APWU Mark Dimondstein Writes In Common Dreams---Rashida Tlaib: A Profile in Courage

American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein has the following opinion piece in Common Dreams:

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) holds a sign reading “war criminal” and

 “guilty of genocide” during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July 24, 

2024 address to Congress in Washington, D.C.

(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Rashida Tlaib: A Profile in Courage

While she may have been a lone protest voice during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week, Rep. Tlaib did what is right.

During the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

While she may have been a lone protest voice during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) did what is right.

Most mainstream news reporting either ridiculed her or only briefly mentioned her silent protest displaying a sign with “War Criminal” printed on one side and “Guilty of Genocide” on the other. Missing was any analysis as to whether she was right. Let’s look at the facts.

Any objective observer of the war in Gaza must conclude that the Israeli government is guilty of war crimes and that those crimes are enabled by U.S. military aid. Ninety percent of the 2.3 million besieged residents of Gaza have been displaced. More than 39,000, mostly women and children, have been confirmed killed. The world-renowned medical journal TheLancet recently calculated that—once adding those beneath the rubble and dying from injuries and lack of medical care, disease, and famine—hat number will soon be closer to 200,000 people. Most homes have been razed. The medical system has been systematically targeted and destroyed, as have the water and sewer systems. Israel has intentionally blocked food aid, inducing widespread famine Between 111 and 165 journalists have been targeted and killed. People forced to move to “safe zones” have then been bombed.

The definition of genocide includes “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has charged, and its chief prosecutor has requested an arrested warrant for, Netanyahu for war crimes, including the purposeful starvation of civilians, willfully causing great suffering, and killings targeting the civilian population. As an indication of their impartiality, the ICC also charged the Hamas leadership with crimes against humanity.

Bolstering the ICC action is the everyday tragic news. As I write, Israel has just killed 30 and injured 100 civilians by bombing a school being used by displaced Gazan refugees.

Forty-five U.S. doctors and health professionals who carried out volunteer health services in Gaza sent a recent letter to U.S. President Joe Biden calling for a cease-fire and arms embargo sharing that, “with only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking… Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets.”

Shame on both the Republican and Democratic Party leadership for inviting a war criminal to address Congress and giving him a green light to continue the crimes against humanity.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) not only made it clear that she would not have invited Netanyahu to speak before Congress but that he made the worst speech of any foreign leader afforded that opportunity. She is right, as Netanyahu openly attacked those in this country who are protesting his war crimes and continued U.S. military aid and spread absolute falsehoods that the protests are funded by Iran. His rotten statement was also directed against those family members of Jewish hostages who were protesting Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate a cease-fire to free their loved ones.

While Rashida Tlaib, the one Palestinian-American in Congress, courageously protested inside the Capitol, thousands of us, including this union leader and proud Jewish-American, were peaceably demonstrating outside demanding a cease-fire, condemning Netanyahu’s crimes against humanity, and the U.S. government for continuing to send armaments to Israel.

I am proud that my union, which deplored the Hamas actions of October 7 and condemned Israel’s barbaric response, called for the release of all hostages and advocates for a permanent cease-fire and for massive humanitarian aid. Recently, our union took further action by a vote at our national convention to demand that our government halt military aid to Israel and joined six other unions, representing over 6 million U.S. unionized workers, calling on President Biden to implement an arms embargo. As the largest arms supplier to Israel, the Biden-led U.S government should use its leverage to stop the carnage. We are outraged that the taxes of workers are being used to kill, maim, and slaughter innocent people.

Most people in the U.S. and across the world support calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. In this time of urgent crisis, those protesting Netanyahu’s war crimes take inspiration from Congresswoman Tlaib’s “profile in courage” and refuse to be silenced in the continuing struggle for solidarity, justice, peace, and freedom. The cries of humanity demand nothing less.

National Writers Union Statement on the Assassinations of Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi

 

NWU Statement on the Assassinations of Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi

In solidarity with our sibling union the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), and in the strongest possible terms, the National Writers Union (NWU) condemns the assassinations of our comrades Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and photographer Rami al-Rifi on July 31, 2024. The pair were killed in an Israeli strike while covering events in al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City. The ongoing violence against journalists, with at least 157 killed so far according to PJS, not only threatens our colleagues who are providing essential coverage of the reality in the Middle East: It also represents the extreme end of a spectrum of retaliation faced by media workers around the world for coverage or speech that is critical of Israel. We urge all journalistic outlets and their unions, along with nonprofits dedicated to free speech, to denounce these gruesome assassinations.

Israel’s war on Gaza has been the deadliest for journalists in modern history. These killings are a blatant violation of the international law that is meant to protect journalists and ensure our freedom of work and the public’s right to know. At least 39,400 Palestinians have been killed — and likely tens of thousands more — in the genocide in Gaza, including children and disabled and aging individuals. Adding deaths from starvation and disease, themselves the product of Israeli policy, the total toll could exceed 186,000, according to an estimate published in The Lancet in July 2024. As Israel appears poised for further escalation, this time to a regional war, it is journalists — our colleagues — who are in the crosshairs, answering the call to report on this violence and designated as targets by an unscrupulous military bent on covering up its crimes.

As a U.S.-based union, we have a duty to highlight that these continuing violations of international law would not be possible without billions of dollars in U.S.-supplied weapons and the support of U.S. political leaders in both parties, as reaffirmed by last week’s meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. NWU joins seven major U.S. unions and a growing movement of workers around the world to demand that our government stop arming Israel now.

