade Union Call for Worldwide Work Stoppage on October 7!
We Won’t Work for Genocide!
CALL FOR MASS LABOR ACTION STARTING OCTOBER 7, 2024

Call to Action:
https://tinyurl.com/riseforgaza

Organizing Toolkit:
https://tinyurl.com/riseforgaza-toolkit

Endorse the Action:
https://tinyurl.com/ENDORSEOct7riseforgaza

Read online:
laborforpalestine.net

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Call from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions and the Arab Trade Union Confederation To all trade union organizations around the world
15 minutes for decent work and life for Palestinian workers and people

On October 7, workers around the world commemorate World Day for Decent Work, a date on which unions reaffirm one of their most important principles: defending the right of workers, without discrimination, to decent work.

This date also reminds us of a full year s·ince the occupation deprived Palestinian workers of their right to go to work and subjected the Palestinian people to all forms of oppression and systematic destruction of the foundations of a decent life, foremost of which is the right to work.

To address this injustice faced by the workers and people of Palestine, let us all stop working for 15 minutes to remind the international community of the suffering of Palestinian workers and people, and to reaffirm the global trade union movement’s commitment to its principles, which support peoples’ right to emancipation, freedom, and self-determination.

7/10/2024
Jerusalem time 12:00
let the trade union voice be heard:
No social justice, no decent work under occupation.

**More than 40,000 victims and 100,000 injured, half of whom are women and children.
**Poverty rate: 55% Economic losses: 2.3 billion dollars.
**Reduction of workers by more than 65% in Palestinian institutions.
**500,000 workers have lost their jobs.
Unemployment rate: 51%.
**450 millions USD per month is the cost of depriving Palestinian workers of their wages.
**Prices of goods have increased by 600% in gaza.

For Coordination contact
campaigns@pgftu.org
WhatsApp
009627 9005 2002
00970597904498

Instagram here, Twitter here.

#StudentLaborOctober7
#StudentWorkerSolidarity 
#WeAreAllSJP 
#Labor4Palestine
#StopArmingIsrael 
#WeekOfAction4Palestine 
#WeekOfRage#BDS 
#StudentsShutItDown 
#DumpIsraelBonds
#DroptheHistadrut

An Injury to One is an Injury to All: We Won’t Work for Genocide!
CALL FOR MASS LABOR ACTION STARTING OCTOBER 7, 2024
Issued by: UAW Labor for Palestine, Labor for Palestine National Network
Endorsed by: National Students for Justice in Palestine 

Our living conditions in the US are connected to Palestinian freedom. Biden and Harris send billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel, all while our schools, employers and local governments raise fees and cut services — money that should go to healthcare, housing, education and freedom for all. But even as Israel extends its genocide in Gaza and greater Palestine to Lebanon, its economy is in a tailspin. Let’s strike while the iron is hot and refuse to work for genocide. Join us for a Week of Rage with a Student-Labor Day of Action October 7. Continue with a month of rolling actions, pickets, and walkouts at your school or workplace. 

Links to our Call for Action and Organizing Toolkit in bio. and here:
Call to Action: https://tinyurl.com/riseforgaza
Organizing Toolkit: https://tinyurl.com/riseforgaza-toolkit

Original online here.

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An Injury to One is an Injury to All: We Won’t Work for Genocide!
CALL FOR MASS LABOR ACTION STARTING OCTOBER 7, 2024
Issued on September 23, 2024 by: UAW Labor for Palestine and Labor for Palestine National Network*
Endorsed by: National Students for Justice in Palestine

---

This past year, we have witnessed the Israeli regime genocide hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza, throughout greater Palestine, and now into Lebanon, using weapons provided by the US under a Democratic administration.

Despite the opposition of the vast majority of Democratic voters and millions of others, and as Israel expands its genocide into Lebanon, the Biden-Harris administration will not stop the genocide. With major union leaders unwilling to go beyond mere words, workers must use our greatest leverage—the ability to collectively withhold our labor, alongside other action—to respond to urgent Palestinian trade unions’ appeals for solidarity. 

We are workers from every sector whose labor is directly or indirectly implicated in this genocide. We call upon all workers—unionized and nonunionized—to heed this call. We draw inspiration from students taking material risks in their struggle to end their universities’ complicity in genocide and settler colonialism. Across the country, Gaza Solidarity Encampments demanding divestment and an end to collaboration with Israeli academic institutions were violently repressed with thousands of students and academic workers arrested, some still facing charges. We must stand with students as they continue organizing against the genocide and its escalation into Lebanon despite heightened repression. Together we have the power to disrupt the genocide weapons supply chain ourselves.

Our working and learning conditions in the US are directly connected to the fate of Palestinians. Billions of our tax dollars and labor are sent by the US government to facilitate a genocide instead of supporting universal healthcare, education, or housing while our most basic rights are under attack. We must apply economic pressure on the US-to-Israel pipeline. With Israel’s economy in a tailspin, now is the time to divest from and demilitarize empire.

