Apr 11, 2025 The Palestine General Federation Of Trade Unions in Gaza have called on US unions to take general strike action on May 1, 2025 to stop the genocide in Gaza and against their own attacks they face. Michael Letwin who is past president of UAW Local 2325 and a one of the founders of Labor For Palestine talks about this call and also the struggle in the US labor movement to oppose the US military and economic aid to Israel and the continued genocide. He also talks about the growing Gestapo tactics of arresting university workers and students an the efforts to terrorize millions of immigrants and workers. He also discusses the effort of supporters of UAW president Shawn Fain to close down the Unite All Worker For Democracy UAWD caucus in the UAW. Last he talks about the effort to limit the calls for action on May Day to only US issues and not the genocide and trillion dollars US military aid to Israel and for the 800 US bases around the world. This interview was done on 4/10/25. Additional Media: https://laborforpalestine.net/2024/03… Police Attack Palestine Labor Activists In Front Of Chicago Labor Notes Conference 
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Transcript:
0:01
1 second[Music]
0:12
12 seconds[Music]
0:13
13 secondsThis is Steve Zeltzer with Work Week in Pacifica and the continuing genocide going on in Gaza in the West Bank has
0:22
22 secondsled to a growing anger among workers around the world including uh in the United States and recently there’s has
0:30
30 secondsbeen a call by the General Federation of Trade Unions of Gaza to call on the workers of the United States to take action in solidarity with the Palestinians and against the genocide.
0:40
40 secondsAnd joining us today is Michael Lewin.
0:42
42 secondsHe is a lawyer, former president of his UAW local and also one of the co-founders of Labor for Palestine. Welcome to our show. Thanks, Steve.
0:51
51 secondsGreat to be here as always. So, Michael, first of all, why don’t you talk about the work you’ve been doing and your fight in the union to get the union involved as well as Labor for Palestine?
1:00
1 minuteWell, Labor for Palestine began in 2004, so it’s over 20 years now. And really, the whole point has been to uphold the
1:08
1 minute, 8 secondscall from Palestinian trade unions for solidarity against Zionism. And that includes, of course, support for BDS,
1:16
1 minute, 16 secondsboycott, defenses, and sanctions, especially in the labor sphere. And it really builds on and tries to reaffirm
1:23
1 minute, 23 secondsthe work that began in the late 60s and early 70s in the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the Arab Workers Caucus in the UAW, both of which in
1:32
1 minute, 32 secondsDetroit, who brought the issue of Palestine to the UAW because the UAW, the Autoworkers Union for decades,
1:40
1 minute, 40 secondsreally going all the way back to the Nagba of 1948 has been a major supporter of Zionism. has bought who knows how
1:49
1 minute, 49 secondsmany millions of Israel bonds. And that really was the issue in 1973 during the 73 war when the when uh
1:58
1 minute, 58 secondsArab workers and black workers in Detroit went on strike and held protests in that situation, not against the company, although they were against the
2:06
2 minutes, 6 secondscompanies, but against the international UAW and the local 600 leadership which owned UA uh Israel bonds and demanded
2:14
2 minutes, 14 secondsthose Israel bonds be sold. And uh so you had many Arab workers in fact in those plants who were leading that that charge with the support of black workers
2:23
2 minutes, 23 secondswith the support of a lot of white workers and other workers. And so that’s what we’re trying to build on is that
2:30
2 minutes, 30 secondslegacy of anti-ionism really anti- labor Zionism in uh the workplace in our
2:37
2 minutes, 37 secondsunions. And so we formed Labor for Palestine in 2004 to make sure or to fight to make sure that Palestine was
2:45
2 minutes, 45 secondsnot ignored or sidelined or excluded by the post 911 anti-war movement which many of us were involved with and also
2:53
2 minutes, 53 secondsto make sure that uh we were bringing this fight to labor within labor to demand that labor uphold the basic
3:01
3 minutes, 1 secondprinciples of solidarity. An injury to one is an injury to all. We don’t cross picket lines. to walk picket lines and to make that apply just as much to
3:09
3 minutes, 9 secondsPalestine as anything else. So that’s the history of of labor for Palestine and how we began. And then in the last
3:16
3 minutes, 16 seconds20 years, we’ve pursued those uh those efforts and supported all kinds of rank and file work because we are a rank and
3:24
3 minutes, 24 secondsfile-based caucus or rather a union uh oriented organization. And we also have many of us in the UAW have continued to
3:32
3 minutes, 32 secondsfight within the UAW around the issue of Palestine.
