FROM NOLSW-UAW 2320 LABOR FOR PALESTINE RANK AND FILE
For Immediate Release: February 5, 2024
Contact: UAW 2320 Labor for Palestine at nolswl4p@gmail.com
UAW Legal Services Members Overwhelmingly Vote to Honor the Palestinian Trade Union BDS Picket Line Against U.S.-Backed Israeli Genocide
After months of organizing by rank-and-file members of the National Organization of Legal Services Workers (NOLSW), UAW Local 2320, AFL-CIO, and following a membership meeting on January 27 that ran hours over schedule, NOLSW member delegates passed a “Resolution for the Liberation of Palestine” at the close of voting on February 2 by a vote of just over 89% in favor to just under 11% opposed. NOLSW is a labor union of approximately 4,500 members representing primarily legal services workers across the United States.
The Resolution endorses the urgent call from Palestinian Trade Unions, which includes pressuring the U.S. government to stop all military funding to Israel, and it serves as an endorsement of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. NOLSW further resolved to encourage its international union, the UAW, as well as the AFL-CIO to make similar endorsements, and it also called on the AFL-CIO to stop undermining efforts by organized labor to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
NOLSW believes, as the Palestinian Trade Unions have argued, that “the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation … is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.” NOLSW understands the importance of international solidarity and heeds the Palestinian Trade Unions’ plea for unions to respect their picket line and to speak out and take action in the face of injustice.
Multiple shops within NOLSW already had passed similar resolutions. For example, the Bay Area Legal Aid Workers successfully adopted a Resolution for a Ceasefire in Gaza and an End to Occupation with over 84% of votes cast in support of the resolution, and the Legal Services Staff Association passed their Resolution in Support of Palestinian Liberation by a vote of 170-83, with 14 voters abstaining. Other NOLSW units also issued statements or approved resolutions in support of Palestine, such as the Mobilization for Justice Union and the Make the Road New York Union.
“As legal service workers, many of our clients are negatively affected by the U.S.’ ‘special relationship’ and ongoing exchange with Israel. Instead of funding vital services like healthcare, public schools, and social housing, services that our clients lack and that we spend many hours trying to access, the U.S. spends billions to support Israel’s military in carrying out genocide. The U.S. supports this at every level of government, with even small city councils sending money and delegations to Israel to further entwine U.S. politicians and law enforcement in Zionist aims and to learn its tools of oppression for local use. Our clients then suffer these practices, from IDF trained police forces, to mass surveillance technology and racial profiling at airports, to use of chemical weapons on campus. The Palestinian struggle is our struggle,” said Rosa Palmeri, a member of NOLSW’s NLG Staff Union.
“As legal workers in service to those targeted by this country’s myriad systems of violence and oppression, we recognize the struggle of Palestinians for liberation and self-determination as our own struggle and understand our collective duty to act to end the bloodshed and mass displacement Palestinians are experiencing at the hands of the U.S.-backed Israeli military,” stated Mikaila Hernández, a member of the NOLSW bargaining unit at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Palestinians suing President Biden in U.S. federal court for his complicity in the unfolding genocide in Gaza. “A permanent ceasefire is just the beginning. With this resolution, we call on our union and organized labor across the globe to urgently divest from death and invest in a strategy for peace that recognizes the humanity of every person living under siege, starvation, and sickness in Gaza, the West Bank, and beyond. Now is the time for political courage and moral clarity, and we will not stop pushing until Palestine is free from occupation, and her refugees have the right to return to their homelands.”
Rank-and-file members of NOLSW expect their public officials to support measures meant to end Israel’s U.S.-backed genocidal assault on Gaza and the decades-long occupation of Palestine. Notably, the nationwide rank-and-file group, UAW Labor for Palestine, has called on UAW leadership to honor the Palestinian Trade Unions’ picket line by rescinding its recent endorsement of the reelection of President Biden, “whose administration arms, funds, and facilitates the relentless Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza and throughout historic Palestine that has already killed more than 30,000 people, including thousands of children, in just over 114 days.”
Rank-and-file members of NOLSW stand with all workers who speak out in support of Palestine, and they support their siblings at the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW Local 2325 in resisting the reactionary, right-wing McCarthyist tactics used in an attempt to undermine the labor movement and to silence Palestinian voices and those who have the courage to stand with Palestine against U.S.-backed Israeli genocide, occupation, and apartheid.