We will begin a rolling mass mobilization of students and workers on October 7, which marks one year of Israel’s intensified genocide in Palestine, building and escalating every two weeks:

• October 7: Student-Labor Day of Action for Gaza – withhold labor through strikes, sickouts, walkouts, pickets, rallies, and other actions to kick off Week of Rage with National Students for Justice in Palestine 
• October 21: organize additional sectors to participate in and expand this mass action
• November 4: further expand and heighten the action, escalating to blockades of workplaces complicit in the genocide, including research labs, factories, and logistics that supply the Israeli military

We must also end all complicity with settler colonialism by demanding our colleges adopt BDS and our unions divest from Israel Bonds and break ties with Zionist organizations, like the racist Histadrut and genocide-supporting Jewish Labor Committee. 

Take action with us and fight for a free Palestine from the river to the sea. Will you join us?

=========

*Labor for Palestine National Network Member Organizations

1. Labor for Palestine (U.S)
2. UAW Labor for Palestine
3. Amazon Labor Union – IBT Local 1
4. Teamsters Mobilize
5. Vermont Labor for Palestine
6. Wisconsin Labor for Palestine
7. UCLA Rank and File for a Democratic Union
8. NYC City Workers for Palestine
9. NYC Educators for Palestine
10. Fair Trade Music NOLA
11. Pride at Work/Eastern Massachusetts
12. Purple Up 4 Palestine
13. SAG-AFTRA Members for Ceasefire
14. United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, Local 36
15. 1021 Members for Palestine
16. AFSCME Local 526
17. No Tech for Apartheid
18. Brown Graduate Labor Organization, AFT/RIFT Local 6516
19. Brown Palestine Solidarity Caucus, AFT/RIFT Local 6516
20. UAW 2325 Labor for Palestine
21. L.A. Labor for Palestine
22. American Federation of Musicians,  Local 1000
23. Union Nurses for Palestine
24. Educators for Palestine
25. NYC Labor for Palestine
26. Green 4 Falasteen
27. Bay Area Labor for Palestine
28. Maine Labor for Palestine
29. Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association
30. Youth Against Sweatshops
31. SENS UAW Local 7902
32. New Student Worker’s Union
33. Writers Against the War on Gaza
34. Theater Workers for a Ceasefire
35. Tech Workers Coalition
36. UPTE Members for Palestine
37. M.E.T.A (Meta Employees for Transparency and Accountability)
38. Colorado Labor for Palestine
39. IATSE Members for Palestine
40. Garment Worker Center
41. Apples Against Apartheid
42. Labor Community-Alliance of South Florida (LCA)

Additional Endorsing Worker-Based Organizations (list in formation)

1. Philadelphia Healthcare Workers for Palestine
2. Healthcare Workers for Palestine – Maine
3. Healthcare Workers for Palestine

Original online here.

Gaza Emergency! You can help

1.9 million people have now been displaced in Gaza. People are  already starving and a full-scale famine could occur in at any time.

Families in Gaza are in need of your urgent support!

While Israel is causing death, injury, and trauma, MECA’s staff and local partners in Gaza are on the ground responding to the most urgent needs of children and families–food, clean water, medical aid, psychological support, and more.

Thank you for supporting children and families in Gaza!

Appeal from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions on the occasion of a year of resistance to genocide

[September 11, 2024]

Brothers and Sisters of trade and workers’ unions in North America, Europe, and the rest of the world.

We write to you once again from Gaza as we approach the one-year mark since the start of this genocidal war – a year of torture, pain, and suffering; a year in which our people have faced forced displacement, a war of starvation, death bombs that rain on the heads of civilians, and the almost complete destruction of life from the bombardment of homes and their inhabitants, schools, hospitals, mosques, and churches; a year in which we have witnessed the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure, the systematic destruction of civil society, and the near complete destruction of the offices and headquarters of most unions.

Despite these harsh conditions, we have done everything possible to aid our communities with our limited resources. This is the cruelest ethnic cleansing campaign we have experienced throughout the past 76 years of occupation; this unprecedented monstrous aggression of Israel has increased the torment of the Palestinians in Gaza through the demolition of homes over the heads of their inhabitants and the deprivation of electricity, water, fuel, medicine, and necessary medical supplies due to the suffocating siege on the Strip for the seventeenth consecutive year.

The number of martyrs that Israel has killed in this devastating war exceeds 40,700 casualties, most of whom are women, children, and thousands of workers and their families, in a toll unprecedented in modern history, with more than 16,700 children and 11,300 women counted among them. More than 94,100 people have been injured or wounded. More than 12,000 citizens are trapped under the rubble, in addition to the destruction of hundreds of hospitals and the bombing of refugee camps for the displaced, leaving children prey to epidemics, diseases, and malnutrition, now including a polio epidemic.

In the face of this tragic reality, we continue to bury our loved ones while facing daily genocide that is unprecedented in modern history, whether in terms of its horrific crimes or the use of weapons of destruction and death. 

Despite all this, we heal our wounds and raise our voices in international forums, calling on the free world and the global labor movement to stand in a broad and pressing solidarity campaign with our people in Gaza.

We, in the Federation of Palestinian Workers’ Unions, amidst the legendary resilience of our people and their rejection of displacement policies, continue to live on our land despite cases of internal displacement, fleeing inevitable death, where the percentage of displaced people has exceeded 80% of the population. These citizens have endured extremely harsh conditions in mobile tents for several months, far from civilian life, in severely inhumane conditions. Additionally, in the areas of Gaza and the north, which have long been subjected to forced starvation and the loss of most necessities, our people have chosen patience and endured suffering over abandoning their homes and original homeland.