3:36
3 minutes, 36 secondsAnd of course the AFL CIO from its beginning supported Israel. Uh they work with the Historoot. And what is the
3:43
3 minutes, 43 secondshistory? because that union says it represents the workers in Israel, but in reality it has quite a different
3:50
3 minutes, 50 secondshistory, right? The histadroot was the Israeli state in waiting, meaning that
3:57
3 minutes, 57 secondsall the way from its founding in about 1920, it was used by Zionist or movement
4:05
4 minutes, 5 secondsto essentially create the ground for the establishment of the Israeli settler colonial state. And they did that by uh
4:15
4 minutes, 15 secondscalling themselves a labor federation even though they were at that point exclusively and uh they they discriminated against the the indigenous
4:23
4 minutes, 23 secondsworkforce. Their whole idea was to quote conquer land and labor meaning take away the land from Palestinians and exclude
4:30
4 minutes, 30 secondsPalestinians from the work. And that’s the history of the history all the way up through 1948. It
4:38
4 minutes, 38 secondsplayed a major role in the Nagba. and then it it it helped to run the Israeli state for the next 30 years while the
4:46
4 minutes, 46 secondsLabor Party was in office. So it really is uh at the heart of the Zionist project and has nothing to do with the
4:55
4 minutes, 55 secondskind of the labor federation that we would think of in this country. I mean, of course, we have problems with our labor federations, the AFL CIO and so forth, but at least they are labor
5:04
5 minutes, 4 secondsfederations, however, you know, backward they may be or even compromised politically, which they are, including
5:11
5 minutes, 11 secondstheir support for Zionism and lots of other bad things, but nonetheless a labor federation still. This is the history to it is more has more in common
5:20
5 minutes, 20 secondswith say a white workers union in South Africa under apartheid when you had the same kind of colonial settler state uh
5:29
5 minutes, 29 secondswhich had a very active white so-called labor you know unions for white workers only um but which was completely
5:38
5 minutes, 38 secondscomplicit in the apartheid regime and that’s what the history is in Israel what what you know we call uh you know
5:46
5 minutes, 46 secondswe say all of Palest All of Israel has occupied Palestine. So when I say Israel, I don’t mean a place or a people. I mean the regime that occupies
5:53
5 minutes, 53 secondsPalestine and and has since 1948. The history that was involved, I understand, in supporting the apathide regime in
6:00
6 minutesSouth Africa. Yes. Supporting Buazi uh and working with the AFL CIO to fund uh
6:07
6 minutes, 7 secondsBalazi and Inkata uh which would then attack trade unions who are organized in South Africa and Kosatu independent
6:15
6 minutes, 15 secondstrade. Well, even worse than that, I mean the the the thing that’s the other thing about history is that they have also been an employer. So, they’ve owned lots of factories including weapons
6:24
6 minutes, 24 secondsfactories in Israel and they through that process and through the Labor Party government which was then in power in
6:30
6 minutes, 30 secondsthe 70s helped South Africa gave South Africa essentially a partite South Africa nuclear weapons and because
6:39
6 minutes, 39 secondsIsrael had the nuclear weapons and they made a deal to to do that for South Africa as well. um partly for you know all kinds of reasons but mainly because
6:47
6 minutes, 47 secondsthey were alike regimes and wanted to make sure that they were pushing back the anti-colonial liberation movements together and so they were tightly allied
6:56
6 minutes, 56 secondsunder the histadr based labor government with apartheid South Africa and the AFL
7:03
7 minutes, 3 secondsCIO has not said that there’s genocide going on in Gaza the uh they have not called for stopping the weapons US
7:12
7 minutes, 12 secondsweapons that are going to support that that genocide. And in cases like in the San Francisco Labor Council, Liz
7:20
7 minutes, 20 secondsScheler, the president of the AFL actually sent a letter saying you shouldn’t even talk about the issue of Palestine. This effort to build
7:28
7 minutes, 28 secondssolidarity against the uh genocide and for the freedom of Palestinian workers uh in in Palestine and Israel. What kind
7:37
7 minutes, 37 secondsof obstacles has the labor labor for Palestine faced in that regard?
7:42
7 minutes, 42 secondsWell, you know, going back um certainly to well, you know, the first sort of mainstream labor resolution in support
7:51
7 minutes, 51 secondsof BDS came out of a UAW local which was then 2865 now 4811 it’s called in the University of
7:59
7 minutes, 59 secondsCalifornia the grad student workers and now more than just grad students and at that time uh the membership there took a
8:07
8 minutes, 7 secondsvote overwhelming landslide vote in favor of BDS. This is during another of the intense attacks on Gaza by Israel,
8:14
8 minutes, 14 secondsof course, using US weapons. And um that vote passed overwhelmingly and then the international UAW uh overturned it and
8:22
8 minutes, 22 secondsnullified it on the grounds that it was inconsistent with UAW support for Israel. that was under the old regime,
8:29
8 minutes, 29 secondsthe old administration caucus regime in the UAW which was in power for something like 70 years and which has now been
8:36
8 minutes, 36 secondsreplaced to some degree has been replaced by the the election of Shan Feain who’s the current UAW president who came in on a reform slate. But um
8:45
8 minutes, 45 secondsthose are the kinds of obstacles that we faced all the way through that is uh attempts by the bureaucracy in many unions and in the AFL CIO as you point
8:53
8 minutes, 53 secondsout to stifle and overturn and silence uh solidarity with pal with with Palestine. Uh and the the slogan one of
9:01
9 minutes, 1 secondthe slogans we use is you know an injury to Palestine is an injury to all. So they they don’t they don’t get that notion of solidarity even in regard to
9:10
9 minutes, 10 secondsmany domestic labor issues and they certainly don’t get it or apply it or practice it when it comes to Palestine or many other places. And so that’s been
9:19
9 minutes, 19 secondsthe tradition the tradition. Now since uh you know October 7th of 2023 there have been the emergence I would say of
9:27
9 minutes, 27 secondstwo different uh types of breakage with that. there’s the sort of a top- down breakage coming out of what what you
9:35
9 minutes, 35 secondscould call the ceasefire unions uh seven international unions that came out for ceasefire uh and also ultimately for
9:42
9 minutes, 42 secondsarms embargo against Israel and that’s you know that’s a good thing on the other hand um there have been built-in
9:50
9 minutes, 50 secondsproblems with even that because on the one hand there’s the language of much of of those resolutions has been very
9:57
9 minutes, 57 secondsequivocal in regard to the liberation of Palestine and In addition to that, those unions unfortunately have stuck to talk
10:05
10 minutes, 5 secondsand not much to walk. So there’s been a, you know, some good talk, but there’s been virtually no implementation of any
10:12
10 minutes, 12 secondsof those things. And so for example, in the UAW, the international continues to own UA uh Israel bonds. And we in in
10:22
10 minutes, 22 secondsUAW, Labor for Palestine, which is a branch of the National Labor for Palestine National Network, has fought for and demanded since October of 20,
10:29
10 minutes, 29 secondsyou know, 2023 and before for those bonds to be divested. And the international, even under Shaun Feain, has refused to do that.