Bargaining Update: New Seasons Labor Union Steering Committee May Call A Strike Vote!

We often post about the New Seasons Labor Union on this blog. Our most recent post is here, and another recent post mentioning the New Seasons Labor Union is here. The following post regarding union contract negotiations at New Seasons comes from Portland Jobs with Justice:

In an update to coworkers, and shared over social media (X, IG), New Seasons Labor Union co-chairs and their bargaining team announced that after more than a year and a half of fighting for a fair contract at the bargaining table, the team has issued an ultimatum to the company:

"If substantial progress is not made by the end of our August 7th bargaining session, we will ask the membership to vote to authorize a strike."

The statement details the company's numerous and stall tactics in place of bargaining a fair contract for its 1,100+ workers at the 11 stores currently represented by NSLU.

JWJ stands with NSLU and every worker, whenever and wherever, they demonstrate unity and speak up, collectively, for justice in their workplace and in the community!

You can show your support by contributing to help NSLU win the contract they need: https://nslu.org/donate

The World Federation Of Trade Unions Call For A Global Labor Mobilization For Peace On September 1

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is calling for a massive September 1 global labor mobilization for peace under thes two basic demands: 

* Stop Imperialist Wars and Interventions
* Resources for peoples’ needs and not for NATO’s plans

A long call for the mobilization by the Secretariat of the WFTU ends with the following:

The WFTU calls upon workers all over the globe, the militant trade unions to actively participate in the International Action Day of Trade Unions for peace, organizing militant activities to strongly denounce the uninterrupted increase in military expenditures and the ongoing imperialist conflicts; to assert the demand for dissolution of NATO and all military coalitions, the complete abolition of nuclear weapons, the respect for the independence and sovereignty of all states and to spread the message of internationalism and class struggle for lasting peace, for a world free of imperialist interventions and man-by-man exploitation.

Six national unions call on Biden to end arms deliveries to Israel

Six national unions with a combined membership comprising nearly half of all union members in the US have made public a letter sent to President Biden calling for an embargo on delivery of all military aid to Israel because of its continued violation of international law in its repeated attacks on civilians, including civilians who moved to "safe zones" designated by Israel itself and who sheltered in UN schools, hospitals and other facilities that international law says may not be attacked in wartime.

The letter was cosigned by the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), International Union of Painters (IUPAT), National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW) and United Electrical Workers (UE).

The text follows:

President Biden:

We write to publicly call upon your Administration to immediately halt all military aid to Israel as part of the work to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

We all shared hope that the three-part ceasefire proposal you outlined in the final week of May would bear fruit, allowing for the immediate end of violence, the safe return of hostages, and the creation of space for a lasting peace.

As we write you today, however, neither Israel nor Hamas have accepted the agreement as proposed. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his cabinet members have publicly refused key elements of the deal, despite your characterizing it as an Israeli proposal.

As you said on May 31, the Israeli response has “devastated Hamas forces over the past eight months” and that “Hamas [is] no longer capable of carrying out another October 7th.” Yet it is clear that the Israeli government will continue to pursue its vicious response to the horrific attacks of October 7th until it is forced to stop.

We believe that immediately cutting US military aid to the Israeli government is necessary to bring about a peaceful resolution to this conflict.

Recent reports only underscore the urgency of our demands. Large numbers of Palestinian civilians, many of them children, continue to be killed, reportedly often with US-manufactured bombs. Rising tensions in the region threaten to ensnare even more innocent civilians in a wider war. And the humanitarian crisis deepens by the day, with famine, mass displacement, and the destruction of basic infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. We have spoken directly to leaders of Palestinian trade unions who told us heart-wrenching stories of the conditions faced by working people in Gaza.

Furthermore, Israel’s refusal to minimize civilian harm and its demonstrated restriction of U.S. humanitarian aid call for a halt to U.S. military aid under the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Control Export Act.

Mr. President, the time to act decisively to end this war is now. Stopping US military aid to Israel is the quickest and most sure way to do so, it is what U.S. law demands, and it will show your commitment to securing a lasting peace in the region.

Samsung electronics workers announce an indefinite strike

Industriall is running the following report from South Korea. The IndustriALL Global Union "represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors and is a force in global solidarity taking up the fight for better working conditions and trade union rights around the world."

Leading 6000 workers out on strike is difficult. First strikes are always especially difficult. Going out on an indefinite strike the first time out seems like an impossible undertaking. I hope that unions here in the United States will support the strike and that we will learn from it.

The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) in South Korea has mobilized 6,000 members to join the first strike in the 55-year history of Samsung Electronics at the company’s semiconductor facility in Hwaseong. The strike was called over failed collective bargaining negotiations and union busting.

The collective bargaining between NSEU and Samsung Electronics reached a deadlock earlier this month as the company refused to agree to the majority of the union’s demands. The demands include 3.5 per cent of base rate increase, paid leave for the date of union establishment, and compensation for loss of wages during the strike.

Ignoring all the union’s strike demands, Samsung Electronics unilaterally set a 3.0 per cent base rate increase with some workers. Plant managers have been intimidating striking workers, saying they would be disadvantaged.

NSEU, affiliated to the Federation of Korean Metalworkers' Trade Unions (FKMTU), has 30,000 members at Samsung Electronics, roughly 24 per cent of the total workforce and is recognized as the representative bargaining union. In response to the uncompromising attitude and union busting, NSEU announced an indefinite strike, urging all members to continue the struggle until its victory.

