November 26, 2023
November 17, 2023
June 9, 2016
FYI: Today: Defend First Amendment Against Cuomo’s New McCarthyism
From: Torres, Azalia
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2016 11:16 AM
Subject: FYI: Today: Defend First Amendment Against Cuomo’s New McCarthyism
Legal observers needed.
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*** PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY***
Thursday, June 9th, 5:30 PM
Outside Gov. Cuomo’s office, 633 3rd Avenue between 40th and 41st
Organized by Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel; Jewish Voice for Peace-NY; and Jews Say No!
Tell Gov. Cuomo: We will proudly continue to stand for justice and boycott Israel until it complies with international law and respects Palestinian human rights!
State-sanctioned backlash against the movement for Palestinian human rights has reached a new low: Gov. Cuomo just signed a McCarthyite executive order requiring state agencies to divest from organizations that support the Palestinian call to boycott companies profiting from, or cultural institutions complicit in, Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Furthermore, the order requires the creation of a publicly available blacklist of all companies and institutions that support the movement.
Boycott is a time-honored tool of communities across the globe. Cuomo’s move is blatantly unconstitutional and is shamelessly designed to attack the movement for Palestinian human rights.
Please join us! Tell Gov. Cuomo: We will continue to stand for justice and boycott Israel until the Palestinian people achieve freedom, justice, and equality. We will continue to boycott Israel because it is the right thing to do.
Please RSVP to the Facebook event here and share with friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/892311420879597/
Also:
Protest Gov. Cuomo’s Anti-BDS Executive Order
Gov. Cuomo, Rescind Your Unconstitutional Executive Order
Background:
Statement on Cuomo’s Anti-BDS Executive Order
“Executive Order No. 157 is a blatantly unconstitutional attack on freedom of speech and establishes a dangerous precedent reminiscent of McCarthyism. It is unprecedented for a state to create a list of entities that support or engage in a First Amendment protected political activity, and deny them financial benefits because of it. Boycotts are a constitutionally-protected form of speech, association and assembly, and have a long history of being used successfully to address injustice and demand political change.”
The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US
“Students and scholars discuss the backlash they have experienced for engaging in Palestine advocacy. These and hundreds of other cases are documented in “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US,” a report released by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal in September 2015.”
What to know about anti-BDS legislation
“The Supreme Court has long held that boycotts to bring about political, economic, and social change – like boycotts for Palestinian rights – are a form of expression protected by the First Amendment rights of speech, assembly, association, and petition. The government may not condition the receipt of government benefits on the requirement that a person forgo core political speech activity. Nor can the government enact measures that chill our speech rights.”
Video: Ali Abunimah: NY Governor Blacklists BDS to Defend Israeli Apartheid
“NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo ban on state business with organizations that support the boycott movement is unconstitutional and panders to Israel, says Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah.”
Palestinian-Americans respond to New York Governor’s Anti-BDS Executive Order
“When Cuomo says he opposes BDS, he’s saying he opposes international law and equality for Palestinians. Thankfully there are many in New York who do not let him speak for them.”
June 2, 2016
Graduate Student Workers Resist New Attack on UAW 2865 BDS Resolution
From: mletwin
Date: Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 10:20 AM
Subject: Graduate Student Workers Resist New Attack on UAW 2865 BDS Resolution
See attached or view online:
http://laborforpalestine.net/2016/05/27/lfp-bulletin-graduate-student-workers-resist-new-attack-on-uaw-2865-bds-resolution/
Subscribe to Labor for Palestine bulletin at:
http://laborforpalestine.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1e9a2d49f8901a20fdac2aa16&id=416dacc103
May 27, 2016
FYI: Union officials suppress member support for Palestinian rights
From: Torres, Azalia
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2016 11:59 AM
Subject: FYI: Union officials suppress member support for Palestinian rights
Important message from Palestine Legal (co-founded by Center for Constitutional Rights Board President Michael Ratner (1943-2016)), concerning escalating attempts to silence advocacy of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) for Palestinian rights, a campaign which echoes the divestment movement against apartheid South Africa. The same free speech debate has also long been an issue at our own workplace.