10:39
10 minutes, 39 secondsSo you’ve got this this kind of this contradiction between Shan Fang coming out rightly and to his credit in support
10:47
10 minutes, 47 secondsof the student protesters, you know, the student inifat, the student encampments, demanding disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest when it comes to
10:56
10 minutes, 56 secondsuniversity investments in Israel, but not applying the same principle to the UAW’s
11:02
11 minutes, 2 secondsownership of Israel bonds. So that’s why you have on the you have not only the top down picture that I’m describing of
11:11
11 minutes, 11 secondsthese unions which but also a rank and file approach which is the labor for Palestine approach. We’ve always been
11:18
11 minutes, 18 secondsabout grassroots rank and filebased demands and action because what the Palestinian trade and this
11:26
11 minutes, 26 secondscomes to the question of the most recent and and you know Palestinian trade union call because what the Palestinian trade unions especially in Gaza have
11:34
11 minutes, 34 secondscontinually said to us over the decades but especially since October of 2023 is we appreciate your resolutions. We appreciate your conferences, but words
11:43
11 minutes, 43 secondsare not enough to stop the genocide. And we’re we’re we’re urging you under the bombs if they fall on us. And you know,
11:50
11 minutes, 50 secondswho knows how many tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Palestinian deaths and casualties since October of 23. We are appealing directly
11:58
11 minutes, 58 secondsto US labor as they did for their recent Mayday statement to take action to go beyond words and take action. And that’s what Live for Palestine is trying to do.
12:07
12 minutes, 7 secondsNot because we have the power as Labor for Palestine on our own to take action in that regard, but rather to organize
12:15
12 minutes, 15 secondsand urge that kind of action, especially from the rank and file, and to have the rank and file also hold our union leaderships accountable. And that’s why
12:23
12 minutes, 23 secondsgroups like UAW live for Palestine or UEIE folks in in the UEE which has been you know one of the most progressive unions but again um you know has not put
12:33
12 minutes, 33 secondsits money necessarily where its mouth is especially when it comes to endorsing uh pro- genocidal candidates like Biden in
12:39
12 minutes, 39 secondsthe last election um in SEIU and other one of the ceasefire unions but we have in all these unions rank and file groups
12:46
12 minutes, 46 secondsthat are affiliated with live for Palestine national network to go beyond and to support the efforts in places
12:53
12 minutes, 53 secondslike ILW local 10 in Oakland which has refused for example to handle Zimline
12:59
12 minutes, 59 secondscargo the Israeli Zim cargo for the last 10 years or more and has kept that cargo more or less from appearing on the West
13:06
13 minutes, 6 secondsCoast. So that’s the approach that we have and that’s what we’re trying to answer are the Palestinian trade union calls for deeds not just words. And of
13:16
13 minutes, 16 secondscourse the increasing attack on UAW members uh graduate students the police
13:23
13 minutes, 23 secondsraids uh the attack even on a lawyer who’s representing uh people who have been attacked. It seems like these
13:29
13 minutes, 29 secondsfascist attacks and as combined with the termination of the contract with the TSA, the union busting, direct union
13:37
13 minutes, 37 secondsbusting of against workers rights to organize, the destruction of the NLRB, uh the destruction if any process, I know the UAW had big plans to organize
13:46
13 minutes, 46 secondsin the south uh through the NLRB. I mean, they’re not going to be having elections. uh the attack the frontal attack on organized labor. You would
13:55
13 minutes, 55 secondsthink that there would be a mass movement uh and call in the UAW and other unions to mobilize the entire working class on Mayday against these
14:03
14 minutes, 3 secondsattacks and combine it with the attack on workers around the world. Right.
