Organised Labor Can Stop the Gaza Genocide and the War At Home

US tax dollars at work. Everyone in Gaza is a Hamas Terrorist the Zionists say.

Richard Mellor

I was just looking around the different national unions on the Internet to see what the trade union leadership (as they are responsible for union practices and policies) has to say about the horrific genocide that the Zionist regime in Israel is continuing against the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza

As to be expected, the results were dismal. The image from the AFL-CIO website says it all; call your representative. This is one reason for the rise of Trump, the complete failure of the trade union leadership to mobilize our own power in our own defense and instead rely on getting a Democrat in to office. It’s been a catastrophe. 

Militant stuff indeed from The AFL-CIO

The AFL-CIO page said nothing about the holocaust in Gaza but did have a militant response to the Trump Administration’s canceling of union contracts for 450,000 workers. I have it from the horses’ mouth but I think the reader should be seated for this, “We got organized and helped introduce a bipartisan bill in Congress to overturn this executive order” The AFL-CIO leadership urges union members to call their Senators and tell them to vote for bill.

Need I say more. This pathetic response to Trump’s violence is to call your Senator as if we are not aware of the rot that permeates this bourgeois institution.

But in the course of looking for something I came across the resolution passed by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) at their conference on August 26^th. 

The UE report states:

Today, delegates to the 79th UE Convention unanimously endorsed a resolution, “End the Genocide in Palestine,” which demands that the U.S. government immediately cease all military aid to Israel, and instead pressure Israel to end its genocide against the Palestinian people.

Here are the resolves from the resolution

End the Genocide in Palestine

Therefore, Be It Resolved that this 79^th UE Convention:

1.    Demands that the U.S. government immediately cease all military aid to Israel, and instead pressure Israel to:

a.    End their apartheid policies, and the genocide, occupation, and destruction in Gaza, as well as the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and;

b.    Negotiate a peace agreement on the basis of equality, democracy, and human rights for the Palestinian and Israeli people, including Palestinian self-determination and the right of return for refugees;

2.    Endorses the BDS movement and urges the union at all levels to become engaged in BDS and the movement for peace, justice and equality for Palestinians by:

3.    Creating forums for locals that have undertaken campaigns for divestment to lead workshops for member-to-member education so that other locals may learn from them;

4.    Creating and distributing educational materials about BDS;

5.    Identifying areas of investment not in compliance with BDS;

6.    Opposes all anti-BDS legislation, and opposes all efforts to outlaw BDS, existing BDS legislation, and otherwise punish critics of Israeli policies;

7.    Condemns the use of accusations of “antisemitism” to silence critics of Israel, and the use of such charges to suspend, fire, detain or deport people whose only “crime” is speech or protest.

You can read the full resolution here.

 

If you are in union you can take this resolution to your membership meeting and move it. Ensure you get a second as passing it is almost secondary because if it's  seconded you can speak on it and introduce the reasons why it is in workers’ interests to support it. You can use it to raise consciousness and educate your brothers and sisters on the issue.

For my former co-workers active in the union do this please. If you need help using this resolution or writing one of your own contact me and we can work on it. It’s important to do this on all issues we are facing as workers today.