The particular case below involves “nullification” of a BDS resolution democratically adopted by the members of UAW 2865 (University of California graduate student workers) in 2014. Similar BDS resolutions have recently been adopted by the members of New York University Graduate Employee Union (GSOC-UAW 2110), University of Massachusetts, Amherst Graduate Employee Union (GEO-UAW 2322), and Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA/AFT Local 3220) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Union officials suppress member support for BDS
May 25, 2016
CREDIT: CLYDE ROBINSON
As a growing number of local unions endorse Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in solidarity with Palestinian workers, the United Auto Workers (UAW) Public Review Board last week affirmed a decision to nullify the BDS resolution adopted by members of Local 2865.
UAW Local 2865 – which represents over 14,000 graduate student workers at the University of California (UC) – voted by an overwhelming majority in December, 2014 to demand that their union and their employer, the UC, divest from companies complicit in human rights violations against Palestinians. A few members who opposed the resolution engaged a union-busting corporate law firm to appeal the vote. In December 2015, the International UAW, which oversees Local 2865, nullified the vote – despite its own finding that the local conducted a fair and democratic election. The local union appealed, and last week, the union’s Public Review Board affirmed the nullification.
The new decision reasons that because the UAW International president signed a letter opposing BDS in 2007, UAW now holds a position against BDS, and subordinate membership groups cannot assert a different position. But this reasoning ignores the fact that the 2007 statement was signed without any record of discussion among the Executive Board, much less any debate among the UAW’s membership.
Rank and file member of Local 2865, Jennifer Mogannam, said, “This decision cannot erase the fact that increasing numbers of UAW members stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers. … Clearly, several thousand UAW members from coast to coast disagree with the president from 2007. The International union cannot just reach into a dusty file cabinet to shut down the growing number of members who want to discuss and change the union’s position on BDS.”
Liz Jackson, Palestine Legal staff attorney, commented, “The nullification reflects the national trend of suppression. People are voting by democratic majorities to support BDS. But when higher officials disagree – like state legislators, university administrators, and presidential candidates – they resort to shutting down debate from the top. This may work in the short term, but attempts to suppress speech cannot stop a sea change in public opinion.”
Popular support for BDS is growing as three more graduate student worker organizations adopted resolutions this spring. In April, the New York University Graduate Employee Union (GSOC-UAW 2110) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Graduate Employee Union (GEO-UAW 2322), representing 2,000 members each, endorsed by full membership vote the call from all major Palestinian trade unions and civil society groups to impose BDS against Israel.
Last week, the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA/AFT Local 3220) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, representing over 9,000 graduate workers and students, also voted overwhelmingly in favor of adopting a BDS resolution.
See also:
April 27, 2016
FYI: Occupied Youth: Palestine and Black America (No CLE credit)
From: Letwin, Michael
Date: Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 12:48 PM
Subject: FYI: Occupied Youth: Palestine and Black America (No CLE credit)
Criminal justice parallels. Panel includes various attorneys, including former LAS colleague and current CCR executive director Vince Warren.
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Occupied Youth: Palestine and Black America
Thursday, April 28 at 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM in EDT
Wollman Hall at the New School
66 W 11th St, New York, New York 10011
Details
This round-table conversation will examine the impact of prolonged military occupation on Palestinian youth and draw connections with the struggles for human rights in the United States for communities of color. Palestinian and American civil society leaders will discuss parallels between Israeli military law, and discrimination, police violence, surveillance and systemic injustice in the US.
Participants:
Sahar Francis is a Palestinian lawyer and general director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Francis became director in 2005, and has been a human rights legal advocate since 1994. She specializes in issues of Palestinian political prisoners, including ill-treatment and torture, administrative detention, prison conditions, and prisoners’ rights. She has extensive experience litigating in the Israeli Supreme Court and Israeli military court system.
Thenjiwe McHarris is currently working with a team called Blackbird, which is focused on movement building in this current historical moment that centers anti-black racism, state violence and black resistance as part of the ongoing struggle to transform the country. She is also currently working with a number of social justice organizations and movements in the US and is helping to establish a collective for organizers engaged in movement building work around the world. Thenjiwe has spent her entire political and professional career challenging the injustices that imprison people and their communities in a life of poverty and/or one behind bars. She began her political career calling for an end to policies and practices that contributed to acts of torture committed by law enforcement. Most recently, Thenjiwe worked for the U.S. Human Rights Network where she helped coordinate efforts to hold the U.S.G accountable for its human rights violations when the United States was up for review by specific UN Mechanisms.