14:07
14 minutes, 7 secondsExactly. And and I think what’s happened in the UAW uh to some degree is that you don’t hear much at this moment from the
14:15
14 minutes, 15 secondsinternational. You know, before the election, you had Sean Feain calling Trump a union buster and of course supporting Biden and Harris or you know,
14:23
14 minutes, 23 secondsBiden and then Harris. And we and UW Labor for Palestine called them out on their support for those genocidal candidates and were some of our members
14:30
14 minutes, 30 secondswere actually dragged out of a political action conference at the UW in January of 2024 who were who were heckling Biden
14:39
14 minutes, 39 secondsfor his being a war criminal. and they were dragged out by Secret Service with the applause of many of the delegates at the UAW. So yes, I mean before but but
14:49
14 minutes, 49 secondsat least before the election, you know, Feain and and the leadership was calling out uh Trump for what he was and that actually has not is no longer the case
14:57
14 minutes, 57 secondsat least at this moment. Uh the UAW leadership seems to have endorsed Trump’s uh tariff policy even though that’s destroying the economy. It’s
15:06
15 minutes, 6 secondsputting auto workers, unionized auto workers and many others out of work already. uh because of course that you know trade wars are going to do that.
15:14
15 minutes, 14 secondsThat’s what they trade wars hurt the working working class, right? Trade wars hurt the working class. And not only that, but they also have a a nasty way
15:23
15 minutes, 23 secondsof becoming, you know, real wars. Uh I mean, that’s part of what led to World War II, right, with trade wars of the
15:30
15 minutes, 30 seconds30s. So, um you know, you have that none of that’s good for workers. But on top of that, as you point out, the frontal
15:39
15 minutes, 39 secondsassault on on workers, on labor, on immigrants, on everybody, you know, pretty much except for the billionaire class, and even some of them aren’t
15:47
15 minutes, 47 secondshappy with the terrorists for their own nasty reasons. Um, you know, is really needing very little organized resistance
15:54
15 minutes, 54 secondsat this point. And so I think you know as you’ve often pointed out Steve and you know we certainly agree with in late for Palestine the need to to generalize
16:03
16 minutes, 3 secondsthis resistance and and to to show how these things are connected to show for example how the attack on the Palestine solidarity movement and and the Gestapo
16:12
16 minutes, 12 secondsraids that are taking place against immigrants and and uh you know graduate students and other kinds of workers who are not in universities. of course um
16:19
16 minutes, 19 secondsthey picked up the head of one of the farmworker unions uh recently and and snatched him and he’s now in custody. So
16:27
16 minutes, 27 secondsLeila so um you know this kind of thing is one big picture and of course the univers the attack on the universities
16:34
16 minutes, 34 secondsby the administr the Trump the regime is being done under the guise of fighting quote anti-semitism by which they mean
16:41
16 minutes, 41 secondsopposition to Israeli genocide. So all these things are are you know inextricably connected. there’s no way to separate these things. And yet what
16:49
16 minutes, 49 secondswe’re seeing is one, very little resistance being organized. You know, it was good that there was a hands-off demonstrations last uh on the 5th uh I
16:59
16 minutes, 59 secondsguess that was still last weekend um around the country and and apparently they I saw something like 600,000 people were reported in in DC and that’s great.
17:08
17 minutes, 8 secondsBut at the same time, um, you know, they’re not those the leadership of those demonstrations were refused to mention Palestine, refused to make those
17:16
17 minutes, 16 secondsconnections. And that isn’t to say that they shouldn’t have been supported the demonstrations or that it wasn’t important to to be there. And the people that went and participated, of course,
17:25
17 minutes, 25 secondsmany of them support the Palestine Solidarity Movement, perhaps the overwhelming majority even. But the leaderships there, you know, dominated
17:32
17 minutes, 32 secondsby the unions, leaderships of the unions and the democratic politicians made sure that that was not, you know, allowed.
17:39
17 minutes, 39 secondsWell, also they left out military spending. I mean, their trillions of dollars and NATO, they supported NATO.
