SUNY BDS Labor Alliance Call to UUP, GSEU and RAU Leadership and Members
March 2025
SUNY BDS* Labor Alliance, composed of United University Professions (UUP), Research Assistants Union (RAU), and Graduate Student Employees Union (GSEU) members, calls on our labor unions to show support for Palestinian liberation, take a stance against the US government’s facilitation of war and genocide in Palestine and the broader Middle East, and stand in solidarity with the international working class by adopting a clear anti-imperialist position.
Israel’s ongoing attacks against the Palestinians result in devastating loss and misery. According to official numbers, Israel has killed 46,707 Palestinians and injured over 110,265 as of January 15, 2025. However, according to numerous scientific studies and on-the-ground health professionals, the estimates of death tolls may be as high as 186,000, representing 7.9% of Gaza’s population. Additionally, 1.9 million people, virtually all of Gaza’s inhabitants, have been displaced, while 66% of all buildings have been damaged, 78% of which are completely destroyed, or severely or moderately damaged.
On January 31, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s military engagement in Gaza constitutes a plausible genocide and insisted that the Israeli military immediately cease activities contributing to the destruction of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza. It has been established by multiple genocide scholars, historians and other experts that Israel’s activities in Gaza fit the definition of a genocide. Furthermore, Israel’s actions are made possible by the US. The US has provided Israel with more than $20 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023. ProPublica has revealed that the US government has continued sending aid to Israel, despite internal reporting by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that Israeli interferes with “aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.” US law itself makes it illegal to send weapons to countries that interfere with US-backed humanitarian aid. This USAID report was ignored by secretary of state Anthony Blinken in his address to Congress for more aid to Israel.
In this state of affairs, labor unions in the US face a historic responsibility. As SUNY BDS Labor Alliance, we reject the concept that labor unions are merely organizations of a narrow economic focus, whose only task is to bargain every few years and bureaucratically enforce contracts. Labor unions are organizations of the working class, and working class solidarity should not be limited either by workplace nor national borders. Labor unions historically have been and continue to be key institutions for workers to act collectively against exploitative and oppressive conditions, whether against wars, apartheid systems, or systemic racism and discrimination. The labor movement has a long history of solidarity with the struggle for liberation globally. From apartheid South Africa to the US civil rights movement, union members have marched, joined boycotts, lobbied politicians, and raised our collective voices to dismantle oppressive systems. We have refused our labor when it would further an amoral goal.
We thereby believe that standing against war, genocide, apartheid, and oppression are not exogenous matters for labor unions, these are integral aspects of the responsibilities and interests of workers who are now more internationally connected than ever. This is especially important for labor unions in countries like the US, whose corporations exploit cheap labor and resources all across the world, and facilitate war and genocide overseas. In this context, restricting our actions to incremental economic demands betrays international working-class solidarity and ignores the ways our collective structural power can challenge such affairs.
In line with these principles, scores of US labor unions are standing against Israel’s genocide, affirming Palestinian self-determination and calling for a ceasefire. On July 23, 2024, seven major US unions; Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), International Union of Painters (IUPAT), National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), and United Electrical Workers (UE); which represent millions of workers, urged President Biden to end military aid to Israel.
Our labor unions reflect the diversity, in all senses, of the US public, whom the majority support an arms embargo against Israel.
It is past time that SUNY labor unions adopt a clear stance against genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid in Palestine. Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide, SUNY system union members have been active participants of the SUNY BDS movement, and certain chapters and coalitions within our unions have been a driving force in organizing for Palestinian liberation. In terms of statewide commitment against genocide, though, SUNY unions have fallen behind many other examples. While individual chapters at Albany, Buffalo Center, Old Westbury, and Stony Brook issued unequivocal statements in support of the Palestinian people and their liberation, the statement endorsed by the UUP statewide Delegate Assembly made false moral equivalencies between the deliberate genocidal acts of the Israeli state and the acts of resistance against that genocide by the Palestinian people.
In 2023, GSEU issued in its chapters a poll that sought member approval for a ceasefire statement and for GSEU to partner with organizations on campuses that support Palestine. After overwhelming approval from membership in both instances, GSEU published a ceasefire statement that November. In May 2024, the Education Division of CWA 1104, to which RAU and GSEU belong, distributed a poll that asked its members to vote on whether the union “should join others in calling for SUNY, Fordham University, and the Research Foundation to divest from Israel.” At the end of the 3-day voting period, which lasted from May 7 to May 10, the union notified its membership that 87% of the participants voted in favor of divestment. However, it stated that “only about 4.6% of the bargaining unit members voted despite a long polling period. This makes it difficult for the Education Division to conclusively move forward as the result does not bear a representative sample.” A 3-day voting period is hardly a long polling period. We believe that the union should determine in advance a longer polling period, what percentage would indicate a representative sample, and varied methods for disseminating polls more widely. The union, though, noted that the results “indicate that there is a vocal interest in supporting such calls in the future, but to support those calls we will need more members to speak up and express interest.” This petition is just such a call.
We believe that these initiatives above in all our unions are simply not enough. As workers from various unions within the SUNY system, we are united in the SUNY BDS Labor Alliance, organizing to advance anti-imperialist, anti-war unionism and develop institutional support for Palestinian liberation within SUNY unions. The SUNY BDS call has already received the support of thousands of students, faculty and staff, alumni, community members and beyond, representing one of the most coordinated statewide movements in our education system for decades. On many SUNY campuses, both undergraduate and graduate student governments have advanced BDS resolutions, among them University at Albany, College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), Binghamton University, Stony Brook University, Fashion Institution of Technology (FIT), and University at Buffalo.
It is past time that SUNY labor takes a collective stand against genocide as labor and with its primary institutions, our labor unions.
Thereby, as SUNY education workers, we demand:
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU join the growing call from unions across the world to stop the genocide against Palestinians, and make a clear stance against the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU call for an end to the siege on Gaza and demand ongoing provision of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU call on the US government to act according to its own laws, particularly the Leahy law, to stop military aid to Israel.
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU publicly declare support for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. We join the call for SUNY to adopt BDS measures.
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU make earnest, clear effort for a visible display of the preceding institutional positions. This can be accomplished by placing their relative statements and value commitments in their website, sharing them with members, making social media posts, communicating this commitment as part of the union’s fundamental values when introducing the unions to new workers in orientations, prominently featuring them in its newsletters etc.
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU internally ensure that our funding, dues, and investments follow BDS measures.
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU strongly commit to supporting members who face retaliation in response to their support for Palestinian liberation.
- UUP, RAU, and GSEU use our organizational capacities and resources to advance messaging and education initiatives against genocide and war, and which supports international solidarity and Palestinian liberation. This can include partnering officially with other campus organizations, hosting events, distributing messaging, devoting resources and organizing special committees within the unions in accordance with these purposes.
*SUNY BDS is proudly not affiliated with SUNY or NYS.
Initial endorsing organizations:
– NY Labor for Palestine
– University at Albany Students for Justice in Palestine
– University at Albany Young Democratic Socialists of America
– Binghamton Solidarity for Palestine
– Binghamton Graduate Students for Palestine
– University at Buffalo Young Democratic Socialists of America
– New Paltz Students for Palestine
– Stony Brook Students for Palestine
– Stony Brook Graduate Students for Palestine
– Stony Brook Socialists
– Troy Democratic Socialists of America
– Stony Brook Philosophy Graduate Student Body
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