FKMTU president KIM Junyoung says:

"At Samsung, significant changes are stirring. Five years after the collapse of its no-union management policy, union members are beginning to make their presence felt. Although the struggle is still in its early stages, it signifies the practical collapse of Samsung's no-union management. Solidarity and support are essential at this moment. We will fight together until the end of this struggle."

IndustriALL ICT, electrical and electronics director Alexander Ivanou says :

“IndustriALL supports the NSEU members in their fight for decent working conditions at Samsung Electronics. The company’s operating profit was KRW 6.57 trillion (US$ 4.79 billion) in 2023; it has a moral obligation to share profits with their workers who create revenue and value for the company. We call on Samsung Electronics to return to the negotiation table and engage in genuine social dialogue with NSEU and FKMTU.”

This video from Al Jazeera English gives additional details and some great footage:

Support UFCW Local 1776 And The Union's Fight For Healthcare And Retirement Benefits

Photo from the IUF

For 100 years, employees at Hanover Foods have worked tirelessly to ensure that quality canned and frozen foods reach our tables. Now, CEO Jeff Warehime is turning his back on his employees by demanding severe cuts to healthcare and retirement benefits. To add insult to injury, the CEO has proposed insultingly low wages and wants to strip workers of their overtime protections.

Together, we can hold CEO Jeff Warehime accountable and ensure that Hanover Food workers receive the fair wages and benefits they deserve.

The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is calling on all affiliates to stand with the IUF affiliate UFCW members in their fight for rights at Hanover Foods.

Click HERE to sign UFCW Local 1776’s petition to Hanover Foods CEO Jeff Warehime!

Warehime’s unjust proposals endanger workers’ well-being, and the quality of the products consumers depend on. Stand against this injustice and demand fair treatment for the employees of Hanover Foods by signing this petition.

IUF General Secretary Sue Longley stated, “Workers at Hanover Food deserve better. Together, we can hold CEO Jeff Warehime accountable and ensure that Hanover Food workers receive the fair wages and benefits they deserve!”

Workers in Palestine

Earlier today I participated in an international call on the situation in Palestine and Israel that was sponsored by the National Labor Network for a Ceasefire and that was facilitated by Mark Dimondstein, President of the American Postal Workers Union. At this point the number of union and union locals and allied labor organizations that have signed on to the Network's call is quite large and the Network's ability to meet and work with Palestinian trade unionists by Zoom is significant.

Today's call featured presentations by several Palestinian trade union leaders. From my point of view, the most important presentations came from a leader of a transport union and a leader of the Palestinian journalists union. 

During the call mention was made of the Workers in Palestine effort, an international project that is developing a base among unions and union members here in North America. The National Labor Network has the following objectives:

* An immediate ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
* Restoration of basic human rights.
* Immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas.
* Unimpeded full access for humanitarian aid.

* Our president calling for a permanent ceasefire.

Workers in Palestine supports a call from many trade unions and trade unionists in Palestine that includes the following statement:

We are calling on trade unions in relevant industries:

* To refuse to build weapons destined for Israel.
* To refuse to transport weapons to Israel.
* To pass motions in their trade union to this effect.
* To take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege, especially if they have contracts with your institution.
* Pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, funding to it.

We make this call as we see attempts to ban and silence all forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people. We ask you to speak out and take action in the face of injustice as trade unions have done historically. We make this call in the belief that the struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is not only a regionally and globally determined struggle. It is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and exploited people of the world.

There is a spectrum of opinion and activism here. No one should feel that the two efforts are in conflict with one another, but everyone should feel some urgency about doing something to prevent the genocide taking place in Gaza and working to prevent a war that could go nuclear. This is a labor issue, as President Dimondstein points out.

Here is a helpful video from Workers in Palestine:

  e ceasefire in Gaza between Is

Two Interesting Books For Union Members---And One Of Them Is Free!

 

The International Workers Institute (IWI) https://www.theoryandpraxis.eu/ has issued a new biographical book by George Mavrikos, the Honorary President of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).

The Wikipedia entry on George Mavrikos opens with the following:

George Mavrikos (born 1950) is the General Secretary of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in Athens, Greece. He is a leading member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), and former member of Greek parliament. He is largely credited for having led the successful efforts to halt the decline of the World Federation of Trade Unions since the fall of the Soviet Union. Since his election as general secretary during the congress in Havana in 2005, the World Federation of Trade Unions has seen an increase in its number of affiliates and has successfully managed to recruit several trade union of importances in Western Europe.

The publisher's advertisement for the book states the following:

Author George Mavrikos draws from his extensive experience as General Secretary of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) as well as his involvement in Greek trade unions, highlighting critical WFTU Congresses while shedding light on the ideological currents and political contexts that shaped the organization’s trajectory.

Mavrikos delves into his personal journey, from his upbringing in Greece to his various roles in trade unions, the Greek parliament, and his leadership within WFTU. He emphasizes the continuous struggle to create and defend the WFTU in the post-World War II era, amid the shifting international relations and the emergence of competing international trade union organizations. Mavrikos also addresses the contemporary challenges faced by trade unions, including the re-packaging of reformist arguments and the persistence of political corruption within certain trade union organizations, contrasting WFTU’s commitment to decolonization and opposition to imperialism.