17:46
17 minutes, 46 secondsYes, they supported NATO, right? And they left out trillions of dollars which are going to the military. In fact, uh Trump wants to increase the military
17:53
17 minutes, 53 secondsbudget to over a trillion now. And that money is coming out of housing, healthcare, education. Uh so to leave
18:00
18 minutesthat out leaves out uh what the US capitalists and imperialists are doing which is let’s expand the military uh
18:07
18 minutes, 7 secondsand build up the military for war with China and other countries while we’re attacking class here. And the other
18:14
18 minutes, 14 secondsthing about you know Trump and uh Musk and the fascist uh the D uh JD Vance is
18:22
18 minutes, 22 secondsthat they actually want to destroy public universities. the attack at NIH uh they want to liquidate the public universities as we know them in project
18:31
18 minutes, 31 seconds2025 and privatize them and bust the unions uh and they are carrying that out. Isn’t that their plan for public
18:38
18 minutes, 38 secondsuniversities? Yeah, I mean, as everybody says, you know, or is often said, project 2025 tells exactly what they intend to do, and they’re doing it. And
18:47
18 minutes, 47 secondsthey’re doing it so far with very little resistance. And if we’re going to survive this thing, we can’t, for example, wait for general strike in
18:55
18 minutes, 55 seconds2028, which is what the UAW leadership has been talking about. I mean, it’d be great to have a general strike in 2028, but we need a general strike in 2025 so
19:03
19 minutes, 3 secondsthat we’re around in 2028. Their unions left in 2028 if you wait. That’s exactly right. And and you know the UAW I mean
19:10
19 minutes, 10 secondsfor example has already been in decline for you know for decades and decades. I mean when I remember when I first you know was aware of the UAW in the late60s
19:19
19 minutes, 19 secondsand early 70s it had over a million members. Now it has a few hundred thousand members. Now, you know, a lot of that has to do with the industrialization, but a lot of it has,
19:27
19 minutes, 27 secondsyou know, to do with the failure of the leadership, not just of that union, but of all the unions pretty much to uh really organize and to defend, you know,
19:36
19 minutes, 36 secondstheir unions, our unions. And uh, you know, being in bed with the Democrats instead of organizing real resistance and and now more than ever, if we don’t
19:44
19 minutes, 44 secondsorganize resistance now, I mean, we’re living in, as somebody put it, we’re living in a mafia state here. I mean, that’s another way of describing what it
19:51
19 minutes, 51 secondsis, right? It’s it’s just it’s just uh it’s just um a gang a bunch of gangsters up there, you know, more than ever
19:59
19 minutes, 59 secondsbefore perhaps uh in control and they are doing everything. They’re not just attacking public universities. They’re attacking private universities. They’re not just attacking private universities.
20:08
20 minutes, 8 secondsThey’re attacking every single agency of the government that that plays a good role unlike the military which of course they’re promoting and and the the
20:16
20 minutes, 16 secondsGestapo state essentially that they’re building and that they’re that they’ve unleashed uh you know the snatchings. I mean it’s like Argentina or Chile or I
20:24
20 minutes, 24 secondsmean of course this has happened before in this country. It’s not like it’s unprecedented. It happened the Palmer raids you know in the late teens of the
20:32
20 minutes, 32 secondslast century. Uh the first red skier I don’t know if it’s the first red skier.
20:36
20 minutes, 36 secondsThe first Redsker was, you know, the the Hey Market uh martyrs. But anyway, you know, they had that. Then they had the mass round up of like 5,000 people were
20:44
20 minutes, 44 secondsdeported during the Palmer raids for being leftists and communists and radicals, socialists, anarchists, and then they did it in the 50s and now
20:53
20 minutes, 53 secondsthey’re using those same laws to do it today. And so, uh, you know, we’re if we don’t hang together, we’re going to hang separately more than ever before.
21:03
21 minutes, 3 secondsAnd this idea that if you’re critical of Israel, you’re an anti-semite. I mean, that whole idea, I mean, isn’t it the case that the Zionist actually work with
21:12
21 minutes, 12 secondsthe Nazis? Uh, they invited Adolf Ikeman to uh Palestine to get him to support the idea of a of a Jewish state. Uh, and
21:22
21 minutes, 22 secondsyet now if you criticize Israel, you’re you’re an anti-semite, including the thousands of Jews, hundreds of thousands of Jews in the United organizing protests.
21:32
21 minutes, 32 secondsWell, I think one interesting development is, you know, you’ve seen articles in the last couple weeks for the first time really that sort of quote
21:39
21 minutes, 39 secondsmore mainstream uh Jewish people, not I mean not, you know, there’s no such thing, right? But I mean, people that
21:46
21 minutes, 46 secondsotherwise wouldn’t have objected before are now objecting to to the uh the abuse of of so-called opposition to anti-semit
21:54
21 minutes, 54 secondsthe weaponization of anti-semitism to shut down free speech and to shut down Palestinian solidarity. Um there’s a lot
22:01
22 minutes, 1 secondof Jews you know increasingly who are uncomfortable with that notion that with the notion that you know anti- uh
22:09
22 minutes, 9 secondsgenocide is anti-semitic and also that somehow Jews are going to be in a better position because of repression in the campuses
22:18
22 minutes, 18 secondsfor example against free speech um than they you know they otherwise would be and of course Jews are not going to be protected by this and the anti-semitism
22:26
22 minutes, 26 secondsthat does exist is coming from people in bed with Trump That’s who where the anti-semitism is. It’s not in the Palestine solidarity movement as you
22:34
22 minutes, 34 secondspoint out in which thousands of of tens of thousands of Jewish people are involved sometimes at the cutting edge or among those at the cutting edge I
22:42
22 minutes, 42 secondsshould say rather. Um we had a demonstration just recent, you know, a number of big demonstrations including at the US capital and in uh in New York
22:50
22 minutes, 50 secondsCity. You see them at Grand Central where you have, you know, hundreds if not thousands of Jews coming wearing shirts that say stop stop arming Israel.