From the heart of Gaza, on behalf of ourselves, the General Federation of Palestinian Workers’ Unions, and all workers who have been forcibly unemployed since the onset of this brutal and destructive war, and in continuation of our communication with you to strengthen our resolve and express our gratitude for your support with us, we emphasize the following: 

1. We appreciate your solidarity with us on International Workers’ Day in response to our previous call. We would also like to congratulate the seven labor unions in the United States – the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), the National Education Association (NEA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the United Electrical Workers (UE) – representing more than 6 million workers for their courageous stance and public call on the Biden administration to cut off all military aid to Israel immediately.
   
2. We call on all unions to take similar courageous stands. Your efforts have made the movement for Palestine indispensable and demonstrated the power and importance of international labor solidarity. The call for a ceasefire is a reasonable, necessary, and courageous first step, but all union councils and local governments must supplement these calls.
   
3. We recognize that the thousands of bombs being dropped on our heads and the heads of our children are American-made. We call on all unions to elevate the level of their political pressure, strategies, and tactics to demand an immediate end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We call on you to follow the lead of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) in the U.S. by adopting resolutions supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and demanding that the Biden administration end all military aid to Israel.
   
4. We highly appreciate the role of the dock workers unions in Africa, Europe, and other ports in taking action to stop the flow of weapons and disrupt the financial networks that finance the bombing of our people. We ask you to refuse to deal with military shipments to Israel through all military ships and logistics companies, especially Maersk and ZIM.
   
5. We affirm that the essential goal of issuing this appeal is to mobilize your efforts and the efforts of all free people of the world to deepen the occupation’s isolation and strengthen global solidarity with the struggle of our people, especially on the labor union front in the world as a whole, not just the United States.
   
6. We emphasize that we do not bet at all on the occupation workers’ union “Histadrut” to stop the aggression or compel the war criminal ]Netanyahu to stop the war. Still, instead, it comes in the context of internal disputes and the bias of this union in favor of the opposition regime, whose hands are also stained with the blood of our people and which considers itself more committed to the continuity of the occupation state.

Dear trade unionists and professionals in North America, Europe, and around the world,

Our appeal to you is not just words but a cry from the depths of wounds and pain, from under the rubble and from among the tears of orphaned, bereaved, and hungry children. We address your consciences to stand together in the face of this significant humanitarian disaster created by the occupation and its sponsors in the West, headed by the U.S., because we believe that the world is not a place for neutrality in the face of injustice, but rather an arena for testing human values and moral principles. Let your solidarity with us be a light in the darkness of bias, and let your courageous positions be the voice of truth in the face of falsehood. We, with our souls and bodies, continue to resist the death that is imposed on us, and we trust that you will continue to raise the banner of solidarity and struggle to stop the aggression and to live a dignified life for a freedom that is not negotiable and for a justice that does not bow to anyone.

Long live Palestine and its people… and victory for the working class!

Glory to the martyrs of the working class and all the martyrs of Palestine, humanity, and freedom.

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions

Signatory:

Basheer Al-Sisi is a member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions—City of Gaza.

Dr. Salama Abu Zuaiter is a member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions—City of Gaza.

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نداء صادر عن اتحاد نقابات العمال الفلسطينيين

بمناسبة مرور عام على الصمود و مقاومة الإبادة الجماعية

إلى الأخوة والأخوات في النقابات العمالية والمهنية في أمريكا الشمالية وأوروبا وحول العالم

نكتب إليكم مُجدداً من غزة، ونحن نشارف على اكتمال عام كامل من حرب الإبادة الجماعية. عامٌ من

العذابات و الٱلام والمعاناة. عامٌ واجه فيه شعبنا النزوح القسري، وحرب التجويع والتعطيش، وقنابل

الموت التي انهالت على رؤوس المدنيين الآمنين، والتدمير شبه الكامل للحياة من تدمير المنازل على

ساكنيها وتدمير البنية التحتية بالكامل والتدمير الممنهج للمجتمع المدني، وتحطيم مكاتب ومقرات معظم

النقابات.

وعلى الرغم من هذه الظروف القاسية، فقد بذلنا كل ما في وسعنا لتقديم الإغاثة لمجتمعاتنا بالموارد

المحدودة التي لدينا. إنها حملة التطهير العرقي الأكثر وحشية التي شهدناها خلال 76 عامًا من الاحتلال؛

فهذا العدوان الإسرائيلي الوحشي وغير المسبوق زاد من معاناة الفلسطينيين في غزة، فهدم المنازل فوق

رؤوس أهلها، وحرمانهم من الكهرباء والمياه والوقود والأدوية والمستلزمات الطبية الضرورية بسبب

الحصار الخانق على القطاع للعام السابع عشر على التوالي حتى الآن، تجاوز عدد الشهداء الذين قتلتهم

إسرائيل في هذه الحرب المدمرة حتى ساعة نشر هذا البيان أكثر من 40,700 شهيد معظمهم من النساء

والأطفال، والآلاف من طبقة العمال وأسرهم في حصيلة غير مسبوقة في التاريخ الحديث، وأكثر من

16,700 طفل، و 11,300 من النساء. وأكثر من 94,100 جريحاً ومصاباً، ويقبع ما يقارب 10,000

مواطن تحت الأنقاض، إضافةً إلى تدمير مئات المشافي، وقصف مراكز إيواء النازحين، وترك

الأطفالفريسة للأوبئة والأمراض وسوء التغذية وصلت حد وباء شلل الأطفال ، وغيرها من جرائم الحرب.

