Posts tagged Palestine
Is “Salting” the Future of Organized Labor?
August 3, 2025 // MA: Another point to just make is that as a salt, you have to earn your keep. Yes, you’re in closer proximity to people, and you can talk to them and build relationships. But part of that is also like doing the work, being taken seriously as a fellow worker, who knows what the hell you’re talking about. JB: Exactly. You have to be a good coworker. I worked at Starbucks for eight months before ever saying the word union. And my role wasn’t to be the vanguard of the revolution. It was to find people, like Michelle Eisen, whose family were coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, who had a deep sense of social justice and a deep commitment to unions, and who quickly saw that her legacy at Starbucks could be helping build a union for everybody who would come after her.
Protests Go Beyond Immigration to Include Array of Left-Wing Causes
June 15, 2025 // “In this moment we must all stand together,” said Becky Pringle, the head of the National Education Association, the largest individual union in the country and one of the groups that sprang into action as the protests emerged in Los Angeles. Local chapters of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Communist Party offshoot of the Workers World Party, have also played a leading role, working with local leftist groups to post information about new demonstrations from California to Maine.
Canvassers respond to anti-Semitic demonstrations at UCLA
October 18, 2024 // While we are always looking to be respectful and informative, our canvassers have also been met with extremely vulgar attacks from none other than AFSMCE 3299 shop stewards. Just yesterday the pair was castigated for simply handing out literature and trying to engage with workers in front of the medical center. Profanities and threats of attacks were met with a polite, yet bold, resistance.
A year after Oct. 7 attack, Jewish teachers say LA union promotes antisemitism
October 8, 2024 // “UTLA has also supported professional development that teaches anti-Israel and anti-Semitic content,” the lawsuit alleges. “The UTLA-supported Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is patently anti-Semitic, and has been adopted by LAUSD in various ways and at various schools at the behest of UTLA.” The lawsuit says those curriculum materials “denounce the idea of a Jewish homeland.” Other lawsuits have been filed challenging ethnic studies courses alleging they are antisemitic. While the lawsuit lists specific positions and actions of the teachers union, it is directed toward California’s provisions that require a sole union to represent all employees in a workplace.
For Many Students, Labor Organizing and Palestinian Solidarity Are One Movement
September 11, 2024 // The reverberations from May 1 are still being felt on Dartmouth’s campus. That day, undergraduates formed an encampment on the campus green and graduate student workers began a general strike—a carefully-planned, jointly-coordinated challenge to the college’s investments in Israel and their treatment of graduate workers. Both events were announced at a crowded “Labor for Liberation” rally, and the union and Palestine were explicitly linked as two halves of one action by the organizers. “It is through our unions that we can sever Dartmouth’s ties to the war machine,” said Danny Keane, a member of the Palestine caucus of the union, “and build a people’s university.”
National Right to Work Foundation Issues Notice to University of California Graduate Students Amid UAW Strike Orders
May 21, 2024 // The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has released a special legal notice to graduate students, teaching assistants, and researchers across the University of California system. The notice comes as officials of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union have ordered a strike at UC Santa Cruz over the university’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict and related campus protests.
UAW Local 4811 Authorizes Strike Vote Over UCLA and UCSD Administrations’ Actions
May 9, 2024 // The union called for amnesty for all academic employees, students, student groups, faculty, and staff who face disciplinary actions, divestment, and disclosure of funding, and to allow researchers to opt out of funding tied to the war in Palestine and offer them alternatives so they can continue their work. In a post on Twitter, the union said, “On Friday, May 3rd, 2024, our union filed Unfair Labor Practice charges in response to UC’s actions against peaceful protesters – including UAW 4811 members – over the past week. It is important for Academic Employees to vote YES in the strike authorization vote to show the UC Administration that this unprecedented crackdown on free speech on University campuses is unacceptable.
Around 100 grad student workers and faculty threaten to withhold final grades after arrests
May 7, 2024 // Organizers of the strike are calling for several demands, many of which align with those of pro-Palestinian protesters on campus, to be met by NYU.
The Next Target for Protests Against Israel: Ports
November 8, 2023 // “Workers have committed to not load, unload, or facilitate the tasks of any boat containing weapons,” the Spanish publication El Diario reported. The announcement in Barcelona follows a group of transport unions in Belgium — which included some port workers — that about a week ago “called on their members to refuse to handle military equipment being sent to Israel,” according to Reuters. The effort to stop the Cape Orlando, a military ship with a long wartime resume, started Friday at the Port of Oakland when a wave of people descended on the docks early that morning, armed with megaphones, banners and Palestinian flags. Operating on a tip that the ship was allegedly bound for Israel and hundreds of protesters organized by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) in the Bay Area showed up early in the morning determined not to let the Cape Orlando leave.
Starbucks, union in legal battle over pro-Palestinian social media post
October 19, 2023 // Starbucks sued Workers United in federal court in Iowa Wednesday, saying a pro-Palestinian social media post from a union account early in the Israel-Hamas war angered hundreds of customers and damaged its reputation. Starbucks is suing for trademark infringement, demanding that Workers United stop using the name "Starbucks Workers United" for the group that is organizing the coffee company's workers. Starbucks also wants the group to stop using a circular green logo that resembles Starbucks' logo. Workers United responded with its own filing, asking a federal court in Pennsylvania to rule that it can continue to use Starbucks' name and a similar logo. Workers United also said Starbucks defamed the union by implying that it supports terrorism and violence.