Khaled Quzmar is a Palestinian lawyer and general director of Defense for Children International – Palestine. Quzmar joined DCIP in 1995 as a lawyer representing Palestinian children in Israeli military courts. He specializes in issues of juvenile justice and grave violations against children during armed conflict, and earned an LL.M in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland Galway.
Vincent Warren is an American lawyer and executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. He oversees CCR’s groundbreaking litigation and advocacy work, which includes using international and domestic law to hold corporations and government officials accountable for human rights abuses, and challenging racial and gender injustice. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change by combining cutting-edge litigation, advocacy and strategic communications in work on a broad range of civil and human rights issues.
Mohammad Rozzi is a Palestinian scholar from the Gaza Strip who is currently completing his PhD studies in Switzerland. He holds degrees in Childhood Studies and Occupational Therapy, and has worked with a number of organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, including Mercy Corps, Norwegian Refugee Council, Terre de Hommes Lausanne, UNICEF, and World Vision.
FYI: Solidarity Rising, As Two UAW More Graduate Employee Units Endorse Divestment
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Letwin, Michael
Date: Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 12:03 PM
Subject: FYI: Solidarity Rising, As Two UAW More Graduate Employee Units Endorse Divestment
To see images in this message, click on “download pictures.” For more information, select clickable headings below.
Solidarity Rising: Two More UAW
Graduate Employee Units Endorse BDS!
Joint Statement GSOC-UAW 2110 and GEO-UAW 2322 are Latest Unions to Vote for Divestment
This past week the NYU Graduate Employee Union (GSOC-UAW 2110) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Graduate Employee Union (GEO-UAW 2322), both representing 2,000 members each, endorsed by full membership vote the call from all major Palestinian trade unions and civil society groups to impose Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. . . . In December 2014, the 14,000 student-worker union at the University of California (UAW Local 2865) system passed a similar resolution supporting BDS with 65% in favor.
Context: America’s Labor Unions Are Increasingly Standing with Palestine (Alternet)
Following a well-attended panel hosted by Western Mass Labor for Palestine at the April 16 Jobs With Justice Conference in Springfield, MA, author Vijay Prashad extensively reviews the rise of Labor for Palestine and U.S. trade union support for BDS. Panelists included Prashad, LFP Co-Conveners Suzanne Adely and Michael Letwin, Carol Lambiase (United Electrical Workers), Bill Shortell (International Association of Machinists), and was moderated by WMLFP members Jordy Rosenberg and Ruth Jennison. Prashad’s article concludes by quoting Adely: “Ultimately, building labor solidarity with Palestine and with all anti-racist struggles is part of the fight to build a stronger, democratic union movement.”
Labor to Palestine: We Stand with Palestine in the Spirit of “Sumud”: The U.S. Prisoner, Labor and Academic Solidarity Delegation to Palestine
On April 16, the nineteen-member March 2016 delegation to Palestine, which included LFP Co-convener Jaime Veve and several other trade unionists, issued a powerful report stating, in part: “We join hands with our comrades in the Palestinian labor movement and salute the struggle of striking teachers, labor organizers and workers demanding economic justice, independence and national self-determination from colonial structures. We further pledge to campaign in the ranks of U.S. labor to divest from Israeli bonds and sever ties between the AFL-CIO and the Histadrut.” To host a local event with delegation members, contact palestine.prison. delegation16@gmail.com
Labor in Palestine: Mass Rally Against Approval of New “Social Security” Law (IMEMC)
Thousands of Palestinians, on Tuesday, demonstrated outside of a government building, in the occupied West Bank hub of Ramallah, against the Palestinian Authority’s approval of a new law many believe fails to provide adequate protection for workers. . . . Weeks earlier, a teachers’ strike brought the largest public demonstrations against the PA in years.
Analysis: Eric Lee: The Online Labour Solidarity Whiz who’s ‘Proud to be a Zionist’
In a new article, British BDS activists Peter Waterman discusses the hypocrisy of Zionist anti-BDS spokesperson Eric Lee, owner of the widely-read website, LabourStart.
Download: New Labor for Palestine Pamphlet
Key background documents from Labor for Palestine, prepared for 2016 Labor Notes conference.
Donate
April 20, 2016
Urgent: Please sign and re-post widely: Respect Union Democracy and BDS in GSOC-UAW
From: Letwin, Michael
Date: Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 10:40 AM
Subject: Urgent: Please sign and re-post widely: Respect Union Democracy and BDS in GSOC-UAW
As labor BDS is beginning to take off, our sister UAW members of GSOC (NYU) are under undemocratic attack from UAW 2110 leadership.