The book can be ordered here.

Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum and María Poblet have edited the book Power Concedes Nothing and have made it available as a PDF that is downloadable for free.

An announcement from the editors says

The high-stakes 2024 election is already underway.

Organizing in Latin American-descendant communities, cross-racial alliance building, and tapping the energy of working-class constituencies has never been more urgent.

A new resource full of strategies and practical lessons in taking on those challenges is now available: A Spanish language Edition of key chapters from the 2022 book Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections. This collection is available as a downloadable PDF free of charge from Convergence Magazine here.

Power Concedes Nothing tells the stories behind the 2020 victory that won both the White House and the Senate and powered progressive candidates to new levels of influence. It describes the on-the-ground efforts that mobilized a record-breaking turnout by registering new voters and motivating an electorate both old and new.

Some of the most salient lessons of organizing successes and challenges emerged from Latinx communities. For this Spanish edition of Power Concedes Nothing we have selected chapters that illustrate how long-term commitments to organizing for workers’ rights and the safety and well-being of Latinx communities can also serve as springboards for robust voter engagement strategies.

Contributors include: Cliff Albright, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, César Fierros Mendoza, Stephanie Greenlea, Beth Howard, Andrea Cristina Mercado, Rafael Návar, Adelina Nicholls, María Poblet, Ai-jen Poo, Marcy Rein, Nsé Ufot, Diana Valles, Mario Yedidia.

An earlier announcement regarding this book said

The November 2020 US election was arguably the most consequential since the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln—and grassroots leaders and organizers played crucial roles in the contention for the presidency and control of both houses of Congress. Power Concedes Nothing recounts these on-the-ground efforts that mobilized a record voter turnout in 2020.

Camarada,

Las elecciones de 2024, de gran importancia, ya están en marcha.

Organizar en comunidades de descendientes de latinoamericanos, construir alianzas interraciales y movilizar la energía de los electores de la clase trabajadora nunca ha sido más urgente.

Ya está disponible un nuevo recurso lleno de estrategias y lecciones prácticas para afrontar esos desafíos: una edición en español de capítulos clave del libro de 2022 El poder no concede nada: cómo la organización de base gana elecciones. Esta colección está disponible como PDF descargable de forma gratuita en Convergence Magazine aquí.

El Poder no concede nada cuenta las historias detrás de una victoria que ganó tanto la Casa Blanca como el Senado y propulsó a candidaturas progresistas hasta nuevos niveles de influencia. Describe los esfuerzos en la práctica que movilizaron una participación electoral récord al inscribir a nueves votantes y motivaron a un electorado tanto mayor como joven.

Algunas de las lecciones más notables de los éxitos y desafíos del trabajo organizativo surgieron de las comunidades latinas. Para esta edición en español de El poder no concede nada, hemos seleccionado capítulos que ilustran cómo los compromisos a largo plazo para hacer trabajo organizativo a favor de los derechos de la clase trabajadora y la seguridad y bienestar de las comunidades latinas pueden servir como trampolines para robustas estrategias de participación electoral.

Les contribuidores incluyen: Cliff Albright, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, César Fierros Mendoza, Stephanie Greenlea, Beth Howard, Andrea Cristina Mercado, Rafael Návar, Adelina Nicholls, María Poblet, Ai-jen Poo, Marcy Rein, Nsé Ufot, Diana Valles, Mario Yedidia.

Saludos Solidarios,
Linda Burnham
Max Elbaum
María Poblet
Editores de El Poder no concede nada

Support Wing Luke Museum staff in Seattle!

Photo from Labor for Palestine

I am late getting to posting about this because news of the strike at the Wing Luke Museum in Seaqttle has not come through the regular labor news channels and from this distance it is hard to know what the latest news there is. The first story below comes from a social media post issued by the museum workers. A report from KING 5 Seattle, also included below, seems to indicate that the museum workers won at least some of their key demands. I am posting this item here because it demonstrates how and why some workers can organize dramatic actions at work and win and because there is a need for on-going solidarity with the Wing Luke Museum workers. The gofundme page is here. A Labor for Palestine post on the strike is here.

Support Wing Luke Museum staff on strike!

UPDATE: On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, twenty-six staff walked out of the Wing Luke Museum, withholding their labor and assuming they would not be compensated during the duration of their strike. On May 26th, Executive Leadership confirmed paid wages for scheduled hours from 5/22/24 - 5/26/24. On Wednesday, May 29th the staff returned to the building to continue dialogue and safety precautions with Leadership. The donations from this GoFundMe will support staff striking efforts from 5/22 - 5/26, and cover lost wages 5/27 and on as the museum remains closed to the public.

Who are the staff, and what are the funds being raised for?

We are a collective of staff from the Wing Luke Museum who have brought up concerns with our Executive leadership regarding the Confronting Hate Together exhibit that contains harmful, Zionist language that is not representative of the Museum, its values, our staff, and community (more information below). Due to inaction from Executive leadership, we are currently withholding our labor until our demands are met.

As we are withholding labor, we potentially will not be compensated. These funds would provide financial relief so that we can pay rent, utilities, food, medical bills, and other living expenses here in Seattle. Funds will also assist staff efforts of this walkout (needs, supplies, sustenance).

Every dollar counts in ensuring that we continue this work of advocating for the safety and well-being of staff, fighting against harmful language and actions that speak to Zionism, white supremacy, and colonialism, and representing our Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA/NHPI) community with integrity and compassion.

