Resolution: Divestment from Israel Bonds
Submitted to the 39th UAW Constitutional Convention
WHEREAS, the billionaire class that profits from war ensures that public money is funneled into militarism rather than the healthcare, housing and education working people need; and
WHEREAS, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed at least 70,000 Palestinians (and as many as 600,000 or more), overwhelmingly working-class people, using U.S. funding and weapons; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. has also launched recent military strikes against Iran, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen killing thousands of working class. people worldwide; and
WHEREAS, the Palestinian trade union movement has called on workers across the world to stand in solidarity by refusing all forms of complicity, including the production, transport, and financing of weapons used in the genocide; and
WHEREAS, workers in Belgium, France, Greece, Morocco, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and beyond have already honored this call by refusing to handle weapons and Israeli-bound cargo, demonstrating the unique. power of the working class to halt the machinery of genocide; and
WHEREAS, UAW members in weapons research and manufacturing hold strategic power over military production and must be protected when using it to stop genocide; and
WHEREAS, in 1973, rank-and-file UAW members struck against the UAW’s Israel Bonds;
WHEREAS, the UAW reportedly holds at least $400,000 in Israel Bonds, contradicting our commitments to peace and working-class solidarity; and
WHEREAS, organizations that promote racial, ethnic, or religious. supremacy – such as the Histadrut, Israel’s so-called labor federation – undermine global worker unity by furthering settler colonialism, apartheid, dispossession, and genocide; and
WHEREAS, an injury to Palestine is an injury to all; and
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Article 7, Section 2 shall be amended by adding: “No UAW funds shall be invested in Israel Bonds”