To support them, please sign here: Union officials attempt to cancel elections and silence support for BDS
Union officials attempt to cancel elections and silence support for BDS
NEW YORK: Late Friday night, graduate student workers at New York University were shocked to receive notice from UAW Local 2110 Executive Board that the Local was cancelling the scheduled elections and installing a slate of members to the executive body of the graduate union, GSOC, by default. The incident in Local 2110 could cause major setbacks for UAW efforts to organize graduate workers at other universities. This sudden suspension of union democracy coincides with a much-publicized GSOC referendum on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, scheduled to take place during elections this week. The news also comes after months of preparation for the elections to GSOC’s Assembly of Stewards and Local 2110’s Joint Council, long scheduled to take place from Monday, April 18, to Thursday, April 21.
January 25, 2016
Time Sensitive: Sign Open Letter to UAW Leadership: Respect Union Democracy, Labor Solidarity, and BDS
From: Letwin, Michael
Date: Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 12:12 PM
Subject: Time Sensitive: Sign Open Letter to UAW Leadership: Respect Union Democracy, Labor Solidarity, and BDS
Fellow union members,
Like ongoing attempts to silence Palestinian human rights advocates at The Legal Aid Society, International UAW leaders have unilaterally “nullified” a non-binding resolution, overwhelmingly adopted by the members of UAW 2865, in support of the growing BDS movement.
To support UAW 2865, please consider signing the statement below, and forward to other interested union members.
The deadline for initial signers is end of the day tomorrow.
Thanks!
Michael
==Please forgive cross-postings–
Dear fellow trade unionist:
To be listed as an initial signer of the statement below, please complete the form posted here by 5pm EST on Tuesday, January 26.
Feel free to circulate the statement to other interested trade unionists, but please do not post publicly until you have received the final version with initial signatures attached.
The statement will then be posted at Change.org for additional signers.
In solidarity,
Labor for Palestine Co-Conveners:
Suzanne Adely, U.S.-MENA Global Labor Solidarity Network; Former Staff, Global Organizing Institute, UAW
Michael Letwin, Former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW L. 2325
Clarence Thomas, Co-Chair, Million Worker March; ILWU L. 10 (retired)
Jaime Veve, Transport Workers Union L. 100, NYC (retired)
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Open Letter to UAW Leadership: Respect Union Democracy, Labor Solidarity, and BDS
Labor for Palestine, January 24, 2016
As workers, trade unionists, and anti-apartheid activists, we call on the United Auto Workers International Executive Board to rescind its undemocratic and arbitrary “nullification” of UAW 2865’s support for Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, which was overwhelmingly adopted by the 13,000 teaching assistants and student-workers at the University of California in 2014.
Biased Interference
The IEB concedes that it could “find no evidence that the local union engaged in any improper actions that may have prohibited a fair and democratic vote.”
Nonetheless, it sides with anti-labor corporate lawyers in citing supposed harm to the profits of military contractors. Enlisting in a well-funded witch-hunt designed to silence those who speak up for Palestinian rights, it falsely calls BDS as “anti-Semitic.”
In doing so, it disregards more than a century of colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocide, including Israel’s establishment through the uprooting and displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the 1947-1948 Nakba (Catastrophe), a regime that veteran South African freedom fighters call “worse than apartheid.”
It is blind to $3.1 billion a year in U.S. military aid that Israel used to massacre of 2200 Palestinians (including 500 children) in Gaza in 2014, and to inflict a 10-year high in overall Palestinian casualties in 2015.
It ignores the pro-BDS position of Black Lives Matter activists, Jewish members of UAW 2865, and the international labor movement.
It omits the stated goals of BDS, which demands an end to Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel; and implementation of the right of Palestinian refugees to return.
It fails to recognize that BDS is entirely consistent with past UAW support for boycotts organized by the Civil Rights Movement, United Farm Workers, and South African anti-apartheid movement.
Lacking any semblance of fairness, the IEB’s decision has been appealed to the UAW’s Public Review Board.
UAW Leaders’ Complicity With Apartheid
In contrast to UAW 2865’s highly-transparent support for BDS, the IEB’s biased ruling reflects UAW top leaders’ longstanding and unaccountable complicity with Labor Zionism, a racist ideology that targets indigenous Palestinian rights.