What is the Confronting Hate Together exhibit?

The Confronting Hate Together exhibit shares perspectives that conflate anti-Zionism as antisemitism. As Jewish Voices for Peace outlines, anti-semitism is discrimination, targeting, violence, and dehumanizing stereotypes directed at Jews because they are Jewish. Anti-Zionism is opposing the political ideology of Zionism, which resulted in the expulsion of 750,000 Indigenous Palestinians from their land and homes in 1948, and is the basis of the ongoing genocide. By conflating these two terms, the Confronting Hate Together exhibit is upholding Zionism, and thereby dangerously erasing the violence and oppression of Palestinians.

We communicated our demands with Executive leadership through a letter sent on Sunday, May 19; however, despite their acknowledgement and understanding of our demands, they made the decision shortly before the private exhibit opening reception the evening of Tuesday, May 21, for the exhibit to still open to the public without any changes.

As of Wednesday, May 22, we are collectively withholding labor until the demands (listed below) are met.

We would like to acknowledge this protest is not in regards to the text written by the Black Heritage Society or the Wing Luke Museum.

What are your demands?

1. Remove any language in any Wing Luke Museum publication and question any partnerships that attempt to frame Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism as antisemitism.

2. Acknowledge the limited perspectives presented in this exhibition. Missing perspectives include those of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslim communities who are also experiencing an increased amount of violence, scapegoating, and demonization as Zionist forces continue the genocide in Palestine.

3. Require Community Advisory Committee (CAC) review of all pop-up exhibits including a community review of the revised Confronting Hate Together exhibit content. For more information on our CAC process and why it is fundamental to our museum's work, click here .

4. Center voices and perspectives that align with the museum’s mission & values by platforming community stories within an anti-colonial, anti-white supremacist framework.

What is the Wing Luke Museum?

The Wing Luke Museum is the only pan-AA/NHPI museum in the country, based in Seattle's historic Chinatown-International District, whose mission to "connect everyone to the dynamic history, cultures, and art of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders through vivid storytelling and inspiring experiences to advance racial and social equity."

We love the Wing Luke Museum and are consistently honored to steward the stories of our community members, many of whom have experienced the destructive harm of white supremacy, genocide, and violence that parallels the experience of Palestinians today. Our solidarity with Palestine should be reflected in our AA/NHPI institutions.

We are humbled by the community love and support during this time, and encourage you to share this with your networks. Please also consider writing to Wing Luke Museum executive staff at the PR email address to express your solidarity with us, or use an email template found on bit.ly/wlmwalkout.

Thank you,

Wing Luke Museum staff on strike

The King 5 report is here:

"If, by then, you decide to move against the students, you’ll have to go through the workers first."

Sister Laura Walton, President of the Ontario Fedeeration of Labour, knows how to talk to employers:  

May 25, 2024

VIA EMAIL: president@utoronto.ca
Meric Gertler
Office of the President
University of Toronto
27 King’s College Circle, Room 206
Toronto, ON M5S 1A1

Dear President Gertler,

I am writing in my capacity as the President of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), which represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario.

As the voice of Ontario’s labour movement, the OFL unequivocally supports the right of students to engage in peaceful protest on campus, as they call for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that are complicit in war and occupation.

I was therefore disappointed to hear about your ultimatum to the student encampment at the University of Toronto: clear out by Monday at 8:00 a.m. or be in violation of a trespass notice. As trade unionists, we know what good-faith bargaining looks like. You should, too. In most instances at the bargaining table, our members and your representatives have successfully negotiated numerous collective agreements, without resorting to strikes or lockouts.

The same approach should apply here. Negotiations must continue in good faith, and without threats of police intervention. The recent successful conclusions to the encampments at Ontario Tech University and at McMaster University, for example, shows what’s possible.

By contrast, when administrators choose repression, it rightfully provokes a response well beyond the students. On Monday, thousands of academic workers at the University of California went on strike to protest their employer’s use of violence to clear the encampments.

Universities should be where we learn to debate and disagree with each other–without the fear of violence. For Canada’s largest university to decide unilaterally when the debate should end, and when police repression should begin, is a betrayal of the values we claim to uphold. Indeed, your own Statement of Institutional Purpose describes these values clearly: Within the unique university context, the most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and freedom of research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself.

This is a mandate to support the students, not repress them. In this spirit, I urge you to reverse course immediately, and choose negotiations and discussion over ultimatums and repression. As a gesture of encouragement, I am calling on all trade unions and allies to join a solidarity rally on Monday at 8:00 a.m. at the student encampment at the University of Toronto. If, by then, you decide to move against the students, you’ll have to go through the workers first.

Sincerely,
LAURA WALTON
President

UPDATED REPORT FROM THE PALESTINE GENERAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS (PGFTU) ON CONDITIONS OF PALESTINIAN WORKERS IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK

UPDATED REPORT FROM THE PALESTINE GENERAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS (PGFTU) ON CONDITIONS OF PALESTINIAN WORKERS IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK (as of May 1, 2024 - translated from Arabic)

This report is based on the cases that the General Federation of Trade Unions of Palestine was able to monitor -- those prevented from working, those targeted, persecuted, and detained, and those murdered at their workplaces or while in transit to or from work.

Since the start of the aggression against Gaza on October 7, 2024, Palestinian workers have received no income because they have been prevented from working.

