Palestinian trade unions issued a call this past weekend to unions and labor organizations in the United States to intensify their efforts to put an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This urgent appeal comes nearly six months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The death toll in the enclave has now crossed 32,000 and over 74,000 have been injured. Starvation and disease stalk the majority of the population, especially the 1.7 million Gazans who have been forcibly displaced.
The statement calling for the US labor movement to strengthen their solidarity work was released by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and highlighted that despite their efforts to raise awareness to the genocide in international forums, they “have encountered shocking silence and neglect by the international labor movement.”
The PGFTU noted that “Instead of celebrating with you on May 1st, International Workers Day, we are busy shrouding dozens of people who are being killed around the clock in the middle of a genocidal war against our people—in every sense of that word.”
The trade union federation itself has also faced direct attacks from Israel and its “US-made weapons”. On March 7, 2024, Israeli occupation forces bombed the headquarters of the PGFTU in Gaza City. The federation’s five-story building had attached to it several other facilities providing services to the Palestinian people, including a kindergarten that served 380 children, as well as a large automatic bakery.
In the latest statement, signed by Basheer Al-Sisi, a member of the General Secretariat of PGFTU, they denounced that the federation has “lost thousands of members, union offices, facilities, and other institutions” as a result of the “wholesale slaughter and forced dislocation—ethnic cleansing” committed against the Palestinian people in the last six months.
Throughout this period, the administration of US President Joe Biden has remained Israel’s most loyal ally and partner. It vetoed three UNSC ceasefire resolutions, used executive authority to approve emergency military aid for Israel, launched a multinational naval operation to attempt to crush Yemen’s solidarity blockade of Israel, attempted to bully other nations in the south and north to support its hardline position in support of Israel and against a ceasefire, and countless other actions to actively support Israel as it carries out genocide.
As such, the PGFTU emphasizes in the statement that it is time for the US labor movement to leverage all of its strength to end US complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Labor urged to go beyond verbal measures to support Palestine
The statement calls for unions in the belly of the beast to not only expose the “extent of the war crimes and genocide committed against our people,” and the complicity of the US in these crimes, but also to protest and exert pressure to stop the exportation of US-made weapons to Israel and to force the Biden administration to stop supporting Israel.
The statement also highlights the need for the labor movement to raise awareness to the mass violation of Palestinian workers’ rights by Israel amid the war of extermination, as thousands of Palestinian workers in Gaza have had their contracts suspended and terminated. This has deprived Gazans of “their rights and compensation” and exacerbated the economic insecurity facing the majority of Gazans amid this onslaught.
The PGFTU highlights that it is time for US unions and the international labor movement as a whole to go beyond verbal measures like statements and take measures on the ground to “pressur[e] decision-makers to stop this war of extermination”. Another concrete measure proposed by the federation is for trade unionists to support humanitarian aid and relief efforts to assist the “hundreds of thousands of workers’ families whose homes and workplaces have been destroyed, leaving them to shelter in tents without any work or income.”
The besieged union federation calls on US unions to be its “voice and advocate inside and outside America,” emphasizing that what the people in Gaza are facing is “the most horrific catastrophe known to humanity in recent decades.”
“We are a people enduring bombardment, hunger, disease, and all forms of suffering, but we are determined to live, to stand firm, and to rebuild from this destruction with our blood and many sacrifices,” the PGFTU declares.
Labor for Palestine
Indeed, since October 7, the position of US labor unions has changed dramatically with regards to Palestine. Due to the close ties of the US labor movement to the Democratic Party, few unions had a public position in support of the Palestinian people. With the onset of Israel’s genocide against Gaza and the daily, televised horrors inflicted on the Palestinian people at the hands of Israeli forces, many unions were moved to take positions calling for an end to Israel’s onslaught.
On December 1, 2023, hours after Israel resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip following a seven-day pause, the United Auto Workers (UAW), one of the largest unions in North America, called for a ceasefire in Gaza. UAW President Shawn Fain stated shortly afterwards, “I am proud that the UAW International Union is calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. From opposing fascism in WWII to mobilizing against apartheid South Africa and the CONTRA war, the UAW has consistently stood for justice across the globe.”
