BDS Resolution
[Passed at a December 6, 2023 membership meeting]
For over a month, the Israeli government has pursued a genocidal bombing campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, indiscriminately targeting hospitals, schools, refugee camps, ambulances, residential buildings and more. During this time, UC Davis UAW 2865 members have called for a ceasefire and participated in actions to urge the University of California to divest from companies profiting off of the Israeli regime’s occupation of Palestine. UCLA already passed this resolution in their November MMM. UCI and UCSB are holding votes at their December MMM’s, and others to follow. UAWD has already signed the UAW BDS Letter. UAW 2865, both at UC Davis and across the UC System, has a longstanding tradition of solidarity with Palestine and a commitment to the BDS movement.
Following the call by Palestinian Trade Unionists to end complicity in their oppression, we call upon our union leadership, the UAW International and Shawn Fain, and workers everywhere to demand an immediate end to Israel’s brutal siege and bombardment of Gaza and US military funding for Israel. Our rank-and-file UAW siblings have shared a letter directing this call to the UAW, which now has nearly 900 signatures from individual union members, UAW locals, and community organizations. Among these, UAW 5118, the Harvard Graduate Student Union voted to sign on as a local. It is now our responsibility to do the same.
As the largest graduate student union in the US—with over 36,000 members—we have a moral imperative to use our numbers to demand a ceasefire and to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination. In line with UAW 2865’s earlier and continued support of BDS, we must collectively and unequivocally support the Palestinian people by signing onto the letter to the UAW. Furthermore, we demand that the UAW and its locals protect all workers—and particularly Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab workers who engage in pro-Palestine speech and advocacy— from doxxing, surveillance, and repression in the workplace.
We resolve to:
- Formally endorse UC Davis Graduate, Medical, Veterinary and Law Students for Justice in Palestine.
- Sign on as UAW 2865-UC Davis to the UAW rank-and-file call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).
- Organize with other UC campuses to sign onto the above letter as the entire UAW 2865 local.
- Hold a membership-wide asynchronous vote to endorse BDS.