In the Israeli labor market, there are 235,000 Palestinian workers, some of whom have started selling their furniture to feed their families. Their monthly losses are estimated at more than 1.35 billion shekels ($362,737,091), which has paralyzed the economy in the West Bank, resulting from the dismissal of more than 100,000 workers from their jobs inside Israel. Most of them were employed in agriculture and construction.

One hundred thirteen workers lost their lives in 2023, simply traveling to and performing their jobs as workers.

Palestinian Workers inside Israel in 2023:

79 died going to/from or while performing their jobs, 12 of whom were from Gaza
2 targeted by settlers
2 killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces
3, including Majed Ahmed Zaqoul and Mansour Nabhan and Rash Agha from Gaza, as a result of torture during interrogation in the occupation prisons after they were detained while they were at their workplaces.

Palestinian Workers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2023:

27 killed from the West Bank, among whom -
1 from the West Bank, targeted by settlers while he was picking olives on October 28, 2023;
1 a taxi driver was targeted by the occupation forces in Hebron governorate on November 13, 2023;
1 targeted by the occupation forces at the Beit Einoun junction in Hebron while working as a distributor of parcels on December 23, 2023;
5 while trying to reach their workplaces
10 died while performing their jobs since the beginning of 2024, including:

- Abd al-Rahim Abd al-Karim Amer from Qalqilya was killed on April 14,2024. At the same time, he and his son were detained In the occupation detention center Hadarim for more than two months under the pretext of working without a permit.

- Fayez Ahmed Awadalla Shahin, from Gaza, was martyred on April15, 2024 in the Nuweima shelter in Jericho as a result of the oppression he was subjected to due to his family's difficult situation in Gaza.

- Hassan Rabhi Khalil Mansiya from Dhahiriya, south of Hebron, was intercepted by the occupation forces, chased, arrested, assaulted, and then thrown off a building while he was returning from work inside the West Bank. (April 29, 2024)

Confirmed arrests of workers:

The General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions confirms that the number of Gaza workers in the Israeli labor market was approximately 19,000, whose permits have been revoked since the beginning of the events on October 7, 2023.

PGFTU monitored approximately 10,000 workers from Gaza at their workplaces, of whom 5,838 were provided with all their needs related to housing, food, and clothing by PGFTU.

80 workers were detained of 1,488 whose homes are in Gaza while returning from their jobs in the West Bank. The occupation forces arrested about 4,000 workers at their worksites in Israel; 3,200 of them were released and returned to the Gaza Strip. 800 remain detained.

PGFTU was able to monitor the total number of workers of 5,100 arrested since October 7th from the West Bank and Gaza, whether released or not, who work in the Israeli labor market.

For example:

* The arrest of three workers from Gaza in the town of Aqraba, southeast of Nablus, at dawn on Saturday, December 2, 2023;
* The arrest of 67 workers from Gaza in the town of Faroun, south of Tulkarm, at dawn on Thursday, December 7, 2023;
* 15 workers from Gaza were arrested in the municipality of Bidya as the occupation forces stormed the PGFTU headquarters and ransacked its contents on Sunday morning, January 14, 2024;
* The Israeli police arrested on Tuesday, 16/1/2024, at least 50 Palestinian workers from Hebron who have been stuck at their workplaces since the events of October 7, 2023;
* 40 Gazan laborers were arrested in their residences in Qalqilya governorate at dawn on Wednesday, 2024/1/17;
* Occupation forces arrested dozens of Gazan workers in the occupied territories from their workplaces in Barta'a, northwest of Jenin, at dawn on Saturday, February 17, 2024 ;
* The occupation forces arrested 50 Gazan workers from inside the shelter center in Nablus at dawn on Monday, February 26, 2024;
* 30 Gazan laborers were arrested after raiding the apartment building where they live in the town of Barta'a, south of Jenin, at dawn on Tuesday, February 27, 2024;
* 65 were arrested and transferred from their workplaces in raids that took place in the occupied city of Jaffa on Friday, March 15, 2024;
* 10 Palestinian workers from the West Bank were arrested in Ashkelon on Mar;

- The occupation forces killed 10 workers while entering Jerusalem from the Al-Zaim checkpoint, despite their having paid for their entry permits on April 14, 2024;
- Occupation forces arrested several workers while they were working inside a synagogue in the Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem on April 16, 2024;
- The occupation forces arrested 10 workers from Hebron inside a construction workshop in Caesarea, in the occupied territories south of Haifa, under the pretext of working without a permit April 17, 2024;
- Several West Bank workers were arrested inside an apartment in Tel Aviv on Saturday, April 27, 2024;
- Arrests of 2,000 workers from Gaza who were released from the Kerem Shalom crossing in November 2023.

Note: During the war, the occupation authority followed a policy of arresting and interrogating workers and then releasing them or keeping them under detention.

Note: These workers live in harsh detention conditions due to the physical abuse, torture, and starvation practiced against them during interrogation by the Israeli police in Abu Kabir and Anatot detention centers in the occupied territories.

There were 5,838 workers from Gaza working in towns and villages across the West Bank, of whom 1,488 were returned to Gaza.

Note: According to a report by Hebrew Channel 12, the Shin Bet security service of the occupation government confirmed that there were not any charges against the Palestinian workers, and after interrogating about 3,000 workers from Gaza who held permits to work in Israel, it turned out that they had nothing to do with any event since and before the events of October 7, which confirms the arrogance of the occupation and its force in continuing to abuse workers in all ways to deprive them of their livelihood.