Two weeks later, on December 14, Fain joined the leadership of the Postal Workers Union, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and several members of Congress in a press conference in Washington DC to call upon the labor movement to take action for a ceasefire in Gaza.
A day later on December 15, the largest health workers’ union in the United States, Service Employees International Union Local 1199, representing over 450,000 working and retired healthcare industry workers, released a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire. “We reject the notion that Israel’s attacks on hospitals filled with patients, apartment blocks filled with families, and the deaths of 11,000+ Palestinian women and children are acceptable collateral damage,” reads 1199’s statement. “We urge an immediate ceasefire.”
On January 22, 2024, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), with two million members, joined the movement for a ceasefire. The union’s president Mary Kay Henry penned a statement declaring: “Wherever violence, fear and hatred thrive, working people cannot.” The SEIU is the largest union in the country to issue such a statement.
US movement has “historic role”
Still, trade union members and leaders in the country recognize that much more is needed at this critical moment.
Anny Viloria Winnett, a trustee of UAW 4811, told Peoples Dispatch, “The worker’s movement in the belly of the imperialist beast has a historic role in stopping the crimes of the US war machine.”
“In the early stages of Israel’s genocidal campaign, the statements coming from labor unions calling for a ceasefire were important in showing that the working class of the US stand in opposition to US foreign policy,” however, Viloria Winnett emphasized, “in this moment, unions must go beyond merely declaring their opposition, and mobilize the millions of workers to take to the streets in active opposition to the massacre of Palestinian workers.”
She added, “Historically, the UAW has been on the forefront of organizing against the worst of US foreign policy, including support of apartheid in South Africa, military dictatorships in Latin America, and the criminal war against Vietnam. Today, the UAW has the opportunity to continue challenging the imperial nature of US foreign policy by mobilizing its members against our governments support for Israel’s genocide against Gaza.”
Viloria Winnett, whose Local 4811 has been active in mobilizing and organizing mass demonstrations as well as labor for Palestine protests across California, stated, “We are ready to continue mobilizing our workers because we understand the interconnectedness of our struggles.”
Reyna Wang, a worker in New York City’s Parks Department, joined others in October 2023 in founding NYC City Workers for Palestine out of a recognition that “it is our duty to uphold the call to action of our brothers, sisters, and siblings in Palestine… as the workers who make New York City’s services run, our voices and actions can put significant pressure on the politicians who claim to represent us to end their complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”
The group released an open letter on October 28, 2023, signed by over 500 workers in the city calling for the city administrators to “add their voices to those demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, for the disclosure and termination of all forms of collaboration between the NYPD and the IDF, and for an end to all City funds invested in the state of Israel.” Since then, the group has organized numerous public actions and pickets to put pressure on city officials to raise their demands.
Now, city workers, many of whom are enrolled in the public pension system NYCERS, are launching a campaign calling on the NYCERS board to divest pension money from apartheid Israel, as it did with apartheid South Africa. Wang told Peoples Dispatch that NYCERS “holds an estimated USD 115 million in Israeli securities, which fund arms production, surveillance technology, real estate, and oil and gas exploration on occupied land…Workers in the US should not have to choose between securing our futures and standing against the funding of war crimes in Palestine.”
Nathalie Hrizi, the Vice President of Substitutes for United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), whose union passed a ceasefire resolution on November 15, 2023, told Peoples Dispatch, “The US labor movement has a crucial role to play in not only highlighting the Palestinian cause and demanding an end to the US backed Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, but also to take the further actions necessary to bring it to an end. The statement from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions highlights the urgency of the moment. On International Workers’ Day, Palestine must be front and center.”
Across the world, trade unions have been leading crucial actions in solidarity with Palestine. Transport unions in India, Belgium, and Barcelona have declared that they will not handle military cargo bound for Israel, refusing to be complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. On March 7, African unions affiliated with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), representing 18.5 million transport workers and 740 unions worldwide, passed a resolution at ITF’s Africa Regional Conference in Côte d’Ivoire calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom and self-determination.
The international trade union movement has a rich history of supporting anti-war and anti-imperialist causes, whether it was in campaigns against apartheid South Africa or in solidarity with Chileans during the brutal military dictatorship. The participation of labor in the movement for a ceasefire in Gaza has put anti-war and anti-imperialist causes back on the agenda for trade unions, and for many, there is no turning back.
