Palestine: Global union leaders affirm support for Palestinian trade unions and the Palestinian people |
Karl Marx’s view was transforming trade unions into powerful social and cultural change agents in mass with the eventual goal of overthrowing Capitalism and the current system of State governance.
Karl Marx’s view was transforming trade unions into powerful social and cultural change agents in mass with the eventual goal of overthrowing Capitalism and the current system of state governance is as follows;
“In addition to their original tasks, the trade unions must now learn how to act consciously as focal points for organising the working class in the greater interests of its complete emancipation. They must support every social and political movement directed towards this aim. By considering themselves champions and representatives of the whole working class, and acting accordingly, the trade unions must succeed in rallying round themselves all workers still outside their ranks . . . They must convince the whole world that their efforts are far from narrow and egoistic, but on the contrary, are directed towards the emancipation of the down-trodden masses.”
This week leaders of eight Global Union Federations (GUFs) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) travelled to Ramallah to convey their solidarity to unions in the West Bank and Gaza. These organisations represent almost every sector of the global economy and have members in more than 150 countries representing over 200 million workers.
President Shawn Fain representing one the America’s largest trade unions has vehemently criticized the mass arrests across the United States of Pro-Hamas Palestine college protesters “The UAW will never support the mass arrest or intimidation of those exercising their right to protest, strike, or speak out against injustice,” Fain shared a statement shared on the social platform X. “Our union has been calling for a ceasefire for six months. This war is wrong, and this response against students and academic workers, many of them UAW members, is wrong.”
Local UAW 4811 representing college staff and faculty in California voted for a soft strike in May releasing a statement that reads “Should the university decide to curtail the right to participate in protected, concerted activity; discriminate against union members or political viewpoints; and create or allow threats to members’ health and safety, among others, UAW 4811 members will take any and all actions necessary to enforce our rights,” the union chapter stated.
Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), is a political caucus in the UAW organizing for democracy and militancy in the union. Statements from UAW rank and file over the past month or so reads as follows;
Adithya Gungi, a UAWD member, UAW Labor for Palestine organizer, and Columbia student worker at SWC-UAW Local 2710, said “We must deepen our conversations with our coworkers, building coalition with other social justice demands, while we call on UAW IEB leadership to pressure other unions to divest. We must begin to bring more and more of our siblings in weapons manufacturing and all the industries that profit from and ensure the perpetuation of the war machine.”, and;
Aaron Berman, a UAWD member, New School student worker, and recent member of the SENS-UAW Local 7902 bargaining committee, has been a participant in the New School’s encampment and divestment bargaining process.
At the December membership meeting, UAWD passed a resolution reiterating their support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and stating that as a collective community we must “commit to organizing support for Palestinian liberation … and to making BDS the official position of the UAW International.”
Healthcare Workers for Palestine and their allies have held demonstrations in multiple locations across “New York City in solidarity with the people of Palestine and to stop the U.S.-armed Israeli genocide against Gaza.”
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Disclaimer: All views, opinions and actions of the above union organizations are theirs alone and does not represent the author.