In the 1940s, UAW and other top U.S. labor leaders actively supported the Nakba. UAW president Walter Reuther became closely allied with future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who later infamously pronounced, “[t]here were no such things as Palestinians.”
In the 1950s, UAW conventions passed pro-Israel resolutions and raised funds for the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation. Reuther’s brother, Victor, served as U.S. spokesperson for the Jewish National Fund, which remains at the forefront of seizing Palestinian lands. In subsequent years, “the UAW may have been the largest institutional purchaser of Israel Bonds,” which fund dispossession of the Palestinian people.
In 2007, International UAW leaders signed a statement drafted by the Jewish Labor Committee, that attacked unions in the UK for endorsing BDS.
Rank-and-File Resistance
In the past, rank-and-file UAW members have challenged this pro-apartheid stance.
In January 1969, the Detroit-based League of Revolutionary Black Workers publicly condemned Israeli colonialism. On October 14, 1973, three thousand Arab autoworkers in Detroit held a wildcat strike to protest UAW Local 600’s purchase—without membership approval—of $300,000 in Israel Bonds. On November 28, 1973, Arab, Black and other autoworkers struck to protest the B’nai B’rith’s “Humanitarian Award” to UAW International President Leonard Woodcock.
UAW 2865’s BDS resolution reclaims and revives this proud tradition of solidarity and social justice. When Palestinian trade unions, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, and Labor for Palestine issued renewed BDS calls in response to Israel’s 2014 Gaza massacre, UAW 2865’s Joint Council openly informed the entire membership:
“We intend to throw our weight behind the BDS movement to add to the international pressure against Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people. As workers, students, and as a labor union, we stand in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination from a settler-colonial power.”
On December 4, 2014, UAW 2865 members adopted this non-binding resolution by a landslide sixty-five percent, thereby becoming the first major U.S. union to endorse BDS.
Growing U.S. Labor Support for BDS
UAW 2865’s courageous vote was paralleled by ILWU Local 10 members who refused to handle Israeli Zim Line cargo in 2014, and has been followed by adoption of BDS resolutions by the United Electrical Workers and Connecticut AFL-CIO in 2015.
As the 2865 BDS Caucus recently reaffirmed in response to the IEB: “We are part of a growing movement for union solidarity with the people of Palestine and for a democratic and visionary U.S. labor movement. As workers, educators, and students, we know together we can prevail over these forms of repression and continue striving for justice for all peoples.”
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Please also sign: Support Student Workers’ Historic BDS Vote
December 28, 2015
FYI: 6:30 Tonight in Washington Square Pk: Protest for Tamir Rice
From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 3:38 PM
To: CRIMINAL ATTYS ALL; 1199 Members; CIVIL BENEFITS CHAT GROUP; CIVIL BKLYN AGING ALL; CIVIL BNO ALL; CIVIL BRONX ALL; CIVIL CONSUMER LAW CHAT GROUP; CIVIL DAP CHAT GROUP; CIVIL EMPLOYMENT LAW ALL; JUVENILE ATTYS ALL; JUVENILE APPEALS ALL; CIVIL EXTERN ATTYS ALL; CIVIL FAMILY CHAT GROUP; CIVIL HCLO ALL; CIVIL HEALTH LAW ALL; CIVIL HOMELESS RIGHTS ALL; CIVIL HOUSING ADVOCATES CHAT GROUP; CIVIL IMMIGRATION ALL; CIVIL PRP ALL; CIVIL LAW REFORM ALL; CRIMINAL ATTYS ALL
Subject: FYI: 6:30 Tonight in Washington Square Pk: Protest for Tamir Rice
Legal observers needed. Details here.
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Note: “We are simply unpersuaded that an email message, sent using the employer’s email system but not from the employer, could reasonably be perceived as speech by, or speech endorsed by, the employer–particularly a message reflecting a view different from the employer’s. Email users typically understand that an email message conveys the views of the sender, not those of the email account provider. They would no more think that an email message sent from a coworker via a work email account speaks for the employer (unless the message was sent by the employer’s supervisor or agent) than they would think that a message they receive from a friend on their personal Gmail account speaks for Google.”
Purple Commc’ns, Inc., 361 NLRB No. 126 (Dec. 11, 2014)
ALAA Roots -- An Unofficial Site 