UAW Labor for Palestine, a rank and file working group within one of North America’s largest unions, the United Auto Workers, is organizing their union to endorse the Palestinian Trade Union call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). This announcement comes on the heels of UAW International’s unprecedented call for a ceasefire last week.
The working group’s specific demands of their leadership include terminating UAW’s ties with the Histadrut, Israel’s labor federation, divesting from Israel Bonds and from the industries connected with the occupation, ending all US aid to Israel, and protecting UAW members who engage in pro-Palestine speech and advocacy.
“We call on fellow UAW members to bring our BDS sign-on letter to their local unions, to pass BDS resolutions, and to educate coworkers on the links between Palestinian liberation and our own workplaces and futures,” the working group writes. “We urge our fellow trade unionists across the labor movement to adopt our statement and pressure their union leadership to support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions from Israel, and to finally end the labor movement’s complicity with the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”
On October 27, hundreds of rank and file UAW members signed onto an open letter calling on union leadership to implement BDS. The Labor for Palestine Working Group endorsed this call.
“Following the call by Palestinian Trade Unionists to end complicity in their oppression, we call upon workers everywhere, our union leadership, and the UAW International to demand an immediate end to Israel’s brutal siege and bombardment of Gaza and all military funding going toward Israel,” reads the letter.
“Already, UAW members have spoken out, joined marches, and walked out in support of Palestinian liberation. We will continue fighting for the liberation of the Palestinian people and we commit to taking direct action against the occupation in the coming weeks, including educating our colleagues on the occupation, disrupting the military industrial complex, standing with anyone in our workplaces facing retaliation for their activism around Palestinian liberation, and, if necessary, striking in our workplaces.”
Many unions across the country are breaking with the establishment Democrat consensus by calling for a ceasefire, calls which the White House has openly rejected. The push for BDS within the UAW shows that there is rank and file support to go several steps further in solidarity. In this way, the US labor movement is joining hands with the international labor movement in putting pressure on Israeli occupation. Indian trade unions have rejected calls to send workers to Israel, while European trade unions have blocked weapons shipments to Israel at their ports. The National Metalworkers Unions of South Africa (NUMSA), one of Africa’s largest trade unions on the African continent, defended Palestine’s right to resist occupation.