في ظل هذا الواقع المأساوي، نواصل دفن أحبائنا، بينما نواجه الإبادة الجماعية اليومية التي لم يشهد

التاريخ مثي لًا لبشاعتها سواء بالجرائم المروعة أو بأسلحة الدمار والموت. ورغم كل ذلك، نلملم جراحنا

ونرفع أصواتنا في المحافل الدولية، داعين العالم الحر وحركة العمل الدولية للوقوف في حملة تضامن

واسعة وضاغطة مع شعبنا في غزة.

إننا في اتحاد نقابات عمال فلسطين، وفي خضم الصمود الأسطوري لشعبنا ورفضه لسياسة التهجير

واسمراره في الحياة على أرضه رغم حالات النزوح الداخلي هربا من الموت المحقق والتي تجاوزت فيها

نسبة النازحين ما يفوق عن 80 % من المواطنين والذي عاشوا ظروف قاسية جدا في خيام متنقلة لعدة

اشهر بعيدا عن الحياة المدنية وفي ظروف لاانسانية قاسية جدا عدا عن مناطق غزة والشمال التي تعيش

منذ فترة طويلة حياة التجويع الاجباري وفقدان معظم مقومات الحياة ولكنهم آثروا الصبر وتحمل المعاناة

على أن يتركوا بيوتهم وموطنهم الاصلي فإننا ومن قلب غزة وباسمنا وباسم الاتحاد العام لنقابات عمال

فلسطين وكافة العمال المعطلين قسرا عن العمل منذ بداية الحرب الهمجية المدمرة، واستمراراً لتواصلنا

معكم لشد أزرنا، وشكركم على تفاعلكم معنا، فإننا نؤكد على التالي:

نثمن وقوفكم معنا في يوم العمال العالمي استجابة لندائنا السابق. كما نود أن نهنئ النقابات

ونقابة عمال البريد الأمريكية ،)AFA( العمالية السبع في الولايات المتحدة –جمعية مضيفات الطيران

والاتحاد الدولي ،)NEA( والرابطة الوطنية للتعليم ،)IUPAT( والاتحاد الدولي للرسامين ،)APWU(

ونقابة عمال الكهرباء المتحدة ،)UAW( ونقابة عمال السيارات المتحدة ،)SEIU( لموظفي الخدمات

التي تمثل أكثر من 6 ملايين عامل، على موقفها الشجاع والداعي علنًا لإدارة بايدن لوقف – )UE(

جميع المساعدات العسكرية لإسرائيل فورًا.

ندعو كافة النقابات إلى اتخاذ مثل هذه المواقف الشجاعة. لقد جعلت جهودكم الحركة من أجل

فلسطين أمراً لا يمكن تجاهله وأظهرت قوة وأهمية التضامن العمالي الدولي. إن المطالبة بوقف إطلاق

النار خطوة جيدة وضرورية، ولكن يجب أن تُستكمل هذه المطالبات من جميع المجالس النقابية

والحكومات المحلية المختلفة.

نحن ندرك أن آلاف القنابل التي تُلقى على رؤوسنا ورؤوس أطفالنا هي صناعة أمريكية. لذا ندعو

كافة النقابات لتغيير استراتيجياتها وتكتيكاتها للمطالبة بالوقف الفوري للإبادة الجماعية المستمرة في

)BDS( غزة. ندعوكم إلى تبني قرارات تدعم حركة المقاطعة وسحب الاستثمارات وفرض العقوبات

ومطالبة إدارة بايدن بوقف جميع المساعدات العسكرية الموجهة إلى إسرائيل.

نثمِّن عالياً دور نقابات عمال الموانئ في إفريقيا وأوروبا وبعض الموانئ الأخرى في اتخاذ

إجراءات لوقف تدفق الأسلحة وتعطيل الشبكات المالية التي تمول قصف شعبنا. نطلب منكم رفض التعامل

مع الشحنات العسكرية الموجهة إلى إسرائيل من خلال جميع السفن العسكرية وشركات الخدمات

.ZIM و Maersk اللوجستية مثل

نؤكد أن الهدف الجوهري من إصدار هذا النداء هو تحشيد جهودكم وجهود جميع أحرار العالم

في تعميق عزل الاحتلال، وتعزيز التضامن العالمي مع نضال شعبنا، خصوصاً على الجبهة النقابية

العمالية في العالم أجمع وليس أمريكا فحسب.

نؤكد أننا لا نراهن على اتحاد نقابات عمال الاحتلال”الهستدروت” أبداً في وقف العدوان أو إلزام

مجرم الحرب نتنياهو بوقف الحرب، بل يأتي في سياق الخلافات الداخلية، وانحياز هذا الاتحاد إلى فريق

المعارضة الملطخة أيديه أيضاً بدماء أبناء شعبنا، والذي يعتبر نفسه أكثر حرصاً على ديمومة دولة

الاحتلال.

