UAW Labor for Palestine Rank and File Welcomes Our Leadership’s Pro-Ceasefire Announcement, Demands that the International UAW Endorse Palestinian Trade Union Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

For Immediate Release: December 6, 2023
Contact: uawlaborforpalestine@gmail.com

UAW Labor for Palestine Rank and File Welcomes Our Leadership’s Pro-Ceasefire Announcement, Demands that the International UAW Endorse Palestinian Trade Union Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

Palestinian trade unions have urged immediate action to stop the flow of weapons to Israel

Detroit, Michigan—UAW Labor for Palestine, a working group composed of rank-and-file members formed in opposition to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and throughout Palestine, welcomes the International UAW’s call for a ceasefire, announced by Region 9A director Brandon Mancilla on December 1.

Now, we reaffirm the October 27 rank-and-file UAW Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) sign-on letter endorsed by hundreds of union members, which calls on UAW leadership to honor the urgent appeal from Palestinian trade unions by taking “immediate action—wherever you are in the world—to prevent the arming of the Israeli state and the companies involved in the infrastructure of the blockade.”  

In the last month, rank-and-file UAW members across the country have sent hundreds of letters urging the International Executive Board to call for a ceasefire, to stand in “solidarity with Palestine,” and to endorse the BDS call. We are encouraged to learn the UAW will be forming a working group to investigate economic ties to Israel and to militarism more broadly, which was formed as the result of our rank-and-file organizing. We plan on participating actively in that group—and continuing to pressure our union leadership to stand in solidarity for a free Palestine.

Specifically, in this moment we call on the International UAW to endorse and implement BDS against all institutions complicit in Israeli settler colonialism by taking the following concrete steps:

• Terminate UAW’s ties with the Histadrut, Israel’s racist labor federation
• Divest our unions and employers from Israel Bonds and from the military, extractive, and technological industries connected with the Israeli occupation and U.S. imperialism 
• Demand that the United States government immediately halt all aid and military support to Israel
• Protect UAW members who engage in pro-Palestine speech and advocacy—particularly Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab workers—from doxxing, surveillance, and repression within and beyond the workplace, including the blatantly unconstitutional and union-busting Temporary Restraining Order that blocks UAW 2325 membership from democratically voting on a proposed Palestine solidarity resolution 
• Vacate the UAW’s anti-democratic nullification of previous Palestinian solidarity resolutions adopted by UAW 2865, UAW 2322, and GSOC-UAW 2110
• Involve rank-and-file members, including those building solidarity with Palestinian workers, in the newly announced UAW Divestment and Just Transition Working Group

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. 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. Union members who want to connect with us can reach us at uawlaborforpalestine@gmail.com

About UAW Labor for Palestine: UAW Labor for Palestine–formally a working group created through the UAW Region 9A Rank-and-File Assembly–is a collective of rank-and-file members organizing across the UAW to demand an immediate end to Israel’s apartheid regime, occupation, and ongoing genocide in Palestine, to embrace the recent urgent call from Palestinian trade unions to stop arming Israel, and to act upon the UAW Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) sign-on letter by advancing Palestine solidarity priorities. We organize at the individual, shop, local, and regional levels, and we work towards ending the International UAW’s complicity in Israeli apartheid and oppression of the Palestinian people.

About the UAW Region 9A Rank-and-File Assembly: The Region 9A Rank-and-File Assembly (RFA) is the only regional organizing space of its kind in the UAW. In it, rank-and-file members across all industries develop cross-sector strategies to strengthen our solidarity within our union and to build a stronger UAW. In addition to UAW Labor for Palestine, RFA working groups currently exist for reproductive justice, higher education, union recognition and inclusive units, cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), and organizing in the social services sector. All regional initiatives launched by the RFA—from working group creation to campaigns and direct action—are developed and led by our union’s rank and file.

