L4P National Network Invitation

January 10, 2024

Amid the rising outcry against U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and across Palestine, a growing number of worker organizations have have embraced not only demands for a permanent ceasefire, but concrete action required by the Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions: End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel and the BDS picket line.

Now, to uplift and coordinate these efforts, we invite your organization to join us in launching the Labor for Palestine National Network (L4PNN), a grassroots cross-union worker/community alliance based on the Principles of Unity previously outlined here, and below.

L4PNN is being convened by Labor for Palestine, which was founded in 2004 by union and Palestinian community activists to reclaim the legacy of working class solidarity with Palestine in the United States, as reflected in groundbreaking statements by the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in 1969 and wildcat strikes against the United Auto Workers (UAW) leadership’s support for Israel in 1973.

To affiliate as an L4PNN member organization (list in formation, below*), please click here. (Questions: info@laborforpalestine.net).

Solidarity!

Labor for Palestine (U.S.) Organizing Team

(Affiliations listed for identification only)

Suzanne Adely, US Palestinian Community Network; Arab Workers Resource Center; Food Chain Workers Alliance (staff); President, National Lawyers Guild
Monadel Herzallah, Arab American Union Members Council
Lara Kiswani, Executive Director, Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC); Block the Boat
Michael Letwin, Former President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325; UAW Labor for Palestine; Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
Corinna Mullin, PSC-CUNY International Committee; CUNY for Palestine
Clarence Thomas, Co-Chair, Million Worker March; Executive Board, ILWU Local 10 (retired)

*Member Organizations (list in formation)

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Principles of Unity

Labor for Palestine National Network

Reaffirming #LaborShutItDown4Palestine on D15-16, 2023 (December 11, 2023)

We welcome growing union calls for a permanent ceasefire to end the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Now, we call on our labor bodies to take the next step of fully embracing the Urgent Call from Palestinian Trade Unions: End all Complicity, Stop Arming Israel, and of standing in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation and return, by:

Demanding an immediate end to the siege on Gaza and to all U.S. military aid for Israel.
Following the example of Block the Boat, ILWU West Coast dockers, and workers around the world who refuse to build or transport weapons destined for Israel.

Respecting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by severing ties with Israel’s racist labor federation, the Histadrut and its US mouthpiece, the Jewish Labor Committee, and by divesting from Israel Bonds and industries connected with Zionist settler colonialism and occupation.

From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free!

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Background: Why is Palestine a Labor Issue?

An injury to one is an injury to all. The Israeli settler-colonial regime is part of the same U.S.-backed system of racist state violence that brutalizes BIPOC and working class people around the world. With Israel’s knee on their neck, Palestinians can’t breathe, and we unconditionally stand with them, just as they have stood with our struggles for Black and Brown Lives, Standing Rock, migrant rights, and beyond.
Our tax dollars fund Israel. Israel’s crimes are committed with more than $3.8 billion a year (or $10+ million per day) in bipartisan US military aid, tax dollars that should be spent instead on badly-needed jobs, food, housing, healthcare, education, and transportation for poor and working people at home.
Our workplaces arm Israel. Many of our unionized factories, logistics, academia, tech, and other workplaces—without our consent—produce weapons, transportation, research, technology, and other materials for the genocidal Israeli regime.
Our unions fund Israel. Our unions are already involved—on the wrong side. In the 1920s-1930s, top labor officials donated millions to the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation that spearheaded anti-Palestinian dispossession, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, including the Nakba (Catastrophe) that established the Israeli state in 1948. For more than 70 years, they have used our union dues and pension funds to buy billions in Israel Bonds. Today, despite horrendous Palestinian casualties, most labor officials remain silent—or worse.
Workers can stop Israeli genocide. Fifty years ago, Arab and Black auto workers led a wildcat strike and other actions to protest UAW complicity with Israel. Today, we can follow their example in respecting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by protesting, bringing union resolutions, and—above all—by mobilizing our collective power at the workplace, as shown by dockers in South Africa, India, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Italy, Belgium, and the ILWU on the West Coast of the United States, which has respected Block the Boat’s community-labor picket line by refusing to handle Israeli cargo.

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