الأعزاء في النقابات العمالية والمهنية في أمريكا الشمالية وأوروبا وحول العالم،،،

إنَّ نداءنا إليكم ليس مجرد كلمات، بل هو صرخة من أعماق الجراح والألم، من تحت الركام ومن بين

دموع الأطفال اليتامى والمكلومين والجوعى. إننا نُخاطب ضمائركم الحية لنقف معاً في وجه هذه الكارثة

الإنسانية الكبرى صنيعة الاحتلال ورعاته في الغرب وعلى رأسهم أمريكا الرسمية، لأننا نؤمن بأن العالم

ليس مكاناً للحياد في مواجهة الظلم، بل هو ساحة لاختبار القيم الإنسانية والمبادئ الأخلاقية فليكن

تضامنكم معنا ضوءاً في ظلام الانحياز والدعم اللامحدود للاحتلال، ولتكن مواقفكم الشجاعة صوت الحق

في وجه الباطل. نحن، بأرواحنا وأجسادنا، نواصل مقاومة الموت الذي يُفرض علينا، ونثق أنكم

ستواصلون رفع راية النضال من أجل وقف العدوان وأن نعيش حياةٍ كريمة، من أجل حريةٍ لا مساومة

عليها، ومن أجل عدالةٍ لا تنحني لأحد.

عاشت فلسطين وعاشها شعبها… والنصر للطبقة العاملة وللأحرار

المجد لشهداء الطبقة العاملة ولكل شهداء فلسطين والإنسانية والحرية

الإتحاد العام لنقابات عمال فلسطين

التوقيع:

د.سلمان ابوزعيتر عضو الأمانة العامة للاتحاد العام لنقابات عمال فلسطين – غزة

بشير السيسي عضو الأمانة العامة للاتحاد العام لنقابات عمال فلسطين – غزة

Video online here.

The labor movement joined together to speak out against the violence in Gaza by Israel and for a Free Palestine. Jon Farina covered this event in New York where union members each spoke as to why it’s so important for labor to recognize the need for a Free Palestine and how it ties into unions and labor in general.

Instagram post here.

Instagram post here.

Labor Stands With Palestine!

We charge Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Democratic Party with genocide, and we demand that our unions end all complicity with “Israel!” 

After 10 months of escalated genocide in Palestine, and as the Zionist entity and its U.S. partners intensify their horrific reign of terror throughout the region, rank and file union members across the country are descending on Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. We are here to tell Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and our union leadership that Zionism and U.S. imperialism are in fact red lines for us. 

Many of us have organized for months and decades to push our unions to stand with Palestine. Recently, this organizing resulted in a historic victory–seven of the largest unions in the U.S. called on Biden to end U.S. military funding to “Israel.” But as we continue, day after day, to watch as U.S. bombs massacre Palestinians in schools, hospitals, and refugee camps, we are not content with written pleas from union leaders to the presidential administration presiding over this genocide. 

We demand more. We find it deplorable that leadership of many of those same unions, along with dozens of others, dutifully handed over our unions’ presidential endorsements to Kamala Harris–without consulting membership, and without even making any demands. Not only is Harris the sitting vice president in the administration facilitating Palestinian genocide, she has shown no signs of breaking from her administration’s genocidal legacy. Even in recent weeks, she has repeatedly, publicly pledged her belief in “Israel’s” “right to defend itself.” 

As union workers, we have power to go beyond words to take real, material action in solidarity with Palestine–directly pressuring our government and the forces of capitalism that perpetuate colonialism and U.S. imperialism. In Labor for Palestine, we take our cues from the Palestinian Federation of General Trade Unions-Gaza (PFGTU-Gaza), who have called on U.S. unions to end our complicity and to stop arming “Israel.”

We demand that U.S. labor comply with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by divesting from “Israel” Bonds, cutting ties with the racist Histadrut and the Jewish Labor Committee, organizing members to stop arming “Israel,” and ending support for Kamala Harris and all other Zionist political candidates. 

We will not allow our movement to be quelled, co-opted, or rerouted into the very system that is committing genocide in Gaza and throughout historic Palestine. The Labor for Palestine National Network will answer the Palestinian trade union call by continuing to build rank-and-file workers’ power to stand with oppressed people in Palestine and everywhere else, until we all are free.

Original online here.

Pro-abortion rights and LGBTQ+ protesters rally ahead of the start of the DNC

Activists march on North Michigan Avenue on Aug. 18, 2024, in Chicago, host city for the Democratic National Convention. The protest was organized by CODEPINK, a women-led anti-war nonprofit that seeks to redirect tax dollars into health care, education and green jobs. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

By Adriana Pérez | adperez@chicagotribune.com | Chicago Tribune

UPDATED: August 18, 2024 at 8:11 p.m.

A crowd of hundreds called for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights Sunday evening in downtown Chicago, getting a head start on a week of protests before the Democratic National Convention kickoff Monday.

Starting with a rally on Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive by the Chicago River, with Trump Tower as a backdrop as the blazing sun set behind the Marina City Towers, demonstrators headed south to the Grant Park monument of Union Army Gen. John Logan, which protesters climbed in an iconic moment during the DNC protests in August 1968.

After an acoustic sing-along by the crowd — “My body, my body/ My choice, my choice,” punctuated by a flute and ukulele — emcee and activist Scout Bratt took the mic to say, “Palestinian liberation is reproductive justice,” a nod to the common thread that ran through speeches and chants during the evening.

“And we reject any political compromises on bodily autonomy,” added Bratt, a spokesperson for Jewish Voice for Peace and a member of the social justice group Avodah. “Today, we are coming together on the eve of the Democratic National Convention to be sure that they don’t even begin … without knowing our demands.”

