UAW 2865 to vote on resolution in support of BDS movement

The University of California Student-Workers Union will vote Thursday on a resolution to support the boycotts, divestment and sanctions movement against Israeli institutions and companies that some say are complicit in human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Joint Council of United Auto Workers, Local 2865 – which represents graduate student workers such as TAs throughout the UC – brought forward the resolution, which calls on the UC and UAW International to divest from and refuse to do business with Israeli institutions and some international corporations.

Some say these companies and institutions are complicit in “severe and ongoing human rights violations” stemming from what they call the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

A non-binding clause accompanies the resolution on the ballot, which workers may sign as a pledge to boycott Israeli academic institutions by not participating in academic activity sponsored by them.

The Joint Council brought this resolution forward after the most recent conflict this summer between Israelis and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The union’s leaders said if the resolution passes, the union would be one of the first in the U.S. to support the BDS movement. Leaders said they think the resolution would send a message to the Israeli government.

Opponents of the resolution said they don’t think the union should make a statement on a complicated international issue and said that it would hurt UAW workers by promoting boycotts on some companies that employ fellow union members.

Alexandra Holmstrom-Smith, campus chair for the UCLA branch of UAW 2865 and a member of the BDS caucus that supports the resolution, said she thinks the resolution is a way for members to have a say in what the University does and where it invests.

“The goals of the resolution are democratic in nature,” she said. “What we’re saying is that union members and workers and students in the University of California should have a say in where our University invests.”

For Kareem Elzein, a graduate student in education who said he has relatives who were killed by the Israeli state, the vote is personal.

“This is not an abstraction for me, this is something that I think is important that all of us have an obligation to take a stance on,” he said.

Holmstrom-Smith added that members discussed the resolution at every union meeting since the Joint Council proposed it in July, and that the meetings gave students with diverse opinions the chance to speak.

UAW 2865 held a town hall meeting on Monday at UCLA and fliers were posted throughout campus urging members to vote, she added.

Student governments at UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC San Diego and UC Santa Cruz have already passed resolutions calling for the UC to divest. The UC Board of Regents has said it will only divest from a foreign government if the federal government confirms the regime is committing acts of genocide.

Jonathan Kummerfeld, a member of Informed Grads, a group of UAW 2865 members who oppose the resolution, said he thinks BDS hurts researchers’ abilities to work with Israeli academics.

To educate graduate students about the resolution, Informed Grads has put posters up on UC campuses, used social media and made attempts to work with UAW 2865, such as participating in meetings held by the local chapter, said Kummerfeld, a graduate student in computer science at UC Berkeley.

The group also posted a video of a UAW 2865 BDS Caucus event in Berkeley showing leaders of the BDS movement saying they think “bringing down Israel really will benefit everyone in the world” and criticizing the way Israel was established.

Informed Grads also reached out to UAW International, which reaffirmed its opposition to BDS in a letter on Nov. 17.

Philippe Assouline, a graduate student in political science, said he thinks most of the workers in the union do not understand the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and that claims made by the BDS caucus are based on what he thinks is contentious and dishonest information.

“There are better ways to help the situation than to boycott one side based on lies. The academic boycott that they are calling for will affect my research on ways to try find compromises between Palestinians and Jews,” he said.

Members of California Teamsters Public Affairs Council, a union that represents workers from various fields, have voiced concerns with the resolution, saying it thinks divestment would target other union workers.

Some of the companies BDS targets are represented by the Teamsters and by UAW International, said Randy Cammack and Rome Aloise, international vice presidents of the Council.

“(UAW 2865) is boycotting the work of unionized workers. Unions boycotting unions is a pretty bad idea in our perspective,” said Barry Broad, executive director of the Council.

In response to that claim, Alborz Ghandehari, the recording secretary of the San Diego chapter of UAW 2865 and a graduate student in ethnic studies, said that unions have historically made political statements even when it would offend other union workers.

“Unions have always advocated for boycotts in the name of socially conscious movements,” he said.

Janna Shadduck-Hernández, a professor of labor studies and a project director at the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, said it is not unusual for labor unions to make political statements in the manner that UAW 2865 is seeking to do.

Union members across the UC will cast their votes using paper ballots on Thursday. The UCLA polling places will be in front of the Charles E. Young Research Library and at the Court of Sciences.