22:58
22 minutes, 58 secondsThey did it at the Trump building about a month ago and a bunch of them were arrested. So I mean yes all of these things and uh but
23:07
23 minutes, 7 secondsbut so far at least uh you know obviously the movement has not been silenced and it will not be silenced uh no matter what happens it will not be
23:15
23 minutes, 15 secondssilenced but again we need to bring this to labor because bringing it back to that I think the point is you know for
23:23
23 minutes, 23 secondsthose of us who are involved and I think you were in the in the Vietnam anti-war movement um you know one of the things that became clear if it wasn’t already
23:30
23 minutes, 30 secondsis that important as student movements are and they are very important and they played a really important role then and
23:37
23 minutes, 37 secondsnow you know in 1970 and May almost exactly 55 years ago this coming month a thousand universities and colleges in
23:45
23 minutes, 45 secondsthis country were shut down on strike but they couldn’t bring the war to the end to an end because they didn’t have the social weight to do that important
23:53
23 minutes, 53 secondsas they were and this is in no way to denigrate or dismiss what the importance of that was and I was up there as a junior high school student I went up to UCLA and I was camped out there for a
24:02
24 minutes, 2 secondsmonth with lots of other people and it was great and it was important but unless that gets you know uh brought
24:10
24 minutes, 10 secondsinto and and through the the working class movement you know at the workplace in the unions and so forth and it began
24:17
24 minutes, 17 secondsto be but it wasn’t enough and unless that happens it’s very hard to shut down uh the kind of stuff that goes on including the wars that we’re seeing and
24:26
24 minutes, 26 secondsreally the war ended in Vietnam when the working class and military, that is the rank and file GIS, mutinied to a point
24:34
24 minutes, 34 secondswhere the war could no longer continue. And you know, unless we’re able to replicate those kinds of movements today in the working class, um
24:42
24 minutes, 42 secondswe’re going to be faced not only with those for neverending wars abroad, but the the ongoing and never- ending attack
24:49
24 minutes, 49 secondson us at home that really at this point perhaps is unprecedented uh in living memory for sure. and my uh union sister
25:00
25 minutesuh Sarah Nelson uh has called for a general strike. Uh and yet it seems there’s been silence by the rest of the
25:08
25 minutes, 8 secondsunion leadership uh despite the direct funnel attack on union workers, federal workers. Of course, they want to get rid
25:15
25 minutes, 15 secondsof the public workers who are a large majority of organized workers. But it seems like within my union, the CWM and
25:23
25 minutes, 23 secondsthe News Guild, there’s complete silence about this frontal attack. Instead, they’re saying, “Let’s go to uh the
25:29
25 minutes, 29 secondscourts. Let’s file more lawsuits.” Uh they’re not really saying the entire working class has to be mobilized. Are
25:37
25 minutes, 37 secondsyou think they’re afraid that if they do that uh they’ll lose control of the rank and file and that’s one of their fears that they have? I mean, I think it’s a
25:45
25 minutes, 45 secondscouple of things or several things. One is it’s not in their DNA of the Labor bureaucracy to mobilize the members other than to vote in elections. I mean
25:54
25 minutes, 54 secondsthat’s their focus. They’re in bed with the Democratic party for the most part and they you know they cannot think beyond that that even these rallies you
26:03
26 minutes, 3 secondsknow that AOC and Bernie have had recently um you know in places like Arizona where they turn out thousands of people against Trump. It’s pretty
26:10
26 minutes, 10 secondsamazing on one level. Um yet in terms of what they have to offer or what they’re calling for, it comes down to, you know, go out and vote again for the Democrats.
26:18
26 minutes, 18 secondsUm you know, there’s nothing wrong with bringing lawsuits. We should bring lawsuits obviously, you know, to stop these things. But the idea that the
26:26
26 minutes, 26 secondscourts are going to save us or the Democrats are going to save us, you know, is clearly not the case. And so I think part of it is is this baked in DNA
26:34
26 minutes, 34 secondsthat goes all the way back, you know, I mean certainly, you know, for a century or more. uh and it you know was really
26:42
26 minutes, 42 secondscemented during the 30s with the New Deal and all that and and the alliance with the FDR regime. But um on top of that I so so I don’t think that they
26:50
26 minutes, 50 secondsthey’re also scared. I mean they’re scared in the sense that I think that what’s going on with with uh you know the UAW leadership is that they the
27:00
27 minuteswhole point of Trump right the way that he operates is to uh make examples of people in institutions so that other
27:07
27 minutes, 7 secondspeople will also shut up. um you know to to essentially terrorize people uh and institutions to do his bidding and to be scared and the monitor shipped as well.
