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MAJOR UNIONS ARE CALLING FOR AN END TO ISRAELI MILITARY AID  
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Alex N. Press
July 24, 2024
Jacobin [[link removed]]

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_ Ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, seven unions
— whose members constitute almost half of all American union members
— have demanded an end to US military aid to Israel. The labor
movement’s calls to end the Gaza genocide are growing. _

President Shawn Fain of the United Auto Workers, which just joined
six other major US labor unions in calling for an end to US military
aid to Israel. , WSJ

 

A coalition of unions representing nearly half of all union members in
the United States sent a letter this week urging President Joe Biden
to halt all US military aid to Israel. The letter, sent ahead of
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the US today,
urges Biden to stop arming Israel “as part of the work to secure an
immediate and permanent cease-fire in the war in Gaza.”

Seven unions signed onto the missive: the Association of Flight
Attendants–Communications Workers of America (AFA-CWA), the American
Postal Workers Union (APWU), the International Union of Painters and
Allied Trades (IUPAT), the National Education Association (NEA), the
Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Auto Workers
(UAW), and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE).
Taken together, the signatories comprise some six million workers.

“Our unions are hearing the cries of humanity as this vicious war
continues,” said APWU president Mark Dimondstein in a press release.
“Working people and our unions are horrified that our tax dollars
are financing this ongoing tragedy. We need a ceasefire now, and the
best way to secure that is to shut off US military aid to Israel.”

Dimondstein was the first leader within the AFL-CIO to begin pushing
unions to endorse a cease-fire. He raised the issue at an October 16
meeting of the AFL-CIO executive council, urging the body to demand a
cease-fire. According to the _New York Times_’s reporting
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he found no support among his colleagues — the AFL-CIO has
previously quashed
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to back such a call at the local level. But to have criticism of
Israel raised at length in such a meeting was itself unprecedented.

This week’s letter to Biden is a product of relationships built
through the National Labor Network for Ceasefire
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formed around a statement, initially sponsored by UE and United Food
and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 3000. That
statement called on Biden and Congress to “push for an immediate
ceasefire and end to the siege of Gaza,” stopping short of calling
for an end to US military aid to Israel.

UE has long supported such a demand, codifying it in a resolution
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at their national convention last September. The independent union has
long occupied the left wing of the US labor movement — so much so
that they faced merciless red-baiting during the McCarthyist era, and
expulsion from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO),
decimating their membership at the time. But bringing along other
unions took time, and according to sources familiar with the
negotiations, this week’s letter was the product of months of
conversations and organizing.

SEIU and the NEA for instance, are not often grouped with the likes of
UE and the UAW, the latter of which, under the new reform leadership
of President Shawn Fain, has become more outspoken on foreign
policy, calling for a permanent cease-fire
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December 2023 and building ties with independent autoworkers’ unions
in Mexico. SEIU and NEA first needed to raise the matter at their
respective conventions before signing on to this week’s letter.

Those gatherings were held in May and early July, with both
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discussing resolutions calling for an end to US military aid to a
country that has killed upward of forty thousand Palestinians in the
past year (and likely far more, as Israel’s targeting of the Gaza
Strip’s civilian infrastructure has ground the tallying of deaths to
a halt.)

This letter follows a webinar
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Network for Ceasefire hosted earlier this month, which was emceed by
Dimondstein and featured representatives of the Palestinian
Journalists’ Syndicate, the General Union of Transport and
Communications Workers, and the General Union of Health Services
Workers in Gaza. According to people familiar with the network’s
internal organizing, that event was preceded by an off-the-record
preparatory meeting between the US union leaders and their Palestinian
counterparts. Palestinian trade-union leaders have long called for
union leaders to push for an end to the US government arming Israel.

“Recent reports only underscore the urgency of our demands,” the
letter continues. “Large numbers of Palestinian civilians, many of
them children, continue to be killed, reportedly often with
US-manufactured bombs. Rising tensions in the region threaten to
ensnare even more innocent civilians in a wider war. And the
humanitarian crisis deepens by the day, with famine, mass
displacement, and destruction of basic infrastructure including
schools and hospitals. We have spoken directly to leaders of
Palestinian trade unions who told us heart-wrenching stories of the
conditions faced by working people in Gaza.”

Biden has ended his reelection bid, but he intends to remain the
country’s president for the duration of the year. There is no
telling how many Palestinians Israel will kill in that interim, and as
Kamala Harris seeks the votes of the millions of workers who are
members of the signatory unions. In releasing this week’s letter,
union leaders and the members who have pushed them on the issue hope
to demonstrate the centrality of the issue to both Biden and Harris,
at last acting in keeping with the wishes of the Palestinian
trade-union movement’s demand for solidarity.

_Alex N. Press is a staff writer at Jacobin who covers labor
organizing._

* War on Gaza
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* unions
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* grassroots opposition
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