DIVESTMENT WIN! At their convention this week, the United Auto Workers voted to completely divest from Israel Bonds in a historic victory for the labor and Palestinian freedom movements. This is a huge step toward ensuring our unions aren’t profiting from investing in genocide and apartheid.
This important win was made possible by years of constant organizing and continual solidarity by rank-and-file members, particularly with @uaw4democracy and @uawlaborforpalestine. UAW members have been fighting to divest dues money from Israel Bonds for over fifty years. In the 1970s, the UAW Arab Workers Caucus picketed UAW events, held strikes, and organized for the 1974 UAW Constitutional Convention demanding divestment. Workers redoubled their efforts after the Israeli military escalated its genocide in October 2023.
Israel Bonds are direct, unrestricted loans to and investments in the Israeli military and government that fuel every aspect of violence against Palestinians–from the Israeli military’s genocidal assault on Gaza, to the Israeli government’s apartheid system of racial segregation. And because of UAW’s historic vote, the union will no longer be participating in this economy of death.
Speaking from the convention floor, ACT-UAW Local 7902 delegate Raha Rafii invoked the legacy of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., “Reverend Jackson taught us that all struggles are intertwined. Divesting means refusing to fund campaigns against Palestinian workers: the hospital, emergency health, agricultural, and sanitation workers whose daily survival and work is nothing short of heroic. Solidarity is not selective!”
Our movements are growing and we will not stop here. Until the siege and genocide end, the occupation is dismantled, and Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.
Learn more at dailystruggle.org/uaw-divests-from-israel-bonds
