During UE’s 78th convention, rank-and-file delegates passed the resolution “For Jobs, Peace, and a Pro-Worker Foreign Policy.” It calls on the union at all levels to inform and engage members about the need to change U.S. foreign policy to promote diplomacy, democracy, and workers’ rights. It further directs members to promote involvement in labor-based efforts to effectively create that change. Over the past year, Local 667 and Local 1186 have both put that resolution into action.
The resolution also endorses and urges the union at all levels to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Modeled after the 1980s international solidarity campaign that put economic pressure on South Africa’s government and helped end apartheid, the BDS movement seeks to put similar pressure on the Israeli government in order to achieve peace, justice and equality between the Palestinians and Israelis.
In September, Local 1186 launched a solidarity BDS action in cooperation with the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project (MRSCP) to remove Sabra Hummus, an Israeli-owned product, from the shelves of the Willy Street Co-op in Madison, Wisconsin. Sabra, and its parent company the Strauss Group, have been a major focus of the BDS movement due to its direct support for two particularly brutal brigades of the Israeli Defense Forces — the elite Golani and Givati Brigades which have been implicated in some of the worst human rights abuses perpetrated against the Palestinian people.
Willy Street Co-op has a boycott policy, by which members of the co-op can petition to have products removed if they feel they violate the co-op’s mission and core values. Local 1186 president Mike Tomolaff said, “Our local passed a resolution in support of the boycott effort, we educated our members about that position, and we encouraged co-op owners to boycott Sabra and submit comment cards, letters and messages of support to the co-op demanding they pull Sabra from the shelves.” By November, 337 member-owners submitted comments to the Co-op. In a statement put out by the Madison Rafah Sister City Project, hundreds of people were said to have contacted the co-op and used their “collective power of words and purchasing power to stand with the people of Palestine.”
MRSCP volunteer Donna Wallbaum said, “having [Local 1186’s] support was critical to gaining the community backing which led to this successful campaign. We were told this was the first boycott campaign at the Co-op that reached the required threshold of support to have a product removed. Union members’ support in this effort was critical and will not be forgotten.”
The officers of Local 1186 made a statement after the victory which said, “As workers and union members we recognize that ‘an injury to one is an injury to all,’ and as such we must stand with the working people of Palestine and Lebanon in the face of the daily injustices inflicted upon them.”
Speaking at a Pittsburgh rally in August, which several members of Local 667 attended, Local 667 Chief Steward Fritz Geist said, “We can use workplace organizing and the principles of the BDS movement to continue to detangle the web of American imperialism and settler colonialism that oppresses workers everywhere.” Local 667 members have organized a Palestinian Solidarity Committee to take action towards making their employer, the East End Food Co-op, into a local community space and store that is fully divested from genocide.
“Local 667 has been the tip of the spear here in the Pittsburgh area,” said UE Eastern Region President George Waksmunski. “There are other very active locals in the Eastern Region but Local 667 is turning out a consistent group of members to every march and rally. Local 696 of Planned Parenthood has regular participants too and are as passionate.” Members of UE Local 667 and Waksmunski attended the demonstration on August 29 to protest local company Howmet’s production of plane parts for Israeli fighter jets used in the conflict in Gaza. The rally was well attended, with around 100 participants on a rainy workday.
“The struggle for a free Palestine exists in every workplace in America,” Geist said at the rally. “The idea that we are all connected is woven within UE policy which says, ‘UE has long believed that the labor movement should promote its own foreign policy ideas based on diplomacy and labor solidarity.’”
Geist went on to explain that, in addition to establishing the Palestinian Solidarity Committee, the members of their local have also engaged in city-wide actions, met with local government officials, gathered signatures for the No War Crimes on Our Dime referendum effort to urge the city of Pittsburgh to divest from Israel, attended rallies and protests throughout the year, and brought food and aid to the student encampments at the University of Pittsburgh.
UE Local 1186 Vice President Michele McCoy explained that boycotting Israeli products offers a way for more people to support efforts for peace in the Middle East. “Many people who are unable or unwilling to participate in more public activism will easily choose a product made by a company that does not help fund genocide. Small, yet continuous actions DO add up.”
McCoy continued, “I for one am tired of seeing dead children whose only ‘crime’ was to be born in Palestine. This genocide must be stopped by any and all means available and necessary. Our labor movement has an old and very appropriate saying: “An injury to one is an injury to ALL”. This is the true meaning of solidarity.”
To send messages of support for Local 1186’s BDS campaign, click here or write to customer.comments@willystreet.coop.