(English translation follows below)
Statement issued by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions–Gaza Regarding the United Auto Workers (UAW) decision to divest from occupation bonds.
It is with great gratitude and honor that we, at the Palestine General Federation Trade Unions in Gaza, received the news that the delegates to the historic 39th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers (UAW) voted by a majority to divest the union’s investments from Israeli occupation bonds.
While expressing our sincere gratitude and appreciation for this bold step, we affirm that it reflects the living conscience of the working class, which refuses to allow its membership dues to serve as a means of financing genocide and injustice. Your decision places you on the right moral path and underscores the power of cross-border labor solidarity.
We also extend special recognition and appreciation to the pivotal and extraordinary role played by the “Unite All Workers for Democracy” (UAWD) movement and the “Labor for Palestine” (L4P) organization. It is your tireless efforts and enduring class struggle that paved the way for this achievement, demonstrating that labor democracy is the primary engine for realizing justice.
We also bear in mind that your union pioneered this path by calling for a boycott of investments in occupation-linked entities—a move that led to strikes across most major Detroit factories in 1974. That event marked a historic milestone, demonstrating the solidarity and unity of a diverse workforce—including Arab workers from Yemen—who have maintained this principled stance across generations, right up to the present day.
While commending this principled stance, we call upon you to persist in this path of struggle and look forward to further courageous steps that reinforce this direction—including severing all ties with the complicit Israeli trade union, the Histadrut, rejecting any role in arming the occupation, and continuing to press for an end to any complicity in the crime of genocide.
We call upon all labor and professional unions in the United States and across the globe to follow this honorable example and to escalate impactful labor actions aimed at ending complicity with the occupation, in defense of human rights and the values of justice and freedom that unite workers worldwide.
Long live working-class unity. . . and glory to truth and justice.
/s/ Tariq Al Hindi
Deputy General Secretary of Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions–Gaza
June 20, 2026