Digest of Select Statements and Positions on Matters of Public Concern by the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys UAW 2325

alaa-public-political-positions-4Download

Judge Unconstitutionally Muzzles ALAA UAW Local 2325 Membership Vote on Resolution Calling for Ceasefire in Gaza and a Free Palestine

rf-press-release-111723Download

Press Release: UAW 2325 (Association of Legal Aid Attorneys) Votes to Divest From Israel Bonds

PRESS RELEASE
UAW 2325 (ASSOCIATION OF LEGAL AID ATTORNEYS) VOTES TO DIVEST FROM ISRAEL BONDS

New York City, July 26, 2022. On Friday, July 22nd, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA/UAW 2325) passed a resolution calling for the divestment of UAW member dues from Israel bonds. The resolution was adopted by a wide margin in a membership-wide vote, with 75% of those who participated voting in favor. 

The resolution sets itself out as a direct response to the May 2021 call by Palestinian labor organizations, made during a historic general strike, for union workers around the world to join in the anti-apartheid movement for Palestinian liberation by supporting the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), which calls for an end to 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. 

The resolution comes nearly half a century after Detroit autoworkers held a 1973 wildcat strike to demand that UAW divest from Israel bonds, which fund dispossession of the Palestinian people. A similar call was adopted in an overwhelming vote by the 13,000 teaching assistant and student-worker members of UAW 2865 at the University of California in 2014, before being undemocratically “nullified” by UAW’s International Executive Board. 

The ALAA/UAW 2325 resolution endorses collective action in support of Palestinian liberation and calls on UAW to divest from its holdings  in Israel bonds. The resolution also calls on UAW to practice transparency in its holdings funded by member dues, and to develop democratic processes for members to control further investments. 

“As legal aid workers, we should ask whether our union dues are being used to promote justice or inhibit it,” said Ihab Mikati, one of the members who proposed the resolution. “How can we build a legitimate movement while materially supporting exploitation, or occupation, or apartheid? Labor is stronger when we recognize that solidarity extends beyond the walls of our offices.”  

“By this landslide membership vote, we join the growing ranks in labor who honor the BDS picket line,” said Michael Letwin, former president of UAW 2325, co-convener of Labor for Palestine, and co-founder of Jews for Palestinian Right of Return. “Solidarity with Palestine is natural given our work as public defenders and indigent legal services workers, and intersects with our union’s tradition of support for labor, Black Lives, immigrants, reproductive rights, and countless other justice movements.” 

Contact: 
Ihab Mikati – ihab.mikati@gmail.com 
Michael Letwin –  info@laborforpalestine.net

FYI: Three Palestinian lawyers seized by Israeli occupation

From: Torres, Azalia
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2017 11:37 AM
Subject: FYI: Three Palestinian lawyers seized by Israeli occupation

Please read carefully. This is another attack on lawyers who, like us, stand up for human rights. Let’s show our support!

=====

Three Palestinian lawyers seized by Israeli occupation

4 December 2017

Israeli occupation forces seized three Palestinian lawyers well-known for their involvement in defending Palestinian human rights and particularly the rights of Palestinian prisoners in armed, overnight, pre-dawn raids. The three lawyers are:

• Khaled Zabarqa, seized from his home in Lydd in Palestine ’48 and a defense lawyer for imprisoned Sheikh Raed Salah
• Iyad Misk, seized from his home in Kufr Aqab in Jerusalem and legal director of the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission
• Firas al-Sabbah, seized from his home in the city of Jerusalem and director of the al-Meethaq Foundation for Human Rights

All three of the lawyers’ homes was stormed at night by police and intelligence agents who ransacked the home before taking him. The three were taken to the Petah Tikva interrogation center.

Zabarqa is one of the most prominent lawyers defending Palestinian political detainees and prisoners in occupied Palestine ’48. Most recently, his advocacy on behalf of imprisoned Sheikh Raed Salah has highlighted the sheikh’s solitary confinement and political targeting. Zabarqa has been targeted in the past, barred from entering Jerusalem in 2015. Misk is also the former legal director for Defence for Children International – Palestine and, as current director of legal work for the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, has a leading role in defending many Palestinian prisoners before Israeli occupation courts.

Al-Sabbah is the director of al-Meethaq Foundation, which offers public legal services to the Jerusalemite population, including dealing with Israeli occupation entities like insurance officials, the municipality, and the interior department. The foundation also works together with Physicians for Human Rights to document abuses against child prisoners and support parents in filing complaints about their children’s treatment.