The rally and march took place a week after the coalition Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws — endorsed by more than 30 local and national organizations — won a permit for a route on Michigan Avenue following a long legal battle with the city. The lawsuit continues in federal court with representation from the American Civil Liberties Union over the city’s security perimeter ordinance.

Other groups have also had difficulties obtaining permits in what they have called a slow and contentious approval process; several have taken the city to court.

The Sunday gathering sought to demand that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November, she will commit to sweeping legislation for abortion access and transgender and LGBTQ+ health care, as well as an end to U.S. aid to Israel and a call for a cease-fire.

They hope national legislation will include no gestational bans or viability limits on abortion and a guaranteed minimum income so children can be raised “in a healthy, nurturing environment.” And as trans people continue being targeted by the far right — which the coalition sees as attacks on the bodily autonomy of all LGBTQ+ people — they also demand equal employment and housing rights enshrined in legislation.

The coalition includes pro-Palestinian groups that emphasize the interconnectedness of human rights struggles in Gaza and at home; for instance, anti-war, women-led grassroots organization CODEPINK has said that discussions of reproductive justice within the Democratic Party must consider Israel’s war in Gaza.

“Reproductive genocide, my comrades and friends, is the eradication and destruction of life-giving and life-sustaining resources such as food, such as water, such as medicine, such as medical care,” said Chicago organizer and community leader Leena Odeh of the Palestinian Feminist Collective.

According to reports from the United Nations, miscarriages in the region have increased by 300%, and a shortage of medical supplies means that women are giving birth without pain relief and children are dying without incubators. The largest fertility clinic in the region has been destroyed by Israeli forces, newborn babies face malnutrition and have no access to clean water, and 690,000 women and girls have no access to menstrual hygiene products.

On more than one occasion, speakers forcefully reminded Harris she has to earn their vote. They also repeatedly called out Democratic leaders for what they see as a disconnect between promises and policies enacted at home and abroad.

“We are at a pivotal moment of recognizing and raising cautiousness about all the ways in which the Democratic Party and its brutal policies violently suppress working-class organization and liberation movements. The main line of the Harris candidacy is to vote for them or face fascism, when in fact, the two parties are two sides of the same coin,” said Sultana Hossain, an Amazon labor union activist and co-facilitator for NYC Labor for Palestine.

Nadine Naber, professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois Chicago and co-founder of Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity, said, “We are here to fight for our bodies and our hearts. And I believe that any movement guided by radical, collective love is like fire.”

adperez@chicagotribune.com

Originally Published: August 18, 2024 at 7:23 p.m.

Free, Free Palestine!

My name is Michael Letwin, and I’m honored to be here on behalf of New York City Labor for Palestine, UAW Labor for Palestine, and the entire Labor for Palestine National Network, which now includes more than 40 member groups across this country.

On October 16, 2023, Palestinian trade unions appealed to international labor: “We need you to take immediate action—wherever you are in the world—to prevent the arming of the Israeli state and the companies involved in the infrastructure of the blockade.”

Yet many still ask: Why is Palestine a Labor Issue?

1. An injury to one is an injury to all. Zionism and the Israeli settler-colonial regime—and all “Israel” is occupied Palestine—is part of the same U.S.-backed system of racist state violence that brutalizes Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and working class people here in New York City and around the world. With Israel’s knee on their neck, Palestinians can’t breathe, and we unconditionally stand with them, just as they have stood with our struggles for Black and Brown Lives, Standing Rock, migrant rights, and beyond.

2. Our tax dollars fund Israel. Israel’s crimes are committed with untold billions in bipartisan US military aid, tax dollars that should be spent instead on badly-needed jobs, food, housing, healthcare, education, and transportation for poor and working people at home.

3. Our workplaces arm Israel. Many of our unionized factories, logistics, academia, tech, and other workplaces, including those represented by the UAW—without our consent—produce weapons, transportation, research, technology, and other materials for the genocidal Israeli regime.

4. Our unions fund Israel. Our unions are already involved—on the wrong side. In the 1920s-1930s, top labor officials donated millions to the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation that spearheaded anti-Palestinian dispossession, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, including the Nakba (Catastrophe) that established the Israeli state in 1948. For more than 70 years, they have used our union dues and pension funds to buy billions of dollars worth of Israel Bonds. Today, despite horrendous Palestinian casualties, most labor officials remain silent—or worse.

5. Rank-and-file workers can stop Israeli genocide. More than 50 years ago, Arab and Black auto workers led a wildcat strike and other actions to protest UAW complicity with Israel. Today, we can follow their example in respecting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by protesting, bringing union resolutions, and—above all—by mobilizing our collective power at the workplace, as shown by dockers in South Africa, India, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Italy, Belgium, and the ILWU on the West Coast of the United States that for the past ten years has refused to handle Israeli cargo.

For all these reasons, we applaud the seven major U.S. unions who recently called on Genocide Joe Biden to end U.S. military funding to the “Israeli” settler-colonial regime. Representing more than six million workers, these include the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), International Union of Painters (IUPAT), National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), and United Electrical Workers (UE).

But words are not enough, and you can’t stop genocide by endorsing genocidal candidates. That’s why the Labor for Palestine National Network is joining thousands of other protesters this week in Chicago to make this real by charging the Democratic Party with genocide, and calling on union leaders to stop endorsing the Harris/Walz slate, which is led by Kamala Harris, #2 in the same administration that is presiding over the ongoing Nakba that has murdered at least 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza in the last 10 months, which Palestinians have an inalienable right to resist. 