27:19
27 minutes, 19 secondsSo the yes and the UW has a monitor for for corruption. So um and there’s a question about you know the politics of the monitor on top of everything else in
27:27
27 minutes, 27 secondsregard to Zionism. So you know this is nothing there’s nothing new about this idea of scaring you know people into silence. I
27:36
27 minutes, 36 secondsmean, of course, that’s went on in the 50s and it’s gone on in lots of situations, but the the scale of it, I mean, the sheer um
27:45
27 minutes, 45 secondsunrestrained nature of of the way Trump is retaliating against all his enemies, personal, political, economic, and
27:52
27 minutes, 52 secondsotherwise is really almost unprecedented, I would say, in terms of the uh certainly since, you know, since
27:59
27 minutes, 59 secondsmaybe in the 19th in the 19th century, that went on more, but I mean, even the the fact that there’s no restraint whatsoever. And it’s not his personal
28:08
28 minutes, 8 secondscorruption. I mean, you know, they obviously, his family made a fortune out of this last few days, right, when they first imposed the tariffs and then they
28:16
28 minutes, 16 secondsdropped the tariffs. And his family reportedly made a fortune when they knowing that these tariffs were going to be suspended again so that they could
28:23
28 minutes, 23 secondsbuy low and then, you know, sell high if they’re even selling. And um so you know, nobody’s stopping under the
28:30
28 minutes, 30 secondsinstitutions, right, that are supposed to stop this sort of thing, be watchd dogs, be checks and balances and all that kind of stuff that you learn in civics class, none of that is happening.
28:40
28 minutes, 40 secondsUm and so I think that therefore union leaderships like in the UA are scared.
28:47
28 minutes, 47 secondsThey’re thinking, “Shit, we’re going to be next, you know, if we’re not already.” Um what if they come after us?
28:52
28 minutes, 52 secondsWhat if they try to descertify us? What if they arrest us for who knows what and corruption and this and that whether it’s true or not and you know um who
29:00
29 minutesthat’s I think part of what’s going on too. Well the issue of democracy and membership dispate and discussion it union impossible. It’s all very
29:09
29 minutes, 9 secondsdifficult union conventions are controlled. Um also there’s a struggle just to keep this uh UAW for UAWD alive.
29:18
29 minutes, 18 secondsThey want to shut it down. I mean it seems like at a time like this you want more democracy. you want more debate and discussion in the labor movement um
29:26
29 minutes, 26 secondsright in the UAW with the formation UAWWD that was a vehicle for some discussion and debate uh and there’s an effort to close it down. Yeah. And just
29:35
29 minutes, 35 secondsfor those who don’t know UAWD is unite all workers for democracy. It’s the rank and file caucus that began a few years ago in the UAW to basically challenge
29:44
29 minutes, 44 secondsthe one party state that exists has existed in the UAW all the way back to at least the 1940s and that was in power
29:51
29 minutes, 51 secondsfor all those decades since and which you know saw the decline of the UAW, you know, from over a million to less than,
30:00
30 minutesyou know, much less than that. Um, and also all kinds of other horrible racist, you know, pro-imperialist things. Um and
30:07
30 minutes, 7 secondsso the UIW so UAWD played a critical role in you know getting Shawn Feain elected with and and he he has credited
30:16
30 minutes, 16 secondsUAWWD with his election basically and says you know without UAWD I would not be in office which is true but unfortunately um the majority of the
30:25
30 minutes, 25 secondscurrent steering committee of UWD is now trying to demolish it be because it appears to them apparently that uh it’s
30:33
30 minutes, 33 secondstoo independent from Shawn Feain that it’s too interested in uh cross connections between white and blueco
30:41
30 minutes, 41 secondscollar workers because it’s too interested in uh solidarity with Palestine and too democratically
30:48
30 minutes, 48 secondsoriented. And so rather than just pick up and leave, which is what they should do, they’re actually trying to destroy UAWD burn to burn it down. Uh and we
30:58
30 minutes, 58 secondshave a membership meeting on April 27th where that’s going to be fought out. and we’re organizing very hard the sort of the left wing of UAWD, the rank and file
31:05
31 minutes, 5 secondswing of UAWD to make sure that that does not happen. But I I just want to return for a moment uh because I don’t want this to get lost in all this information
31:13
31 minutes, 13 secondsthat you know the as you mentioned at the very beginning the Palestinian Gener General Federation of Trade Unions in
31:20
31 minutes, 20 secondsGaza uh issued a Mayday call on April 4th just you know a week ago and what
31:27
31 minutes, 27 secondsthey are urging us US US unions to do and I’m quoting now is to quote go beyond statements and speeches and create real pressure close quote
31:36
31 minutes, 36 secondsincluding and this is where the quote that you referenced is general strikes in widespread civil disobedience close
31:42
31 minutes, 42 secondsquote against the ongoing bipartisan US back Israeli genocide in Gaza and to quote coordinate efforts with the
31:50
31 minutes, 50 secondsstudent movement close quotes against the Trump regime’s domestic assault on Palestine solidarity and so um they
31:58
31 minutes, 58 secondsfurther go on and say quote we in the general federation of trade unions in Gaza address this call to you and
32:07
32 minutes, 7 secondsthey’re speaking directly to US labor here. This this is addressed to US unions. Back to the statement on the eve of the International Workers Day
32:15
32 minutes, 15 secondsaffirming that your struggle for workers rights in the United States is inseparable from our struggle against occupation and colonialism. True labor
32:24