The targeting of the three lawyers comes hand in hand with the ongoing attacks on Palestinian human rights defenders such as Salah Hamouri, new Palestinian lawyer and field researcher for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Hasan Safadi, Arabic-language media coordinator for Addameer; Issa Amro, al-Khalil organizer against settlements; Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian parliamentarian and Addameer board member; Abdallah Abu Rahma, coordinator of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements.

“Human rights defender” is a term used to describe people who, individually or with others, act peacefully to promote or protect human rights. These three Palestinian lawyers are human rights defenders who serve as a first line of defense for Palestinian civilians under occupation targeted for arrest, detention and persecution by Israeli occupation forces.

This is also a specific and targeted attack on Palestinian legal work and Palestinian lawyers, in what appears to be an attempt to deprive Palestinian prisoners of even the barest legal representation which is in and of itself frequently barred from providing any meaningful defense in a colonial system meant merely to legitimize the ongoing detention of Palestinians. It also appears to be an attempt to intimidate and suppress Palestinian lawyers from engaging public work to defend Palestinian political prisoners and people under attack.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges international organizations, especially lawyers’ and legal organizations, to take a stand and pressure the Israeli state and international governments to take a stand against the escalating attacks on Palestinian lawyers and other human rights defenders

FYI: Palestinian Prisoners Hunger Strike in Day 39

From: Torres, Azalia
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2017 6:07 PM
Subject: FYI: Palestinian Prisoners Hunger Strike in Day 39

On March 15, 2017, the Legal Aid Society and Attorneys of Color of Legal Aid jointly said:“[F]or as long as The Legal Aid Society exists, we will stand in solidarity with marginalized communities in their fight for equal justice and racial equity.” Today, in the very same spirit, people around the world are standing in solidarity with 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners now in their 39^th day of a hunger strike against conditions that Amnesty International calls “unlawful and cruel.”

Hunger strikes, like that held by U.S. prisoners last fall, are part of a long international tradition of resistance to injustice. But the Israeli government — which receives $3.8b/year in U.S. weapons, and closely coordinates with the NYPD and other police agencies that systematically target Black, Brown, and Native communities in this country — has branded the strikers “terrorists,” just as the South African apartheid regime once labeled Nelson Mandela.

Despite threats of force-feeding, the prisoners remain steadfast: “Our chains will be broken before we are, because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.”

With our own government funding this injustice, the prisoner strike concerns us all. Dr. Martin Luther King, while himself a political prisoner in Birmingham Alabama, put it best: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

*Legal Workers, Legal Organizations and Law Students Letter of Support for Palestinian Hunger Strikers (National Lawyers Guild, April 2017)

*An Injury to One is an Injury to All: Workers Support Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike (Labor for Palestine, May 21, 2017)

In addition, there is a NYC solidarity protest for the prisoners, 5:30pm tomorrow (Friday) in Union Square. Legal observers needed.

The Black Panthers, Then & Now: Kathleen Cleaver Speaks | 3/7 6PM NYU Law VH210

From: Sampeur, Jane-Roberte
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2017 2:40 PM
Subject: The Black Panthers, Then & Now: Kathleen Cleaver Speaks | 3/7 6PM NYU Law VH210

Happing tonight if folks are interested. Should be great.

The Black Panthers, Then & Now: Kathleen Cleaver Speaks.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2248533725372747/

The NYU Law National Lawyers Guild will host former communications secretary of the Black Panther Party & professor of law at Emory University Kathleen Cleaver on March 7th at6PM at the NYU School of Law, Vanderbilt Hall Rm. 210.

Professor Cleaver will speak on the Black Panther Party, which just marked its 50th anniversary, and the implications and lessons that can be drawn from the Party’s experience in the age of Trump.

Professor Cleaver will join Palestinian-American youth organizer Aber Kawas and Black Lives Matter organizer Kei Williams to discuss what lessons young community organizers and grassroots activists can learn from the legacy of the Panthers in the struggle against racism, mass incarceration, imperialism, and police violence today.

