Press Release
For Immediate Release: October 7, 2024
Contact for Union of Auto Workers Labor for Palestine: Michael Letwin, (323) 909-2096,
uawlabor4palestine@gmail.com
National Students for Justice in Palestine Instagram: @nationalsjp
National Labor for Palestine Network Instagram: @laborforpalestine
Thousands of Students and Workers Declare National Month of Action: “We Won’t Work for Genocide!”
October 7, 2024 – With less than a month remaining before the November election, thousands of students and workers across the US declare a month of walkouts, sickouts, study-ins and teach-out to mark one year of intensified US-backed genocide in Palestine and now Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and beyond. On Monday, October 7, students and workers across the country will kick off with a series of walkouts and demonstrations (selected list of events below). Organizers say that elected officials, universities, arms manufacturers, and other corporations are profiting from the ever-expanding and unpopular war.
The national “Call for Mass Labor Action Starting October 7, 2024” was issued last week by UAW Labor for Palestine and Labor for Palestine National Network—a coalition of over forty union, sector, and regional formations aligned for Palestinian liberation—and endorsed by National Students for Justice in Palestine, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Palestinian Feminist Collective, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and over a dozen other allied formations.
“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,” the coalition organizers write in their call to action. “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.”
“Biden, Harris and Congress are throwing working class people under the bus while they send our tax dollars to fund genocide and massacres against children,” said Michael Letwin, former President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW 2325, and a co-convener of Labor for Palestine. “Millions of Americans in Georgia and North Carolina just had their lives swept away, and instead of sending them help, they are sending billions or our tax dollars to Israel to massacre children.”
On the same day that FEMA announced a $9 billion shortfall for hurricane relief, Israel received $8.7 billion of military funding from the US. Since November, two out of three Americans, and even a majority of Republicans have supported a ceasefire in Gaza, and a June poll showed that 61% of Americans oppose sending more weapons to Israel. Nonetheless, the Biden-Harris administration just greenlighted expansion of Israel’s war into Lebanon.
50 members of Congress own stock in the weapons industries. The student divestment movement revealed that nearly every university across the US has major investments in weapons research and manufacturing. “They’re lining their pockets amid an actively expanding genocide while our universities cut liberal arts and ethnic studies. Students do not want our labor and research to be used to kill people in Palestine and Lebanon and take their land. Together, we have the power to disrupt the genocide weapons supply chain – by refusing to work for genocide,” says the National Students for Justice in Palestine Steering Committee.
“This genocide and terror across the region is effectively being carried out by the United States as well,” says Rachel Nass, member of CWA 1032. “As workers in the US, we have both the urgent responsibility and the power to directly pressure the war machine, and that’s exactly what Palestinian trade unions are asking us to do. While this seems like a formidable task, we have much more power than we’re allowed to believe, when we work together. Everything folks are doing now matters.”
Coordinated Actions for Monday, October 7 “Week of Rage” include:
- California:
- Los Angeles, All Day – Food Chain Workers Alliance will close their offices on October 7 so staff can join local actions
- San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley walkouts on October 8
- Maine:
- Healthcare Workers for Palestine – Maine is planning walkouts and vigils at hospitals and institutions
- New York:
- NYC, 11:45am EST – Students and Workers at Columbia University walkout
- NYC, All Day – Food Chain Workers Alliance will close their offices on October 7 so staff can join local actions
- NYC – CUNY on Strike, which is comprised of faculty and staff, will be supporting student walkouts and pickets across City University of New York campuses and mobilizing with coworkers for citywide actions
- Illinois:
- Chicago, 12pm CDT – University of Illinois Chicago walkout
- Evanston, 1pm CDT – Northwestern University walkout and picket
- Iowa:
- Grinell, 10:30am CDT – Grinnell College student walkout
- Pennsylvania:
- Philadelphia, 2pm – The newly formed Philadelphia Students for Justice in Palestine Coalition – comprised of groups at Drexel, Temple, Penn, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford – is calling on students and workers to strike and rally together at 2pm
- Texas:
- Austin, 6:30pm – At University of Texas, students will hold a 6:30pm vigil followed by walkouts later in the week
Actions will continue on Monday, October 21 and culminate on Monday, November 4, the day before the US Presidential election.
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The National Month of Labor Action Against Genocide is organized by the UAW Labor for Palestine and the Labor for Palestine National Network–a coalition of over forty union and regional labor formations aligned for Palestinian liberation–and endorsed by National Students for Justice in Palestine, Palestinian Feminist Collective, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and over a dozen other allied formations.