We in the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions demand the following:

- Cease the persecution of workers in all places where they are located in the occupied territories and the West Bank;
- Allow workers to return safely to their homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and protect them while going there;
- The immediate and urgent release of all detained workers from the West Bank and Gaza;
- Pressure the Israeli government to compensate Palestinian workers working in the Israeli labor market who have been out of work for more than seven months.

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TODAY AT 3PM: UAW Global Day of Solidarity

 

International Working Women's Day---Friday, March 8

A woman coal miner in Appalachia. The photo likely

 comes from the late 1970s or early 1980s. Source unknown.

International Working Women's Day (IWWD), now more commonly known as International Women's Day, falls on March 8 every year. The day likely has its origins in the United States but is not celebrated here as an officially recognized holiday as it is elsewhere in the world. May Day also has its origins in the United States as a day for working-class protest and it is also not widely or legally observed here.

International Working Women's Day probably began in New York City in the middle of the nineteenth century as a day of protest organized by women working in the garment industry. It fell out of use and was revived by socialists in New York City in the early years of the twentieth century as garment workers---most of them women---began to organize into the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). The ILGWU was then attempting to become an industry-wide union of all garment workers employed in making women's clothing. The union existed in large part as a coalition of immigrant garment workers, most of them women, and their supporters. Among these supporters were feminists of the time, immigrant journalists and writers, reformers and socialists of various stripes. and people who were concerned with workplace safety and health and cleaning up the poor and immigrant urban neighborhoods. Opposed to them all were the garment manufacturers and the contractors they hired, most elected and appointed officials, the police, criminal gangs employed by the garment manufacturers to break strikes and manage the competitive garment industry, the landlords who owned the factory buildings, and most of the mainstream press.

Union labels from the ILGWU.*

 

Women socialists took up the cause of working women's rights internationally around the turn of the century, but it was the dramatic mass strike of garment workers in New York, known as the Uprising of the 20,000 (1909), and the terrible Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1911 that put IWWD on the calendars of the international labor movement. The main demands of the strike were for a 20-percent pay raise, a 52-hour workweek, extra pay for overtime, and a union shop in which every worker was a union member and the employers had to bargain with the union and agree on a contract, but the mostly young immigrant women who were the strike and union activists were hopeful and idealistic and wanted more. They faced outrageous attacks by thugs and police on their picket lines, unfriendly politicians and mainstream newspapers that supported the employers, and even some union officials who publicly doubted that they could win. Still, their determination won over socialists and reformers and large sections of the labor movement, many immigrant organizations and newspapers, and even many prominent wealthy women. The strikers were asserting themselves into history on behalf of all working women and immigrant communities whether they realized it or not.

Photo source unknown.

The main body of strike lasted three months and won many improvements, but it did not bring the total victory that many of the women had fought for. Still, the union had gained a generation of women activists and leaders and had shown that women could lead a mass strike and win advances that were crucial to their lives and to their collective advancement as working women and as immigrants. These lessons remain with us today. The strike set in motion a process for cleaning up factories and resolving disputes between workers and bosses, made progress in cleaning up poor and immigrant neighborhoods, and contributed to women winning the vote. Some factories held out by using thugs and police and the courts to avoid unionization.

One of the those companies was the Triangle Shirtwaist factory located in lower Manhattan. On Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire that started on the top floors of the factory took the lives of at least 146 of the workers. The inherited story of the fire tells us that the factory owners had locked the factory's exits in order to stop workers from stealing or to stop them from leaving work early. Many of the facts surrounding the fire remain in dispute, but it is a fact that the firefighters who arrived to fight the fire did not have ladders tall enough to reach the upper floors of the 10-story building and that the fire caused the rails controlling the building's elevators to buckle and become inoperable. A newspaperman who happened to be present called in his account of the fire in real time and offered the following:

I was walking through Washington Square when a puff of smoke issuing from the factory building caught my eye. I reached the building before the alarm was turned in. I saw every feature of the tragedy visible from outside the building. I learned a new sound--a more horrible sound than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk.

Thud-dead, thud-dead, thud-dead, thud-dead. Sixty-two thud-deads. I call them that, because the sound and the thought of death came to me each time, at the same instant. There was plenty of chance to watch them as they came down. The height was eighty feet.

The first ten thud-deads shocked me. I looked up-saw that there were scores of girls at the windows. The flames from the floor below were beating in their faces. Somehow I knew that they, too, must come down, and something within me-something that I didn't know was there-steeled me.

I even watched one girl falling. Waving her arms, trying to keep her body upright until the very instant she struck the sidewalk, she was trying to balance herself. Then came the thud--then a silent, unmoving pile of clothing and twisted, broken limbs.

As I reached the scene of the fire, a cloud of smoke hung over the building. . . . I looked up to the seventh floor. There was a living picture in each window-four screaming heads of girls waving their arms.

"Call the firemen," they screamed-scores of them. "Get a ladder," cried others. They were all as alive and whole and sound as were we who stood on the sidewalk. I couldn't help thinking of that. We cried to them not to jump. We heard the siren of a fire engine in the distance. The other sirens sounded from several directions.

"Here they come," we yelled. "Don't jump; stay there."