Professor Cleaver has not only an important and unique perspective on the power of revolutionary black resistance in America, but a necessary one. We are in a time of unprecedented state violence against black and brown people in America — from Muslim bans and threats to deport millions of people, to the return of the Dakota Access Pipeline, to the explicit calls for racial profiling in policing, to the rise of right-wing extremists within the new administration. At the same time, the United States has threatened greater aggression abroad, from threats of war with Iran and the return of the use of torture to unyielding support for the violation of Palestinian rights, all expanding policies that are intricately linked with domestic abuses.

Please join us for a monumental opportunity as revive and expand the tradition of connecting anti-racist resistance at home with the fight against state violence abroad in line with the practice of the Black Panther Party.

Co-Sponsors:

NYU NLG
NYU Black Allied Law Students Association
NYU Law & Social Change
NYU Coalition on Law & Representation
NYU South Asian Law Students Association
Arab-American Association of NY
NYU Students for Justice in Palestine
New York City Students for Justice in Palestine
NYU Women of Color Collective

(Full & Updated list of sponsors here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2248533725372747/)

 

Labor and Women’s Rights Movement Plan Ambitious Mass Protests to Fight Trumpism

• http://www.alternet.org/activism/labor-and-womens-rights-movement-plan-ambitious-mass-protests-fight-trumpism
• ACTIVISM
  Key labor groups are throwing their weight behind an International Women’s Day of mass protests.

  By Sarah Lazare / AlterNet

  March 3, 2017

  

  Photo Credit: Michael Wende / Shutterstock.com

  Sectors of the U.S. labor movement are throwing their weight behind an International Women’s Day call for mass actions to protest the gendered violence wrought by neoliberalism, from workplace harassment to environmental destruction to the gutting of welfare systems.

  Timed for Wednesday, March 8, the global day of action was “organized by and for women who have been marginalized and silenced by decades of neoliberalism directed towards working women, women of color, Native women, disabled women, immigrant women, Muslim women, lesbian, queer and trans women,” according to the International Women’s Strike, which describes itself as a grassroots movement.

  The mobilizations also have the backing of the organizers of the January 21 Women’s March, the largest inaugural protest in U.S. history. While Women’s March organizers have termed March 8 “a day without women,” actions will include rallies, protests, direct actions and teach-ins, in addition to a more traditional work stoppage. Similar actions are slated to sweep nearly 30 countries, from Mexico to Bolivia to Russia.

  Tithi Bhattacharya, who is active with the U.S. arm of the International Women’s Strike, is a longtime activist for Palestinian justice, a professor of South Asian History and the director of Global Studies at Purdue University. She told AlterNet, “We knew very well when we used the word ‘strike’ that women (and men) in the vast majority of workplaces will not be able to go on strike. How could they? Union density is currently at its lowest in this country. Moreover, even where unions exist, they usually carry no-strike clauses in their contracts. A vast number of people work in states where striking has been criminalized for years.”

  “But despite these challenges,” Bhattacharya continued, “the involvement of labor unions and labor groups has been amazing.”

  Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools just announced it will close down March 8 because it expects large numbers of employees to go on strike.

  Under the banner, Women Workers Rising, major unions and workers’ organizations are calling for a demonstration at the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., to “end workplace violence and harassment and promote pay equity, one fair living wage, paid leave and labor rights at work.” The action is being organized by One Billion Rising in coalition with at least eight union or worker organizations, including National Nurses United, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, OUR Walmart, the American Federation of Teachers, Jobs with Justice, the Domestic Workers’ Alliance and other labor and social justice groups.

  “Every day, we see the Trump administration’s attack on women’s bodies and lives, especially immigrants and women of color,” Andrea Cristina Mercado, the campaign director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, told AlterNet. “Our work, contributions, and humanity continue to be undervalued. That is why we endorsed A Day Without Women—as a way of showing opposition to the terrorizing and criminalizing of our communities.”

  “While some domestic workers are participating, we did not call on members to strike, because it’s hard for many who are caring for elders or children to take a day off,” Mercado continued. “But there are so many ways to show resistance, and on March 8, we will stand together, and embody radical sisterhood.”

