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.