And amidst unspeakable U.S.-backed Israeli genocide, in Palestinian resistance—and ours, there is hope.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Please donate here to make our voice heard at the upcoming DNC protests: No Support for Genocidal Candidates — Stop Arming Israel! TY!

Instagram post here.

***SUPPORT L4PNN ORGANIZERS PROTESTING THE DNC IN CHICAGO***

Established in April 2004, Labor for Palestine is reclaiming the legacy of working-class solidarity with Palestine in the United States by committing to uplift the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) solidarity call and honor the BDS picket line. As we continue to work towards a permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine, our Labor for Palestine National Network (L4PNN) has rapidly grown to include over 25 member groups in recent months. We believe that by leveraging the unparalleled power of the working-class, we hold the potential to help dismantle apartheid “Israel.”

While we are actively organizing within our labor bodies, at our workplaces, and in our communities for Palestinian liberation, we need your support to expand our efforts even further. Your donation, no matter the amount, will help us continue our critical work and further our commitment to building working-class solidarity with Palestinian resistance while looking towards a future of ultimately ending the occupation. All contributions will help in covering the costs of materials for direct actions—such as rallies, pickets, and teach-ins—and other necessary expenses to sustain L4PNN’s organizing efforts.

We are a grassroots organization fueled by the support of individuals like you who believe in the power of the working-class to effect change. With your support, we can continue to grow our network, educate our fellow workers, and make a real impact in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

Thank you in advance for considering a donation to Labor for Palestine. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

In Solidarity and Struggle,
Labor for Palestine National Network

Instagram here, Twitter here.

We Charge the Democrats With Genocide!
No Support for Genocidal Candidates!
End All Complicity–Stop Arming Israel!
Rank-and-File unionists will be at the DNC to hold the Democrats, and the International Union Leaders who endorse them, accountable.

IG post here.

Endorsed by the Labor for Palestine National Network on August 10, 2024.

As we now pass 300 days of escalated genocide in Palestine by the Zionist entity and the U.S., and as the Zionist entity and its U.S. partners intensify their horrific reign of terror across the Middle East, NYC Labor for Palestine expresses our solidarity with the people of Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, and reiterates our call on U.S. labor to abide by the Palestinian trade union call to End All Complicity–Stop Arming Israel. 

In a period of just 24 hours earlier this week, the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) bombed a densely populated civilian area in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, killing four civilians and assassinating Hezbollah top military leader Fuad Shukr; the Zionist entity assassinated Hamas Political Chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran and Palestinian journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi in Gaza; and the U.S. conducted a strike south of Baghdad in Iraq, killing at least four people. The Zionist entity’s brutalization of Palestine has not relented. Just last night, the IOF once again targeted a Palestinian hospital, bombing the tents of displaced people at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Our hearts are with the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and across the Middle East mourning their martyrs and living in anticipation of an escalating regional war, and we express our solidarity with Palestinian workers in the West Bank currently striking in response to Haniyeh’s brutal assassination. 

It does not escape our notice that the latest Israeli escalation, including the murder of Haniyeh, an essential figure in ceasefire negotiations, came just a week after notorious war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu was warmly welcomed by Congress and visited with the Biden administration, including Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. By supplying weapons and political support, the U.S. government remains a bipartisan partner in every instance of Zionist war crimes.

With all of this in mind, we applaud the seven major U.S. unions who recently called on Joe Biden to end U.S. military funding to the “Israeli” settler-colonial regime. Representing more than six million workers, these include the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), International Union of Painters (IUPAT), National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), and United Electrical Workers (UE).

We recognize that this significant step is the direct result of more than half a century of dedicated rank-and-file  labor solidarity with Palestinian liberation—alongside a broader global solidarity movement led by Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and other BIPOC communities, students, and young people. At the same time, our unions must go beyond pleas with an administration fueling “Israel’s” genocidal war on Palestine. Moreover, it is shameful that higher ups at APWU, IUPAT, NEA, SEIU, and the UAW, have undermined their leverage to stop arming “Israel” by endorsing Kamala Harris, a carceral imperialist and committed Zionist, and #2 in the very administration presiding over the escalated Nakba that has murdered at least 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza in the last 10 months. From Harris’s meeting with Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s operations this week, to her full-throated condemnation of the July 24 D.C. protest of Netanyahu, to her reiteration that “Israel has a right to defend itself” in response to the Beirut bombing, we see no evidence that she plans to break with Biden’s genocidal legacy. Her statements in support of Israel come not only amid this horrifying regional escalation and continued brutalization of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but while hundreds of Israelis riot in defense of soldiers arrested for raping a Palestinian prisoner. 

With a career built on incarcerating Black and brown people in California, Harris thoroughly represents U.S. capital and imperialist interests—receiving over $5 million from AIPAC and co-sponsoring a Senate resolution to combat supposed “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations. It is deplorable to endorse a leading accomplice in Zionist murder, even as the entity continues to bomb schools, cities, and refugee camps. Endorsing Harris is also a slap in the face to our union siblings facing brutalization and retaliation for protesting the genocide. Rank-and-file from the NEA and SEIU have also made public their own condemnation of their union leaderships’ endorsement of Harris.