One girl climbed onto the window sash. Those behind her tried to hold her back. Then she dropped into space. I didn't notice whether those above watched her drop because I had turned away. Then came that first thud. I looked up, another girl was climbing onto the window sill; others were crowding behind her. She dropped. I watched her fall, and again the dreadful sound. Two windows away two girls were climbing onto the sill; they were fighting each other and crowding for air. Behind them I saw many screaming heads. They fell almost together, but I heard two distinct thuds. Then the flames burst out through the windows on the floor below them, and curled up into their faces.

The firemen began to raise a ladder. Others took out a life net and, while they were rushing to the sidewalk with it, two more girls shot down. The firemen held it under them; the bodies broke it; the grotesque simile of a dog jumping through a hoop struck me. Before they could move the net another girl's body flashed through it. The thuds were just as loud, it seemed, as if there had been no net there. It seemed to me that the thuds were so loud that they might have been heard all over the city.

I had counted ten. Then my dulled senses began to work automatically. I noticed things that it had not occurred to me before to notice. Little details that the first shock had blinded me to. I looked up to see whether those above watched those who fell. I noticed that they did; they watched them every inch of the way down and probably heard the roaring thuds that we heard.

As I looked up I saw a love affair in the midst of all the horror. A young man helped a girl to the window sill. Then he held her out, deliberately away from the building and let her drop. He seemed cool and calculating. He held out a second girl the same way and let her drop. Then he held out a third girl who did not resist. I noticed that. They were as unresisting as if he were helping them onto a streetcar instead of into eternity. Undoubtedly he saw that a terrible death awaited them in the flames, and his was only a terrible chivalry.

Then came the love amid the flames. He brought another girl to the window. Those of us who were looking saw her put her arms about him and kiss him. Then he held her out into space and dropped her. But quick as a flash he was on the window sill himself. His coat fluttered upward-the air filled his trouser legs. I could see that he wore tan shoes and hose. His hat remained on his head.

Thud-dead, thud-dead-together they went into eternity. I saw his face before they covered it. You could see in it that he was a real man. He had done his best.

We found out later that, in the room in which he stood, many girls were being burned to death by the flames and were screaming in an inferno of flame and heat. He chose the easiest way and was brave enough to even help the girl he loved to a quicker death, after she had given him a goodbye kiss. He leaped with an energy as if to arrive first in that mysterious land of eternity, but her thud-dead came first.

The firemen raised the longest ladder. It reached only to the sixth floor. I saw the last girl jump at it and miss it. And then the faces disappeared from the window. But now the crowd was enormous, though all this had occurred in less than seven minutes, the start of the fire and the thuds and deaths.

I heard screams around the corner and hurried there. What I had seen before was not so terrible as what had followed. Up in the [ninth] floor girls were burning to death before our very eyes. They were jammed in the windows. No one was lucky enough to be able to jump, it seemed. But, one by one, the jams broke. Down came the bodies in a shower, burning, smoking-flaming bodies, with disheveled hair trailing upward. They had fought each other to die by jumping instead of by fire.

The whole, sound, unharmed girls who had jumped on the other side of the building had tried to fall feet down. But these fire torches, suffering ones, fell inertly, only intent that death should come to them on the sidewalk instead of in the furnace behind them.

On the sidewalk lay heaps of broken bodies. A policeman later went about with tags, which he fastened with wires to the wrists of the dead girls, numbering each with a lead pencil, and I saw him fasten tag no. 54 to the wrist of a girl who wore an engagement ring. A fireman who came downstairs from the building told me that there were at least fifty bodies in the big room on the seventh floor. Another fireman told me that more girls had jumped down an air shaft in the rear of the building. I went back there, into the narrow court, and saw a heap of dead girls. . . .

The floods of water from the firemen's hose that ran into the gutter were actually stained red with blood. I looked upon the heap of dead bodies and I remembered these girls were the shirtwaist makers. I remembered their great strike of last year in which these same girls had demanded more sanitary conditions and more safety precautions in the shops. These dead bodies were the answer.

That was the garment industry's answer to immigrant women daring to assert themselves.

International Working Women's Day was widely observed in pre-war Western and Central Europe, and later in the Soviet Union and in China, but it gained international acceptance in the late 1960s and in the 1970s. Somewhere along the way IWWD became International Women's Day (IWD) and the United Nations began marking IWD in 1975. The UN's General Assembly declared March 8 an officially designated day for women and world peace in 1977. Democratic and undemocratic governments now recognize the day, as do many multinational corporations, but IWWD (or IWD) is not an officially designated holiday in the United States, the place of its origins. Taking the "Working" out of the Day's name perhaps tamed the nature of the Day for some. It is up to us to reclaim it.
  

Photo from National Public Radio

* Many readers will not know what these are. The ILGWU (1900-1995) used the union label as a way of  letting consumers know that a garment was made by union-represented workers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. All garments produced by ILGWU members had to have the union label sewn in. ILGWU members received higher wages and better healthcare benefits than did non-union garment workers, and the ILGWU pension kept qualified garment workers out of poverty. The ILGWU union contracts set a good standard in the garment industry. Workplace safety remained a top concern for the union through its entire existence and the union again prioritized organizing immigrant workers in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Tesla workers in Sweden and CBS digital workers in the United States---What's the connection?

What's the connection between Tesla workers in Sweden and CBS digital workers in

 the United States? We're part of one global working-class and we have a shared interest

 in building strong unions. We have much to learn from one another. We're entering a new moment in labor solidarity together.