  The day of action has earned the endorsements of union locals and workers’ organizations, including Labor for Palestine, Rutgers AAUP-AFT and UAW Local 2325 — Association of Legal Aid Attorneys. Among the endorsers is the SEIU Lavender Caucus, which describes itself as “the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/ Transgender (L/G/B/T) Caucus of the Service Employees International Union, whose purpose is to facilitate open and respectful communication between the L/G/B/T community and the labor movement.”

  Megan Moskop is a New York City teacher and an organizer with the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), the social justice caucus of the United Federation of Teachers. Moskop said MORE officially endorsed the March 8 day of actions “because 70 percent or more of the teaching profession in New York City is women. Sexism in our profession is rampant. We only have the most basic family medical leave. Part of the reason it is such a hard job is because it’s a job women have traditionally done.”

  “When women are standing up in the international community and saying sexism is real, we want to stand alongside them,” Moskop said.

  The U.S. platform for the International Women’s Strike includes calls for labor rights, a halt to gender violence, environmental justice and an “anti-racist and anti-imperialist feminism,” stating: “This means that movements such as Black Lives Matter, the struggle against police brutality and mass incarceration, the demand for open borders and for immigrant rights and for the decolonization of Palestine are for us the beating heart of this new feminist movement.”

  In addition, the platform calls for “full social provisioning” and issues the demand “that the welfare system work to support our lives rather than shame us when we access such rights.”

  Organizers say they draw inspiration from mass protests far beyond U.S. borders. “Following the example of Icelandic women in 1975, Polish women went on a day-long strike to halt plans for criminalizing abortion and miscarriage on Oct. 3, 2016,” the International Women’s Strike writes. “That planned legislation was immediately withdrawn by the government. Similar issues brought Korean women to protest several times that same month against introduction of higher penalties for doctors performing abortions. On Oct. 19, 2016, Argentine women responded with massive hour-long strikes and rallies to an inhuman femicide and brutal repression [by police] of the Women’s National Meeting.”

  Union members told AlterNet that these kinds of mass protests are sorely needed in the United States, and that labor’s participation is often driven by the rank and file. “It’s important to see labor use its power to move protests further and go from demonstrations to strikes,” Peter Lamphere, a member of MORE-UFT and a teacher in New York City, told AlterNet. “We’ve seen that already in the immigrant community and with New York City taxi workers.”

  On February 16, thousands of people across the United States walked off the job, shut down their stores and restaurants and stayed home from school to participate in an immigrant strike against the deportation policies of the Trump administration. The strike was accompanied by mass protests in cities and towns across the country, including Chicago, Raleigh, Austin and San Francisco.

  Those mass protests followed a one-hour strike on January 28 by the New York Taxi Workers, in solidarity with large-scale protests against Trump’s travel ban targeting Muslims. “Drivers stand in solidarity with thousands protesting [the] inhumane and unconstitutional Muslim ban,” the 19,000-member strong union declared over social media.

  “We see the Trump administration as posing an existential threat to the labor movement, so right after the election we immediately got involved in pushing UFT to take whatever action it could to challenge what Trump was doing,” Lamphere emphasized. “So we pushed for the union to endorse the Women’s March and sent buses. The women’s strike is the next step coming out of that.”

  Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare.

FYI: 5:30pm Today: Build a Wall Around Trump

From: Letwin, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 1:54 PM
Subject: FYI: 5:30pm Today: Build a Wall Around Trump

Legal observers, please!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1390631224332850/

FYI: Black Lives Matter Events Tonight and Sunday

From: Letwin, Michael
Date: Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 9:44 AM
Subject: FYI: Black Lives Matter Events Tonight and Sunday

 

Friday (tonight), 6:30pm
Imprisoned Resistance: Politics of Incarceration in Palestine & the U.S.
Members of two recent delegations to Palestine—a prison, labor and academic delegation and a Dream Defenders delegation—will report on what they saw and heard, and discuss parallels mass incarceration, and struggles for justice.
Written report online here.

 

 

Sunday, Noon
Two years since the murder of Eric Garner
This action will be led by Eric Garner’s youngest child, two year old Legacy Garner.