U.S. labor must comply with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by divesting from “Israel” Bonds, cutting ties with the racist Histadrut and the Jewish Labor Committee, organizing members to stop arming “Israel,” and ending support for Kamala Harris and all other Zionist political candidates. 

We will not allow our movement to be quelled, co-opted, or rerouted into the very system that is committing genocide in Gaza and throughout historic Palestine. The Labor for Palestine National Network will answer the Palestinian trade union call by continuing to build rank-and-file workers’ power to stand with oppressed people in Palestine and everywhere else, until we all are free.

IG version here.
Twitter version here.

No Business As Usual: May Day for Palestine!
Issued by the Labor for Palestine National Network, April 6, 2024

Organizational endorsements welcome here.

On March 23, 2024, “in the midst of pain and blood, in the displacement camps, amidst the rubble, and the ruins of our homes, workshops, factories, stores, and institutions destroyed by the ‘Israeli’ occupation, using U.S.-made weapons,” the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions-Gaza (PGFTU-Gaza) sent U.S. workers, unions, and other labor organizations an urgent May Day appeal.

The PGFTU-Gaza’s appeal salutes “some exceptional examples of unions, clearly demonstrated in leading protests denouncing the Zionist war of genocide being waged on the Gaza Strip.”

However, it also decries the “shocking silence and neglect by the international labor movement,” citing those who have “retreated to verbal positions without taking measures on the ground or pressuring the decision-makers to stop this war of extermination, limiting union activities to conferences and statements and not delving deeply into the need to guarantee humanitarian aid, or influencing international public opinion to expose the truth about Zionist crimes and the practices of the allied countries that continue to support Israel.”

The appeal specifically highlights the need “to ban the occupation’s trade unions [the Histdarut] internationally, as they are partners in the war of genocide. In particular, we call on American unions to boycott these unions to protest their complicity in this genocidal war.”

In response to the PGFTU-Gaza May Day appeal, and the Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions: End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel (October 16, 2023), the Labor for Palestine National Network reaffirms that labor must go beyond words and escalate pressure to stop the genocide in Gaza by:

1. Demanding an immediate end to the siege on Gaza and to all U.S. military aid for Israel;
2. Following the example of Block the Boat, ILWU West Coast dockers, and workers around the world who refuse to build or transport weapons destined for Israel; and
3. Respecting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by severing ties with Israel’s racist labor federation, the Histadrut and its US mouthpiece, the Jewish Labor Committee, and by divesting from Israel Bonds and industries connected with Zionist settler colonialism and occupation.

We further call on the working class and labor bodies across the U.S. to build on the May Day call from Bay Area Labor for Palestine, by taking one or more of the following actions on May 1, 2024:

• Withhold labor and rally with a labor contingent for Palestine or amplify demands to stop this genocide within your local May Day action
• Hold a teach-in or moment of silence
• Post a group photo, with flags, signs, keffiyehs, buttons, and other symbols of Palestinian solidarity
• Leaflet and demonstrate at a weapons plant, military facility, or other complicit institution
• Storm social media with:
• #MayDay4Palestine
• #StopArmingIsrael
• #BDS
• #DumpIsraelBonds
• #DroptheHistadrut
• #FromtheRivertotheSeaPalestineWillBeFree
• Devise other creative actions

Why is Palestine a Labor Issue?

1. An injury to one is an injury to all. The Israeli settler-colonial regime is part of the same U.S.-backed system of racist state violence that brutalizes Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and working class people around the world. With Israel’s knee on their neck, Palestinians can’t breathe, and we unconditionally stand with them, just as they have stood with our struggles for Black and Brown Lives, Standing Rock, migrant rights, and beyond.

2. Our tax dollars fund Israel. Israel’s crimes are committed with more than $3.8 billion a year (or $10+ million per day) in bipartisan US military aid, tax dollars that should be spent instead on badly-needed jobs, food, housing, healthcare, education, and transportation for poor and working people at home.

3. Our workplaces arm Israel. Many of our unionized factories, logistics, academia, tech, and other workplaces—without our consent—produce weapons, transportation, research, technology, and other materials for the genocidal Israeli regime.

4. Our unions fund Israel. Our unions are already involved—on the wrong side. In the 1920s-1930s, top labor officials donated millions to the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation that spearheaded anti-Palestinian dispossession, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, including the Nakba (Catastrophe) that established the Israeli state in 1948. For more than 70 years, they have used our union dues and pension funds to buy billions of dollars worth of Israel Bonds. Today, despite horrendous Palestinian casualties, most labor officials remain silent—or worse.

5. Global working class solidarity is the only way to win. More than ever, in this era of globalization, workers and oppressed people everywhere are up a common enemy. We can’t win if we are atomized by union, or even country. We need international, classwide unity. That means every worker must take on the task of building solidarity with Palestine—today an epicenter of class struggle.

6. Workers can stop Israeli genocide. More than 50 years ago, Arab and Black auto workers led a wildcat strike and other actions to protest UAW complicity with Israel. Today, we can follow their example in respecting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by protesting, bringing union resolutions, and—above all—by mobilizing our collective power at the workplace, as shown by dockers in South Africa, India, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Italy, Belgium, and the ILWU on the West Coast of the United States, which has respected Block the Boat’s community-labor picket line by refusing to handle Israeli cargo.

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