32 minutes, 24 secondssolidarity is demonstrated through actions, not just words. And we count on your awareness and determination to take
32:31
32 minutes, 31 secondsconcrete steps to end this tragedy, meaning the genocide. So, you know, that’s the call that we’re hearing from
32:39
32 minutes, 39 secondsPalestine. Even if there was no genocide in Gaza, even if there was no Palestine, we would have to be resisting this Trump regime. But there is on top of
32:47
32 minutes, 47 secondseverything else, of course, and at the forefront and the foremost the genocide in Gaza. And we’re here we’re being called
32:54
32 minutes, 54 secondsupon, you know, urged by people directly under that boot of US weaponry being,
33:01
33 minutes, 1 secondyou know, deployed to demolish and destroy, you know, the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Palestinians,
33:09
33 minutes, 9 secondsjournalists workers. I mean, you know, they’re decimating the whole society, right? Health workers. They they massacred, they assa, they executed uh
33:18
33 minutes, 18 seconds16 health workers uh you know, a week ago. Not to mention the journalists. Not to mention everybody in between. Not to
33:25
33 minutes, 25 secondsmention the fact that there are more amputees in Gaza than anywhere in the world. Not to mention that just two days
33:34
33 minutes, 34 secondsago, or was it yesterday, they bombed another house in Gaza and killed six more children and all kinds of other people. So, I mean, it’s it’s
33:42
33 minutes, 42 secondsunbearable. Of course, uh it’s particularly unbearable for the people that are directly under that. It’s even unbearable to to know of it. But to not
33:51
33 minutes, 51 secondsbe responding, you know, the way the unions do not respond, to not even reference this call from Palestine, uh, let alone respond to it and and take the
34:00
34 minuteskind of action that we need and that they need and that we need together. That’s what solidarity is all about.
34:05
34 minutes, 5 secondsIt’s not simply uh dog goodism, you know, or morality, although those are good things, but it’s the idea that all
34:13
34 minutes, 13 secondsof our fate as workers and as oppressed people uh are tied together inextricably, as the Palestinian trade union statement says. And that if we
34:21
34 minutes, 21 secondsdon’t act together, you know, we are all of us doomed. And yet there’s virtually no response. Even from the unions, even
34:29
34 minutes, 29 secondsfrom the the unions that came out for ceasefire and arms embargo, they have not responded or even referenced this call. So again, lay for Palestine is
34:37
34 minutes, 37 secondsnot, you know, does not have major resources. It doesn’t have anything like that. But we do have our voice and we are doing our best to uplift these calls
34:46
34 minutes, 46 secondsand to bring these issues to our unions and to our workplaces and uh to see if uh on Mayday and the the events leading
34:54
34 minutes, 54 secondsup to Mayday and beyond Mayday if real action can be taken including wherever possible withholding of labor and it remains to be seen where that can be
35:02
35 minutes, 2 secondsdone. But even for places that it can’t be done, there are all kinds of actions that can be taken to show solidarity with with Palestine at the workplace in
35:10
35 minutes, 10 secondsour unions. And we need to be doing that. We need to do be doing that for ourselves, for them above all, and for ourselves because, you know, as the slogan goes, Palestine will free us all.
35:21
35 minutes, 21 secondsWhat that really refers to is that throwing off the yoke of oppression and genocide is is liberating for everybody,
35:28
35 minutes, 28 secondsand we need to be doing our best to support that. and at the rallies on Mayday and they will be happening around the country including in San Francisco
35:37
35 minutes, 37 secondsand Oakland. uh those trade units and those union locals can have contingent and raise this issue of palace and the slopes and these right I mean
35:46
35 minutes, 46 secondsunfortunately those you know to my knowledge those rallies that are being called by the Chicago teachers unions and others which is a good thing that
35:54
35 minutes, 54 secondsthey’re doing that but unfortunately they’re not referencing Palestine even even though they’re led by apparently led by uh folks who are in these
36:02
36 minutes, 2 secondsceasefire unions but the issues are not being connected even by those who are otherwise raising them in certain places they’re being siloed at best and
36:10
36 minutes, 10 secondssilenced at worst. So, we need to be the ones, as you say, to make sure that we’re bringing not to not to stand apart and say, “Well, therefore, we’ll have nothing to do with these protests.” Of
36:18
36 minutes, 18 secondscourse, we should support these protests, but we should we should also make sure that at these protests, the voice of Palestine is is heard in
36:26
36 minutes, 26 secondssolidarity with Palestine and demand that Palestine be heard from the platform as well. And if it’s not going to be heard from the platform, at least making sure that it’s heard from within these contingents that we need to bring.
36:37
36 minutes, 37 secondsAnd people can get a copy, traders can get a copy of the resolution from your website, labor for palestine. Yes. Yes.
36:43
36 minutes, 43 secondsLive for Palestine.net. And we’re also on Instagram. And all of these things are there. And in fact, there’s a sign on uh endorsement form there for uh
36:52
36 minutes, 52 secondsorganizations that want to endorse that that statement in support of the Palestinian Trade Union call. Well, I want to thank you very much uh Michael
36:59
36 minutes, 59 secondsfor joining us and I think uh this is a life and death question for working people not only in Palestine but in the United States who face a fascist regime.
37:09
37 minutes, 9 secondsSo thanks for joining us. Thanks Steve. Thanks again.
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