August 29, 2024
On Tuesday,
Israeli forces shot a clearly marked WFP vehicle 10 times as it approached an
Israeli checkpoint.
Displaced Palestinians who escaped from the Israeli army attacks
and took shelter in the Jabalia Refugee Camp in the north of the Gaza
Strip line up among the collapsed and heavily damaged buildings to
receive food, distributed by charity organizations in Jabalia, Gaza on
August 26, 2024. Photo by Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images
The UN’s World
Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it is suspending staff movement across
Gaza after Israeli forces attacked WFP employees in a vehicle this week, as
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starve under Israel’s famine campaign.
On Tuesday, an
armored WFP vehicle was approaching an Israeli checkpoint in central Gaza when
Israeli forces shot the vehicle 10 times, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric
said. None of the staff members were hurt. The workers had been returning from
escorting a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid to central Gaza.
A picture of the
vehicle shared by the group shows that it was clearly marked as a UN car, and
WFP noted that the group had received “multiple clearances” from Israeli
officials for its route.
The group said
on Wednesday that its movement is paused “until further notice.” WFP Executive
Director Cindy McCain condemned the attack as “totally unacceptable.”
“As last night’s
events show, the current deconfliction system is failing and this cannot go on
any longer,” said McCain. “I call on the Israeli authorities and all parties to
the conflict to act immediately to ensure the safety and security of all aid workers
in Gaza.”
It’s unclear how
long the suspension will last, but conditions aren’t likely to improve soon.
Humanitarian groups have raised alarm this week that Israel’s continuous
shrinking of the humanitarian “safe zone” — in which Israel is still killing
Palestinians — is making it nearly impossible for aid groups to operate safely
in Gaza.
A senior UN
official said this week that UN programs in Gaza are effectively suspended as
Israel has made it so that there are no options for safe passage for
humanitarian convoys.
Palestinians are
now squeezed in a small strip of land representing just 11 percent of Gaza due
to Israel’s forced evacuations, in sewage-filled camps that extend all the way
up to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, which is also contaminated with waste runoff.
But humanitarian
aid is needed now more than ever, with a polio epidemic potentially raging
across the region and a famine created by Israel’s near-total aid blockade;
humanitarian expert Kenneth Roth has said that the attack was part of “Israel’s
starvation strategy” across Gaza. A suspension of aid, even if it’s temporary,
could have catastrophic consequences for Palestinians across the region, for
whom humanitarian aid is their only lifeline.
Israel has
attacked aid workers relentlessly throughout its genocide in Gaza, having
killed nearly 300 aid workers in Gaza since October — despite it being a war
crime to target aid workers.
WFP noted that
humanitarian groups are facing other challenges imposed by Israeli officials.
The group has already been forced to relocate this week for the third time in
the past 11 months after Israel ordered evacuations in Deir el-Balah, where the
group’s main operating hub was located. Further, last week, the group said it
lost access to its last operational warehouse and five of its community
kitchens in central Gaza due to evacuation orders.
The food aid
group has continuously had requests for safety from Israeli attacks ignored. In
June, the group announced that it had to pause use of the U.S.’s Gaza pier over
safety concerns after Israel shelled one of its warehouses and used the area
near the pier to stage a massacre. This week, a watchdog report from the U.S.
government found that, in fact, U.S. officials had ignored safety requirements
laid out by WFP during the planning process for the pier.
Maximillian Alvarez and Mel Buer
The death toll in Gaza continues to
climb, with conservative estimates putting the numbers of dead around 40,000,
but a recent report in the British medical journal The Lancet estimates the
actual death toll could be 186,000 or even higher—that’s roughly 8% of Gaza’s
population. And with each passing day, the humanitarian crises unfolding in
Gaza and the West Bank gets orders of magnitude worse.
Seeing the dire situation in
Palestine, seven major US labor unions collectively drafted, signed, and sent a
letter to President Biden demanding that US military aid to Israel stop
immediately. The letter reads, in part: “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 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.”
In this episode, TRNN
Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Staff Reporter Mel Buer speak with
George Waksmunski, president of the United Electrical, Radio, & Machine
Workers of America (UE), Eastern Region, and Brandon Mancilla, Region 9A
Director for the United Auto Workers, about why their unions signed onto this
call for an end to US aid to Israel and what organized labor can do to end the
genocide in Gaza.
Additional links/info below…
UAW website, Facebook page,
Twitter/X page, and Instagram
UE website, Facebook page, Twitter/X
page, and Instagram
Michael Sainato, The Guardian,
“Seven major US labor unions call on Biden to ‘shut off military aid to
Israel’“
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News
Network, “UAW endorses Harris, but won’t stop fighting for ceasefire in Gaza“
Mel Buer, The Real News Network,
“Organized labor shows up for Palestine“
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News
Network, “Labor organizers explain why they’re marching on DC for Palestine“
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News
Network, “Tortured Palestinian activist describes military and settler carnage
in the West Bank“
Permanent links below…
Leave us a voicemail and we might
play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network
website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook
page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website,
YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music…
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme
Song
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript
and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as
possible.
George Waksmunski:
Hello, my name’s George Waksmunkski.
I’m the UE Eastern Region President. That’s the United Electrical Radio Machine
Workers of America, UE. I oversee 14 states for UE from North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York and all the way up through New England
and everything in between. I’m very happy to be here and be part of this
conversation. Thank you.
Brandon Mancilla:
I’m Brandon Mancilla, the UAW Region
9A director. We represent 50,000 active and retired members from New York to
Maine and Puerto Rico and Region 9A director sits on the International
Executive Board of the International UAW.
Mel Buer:
Welcome back everyone to another
episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams and
struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In
These Times magazine and The Real News Network, produced by Jules Taylor and
made possible by the support of listeners like you. Working People is a proud
member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. If you’re hungry for more worker and
labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out
the other great shows in our network. And please support the work we’re doing
here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our
episodes with your coworkers, friends and family members. Leave positive
reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you
have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to.
And please also support the work we
do at The Real News Network by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if
you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle across the US
and across the world. My name is Mel Buer.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And I’m Maximillian Alvarez.
Mel Buer:
And today, we’re bringing the focus
back to the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the role that organized labor is
playing to try and stop it. In July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s scorching address to Congress in which he vowed, “Total victory in
Palestine,” and called American protesters standing in opposition to the
genocide, “Useful idiots,” earned him a standing ovation for many US
representatives and underscored, yet again, the deep involvement of the US in
the ongoing carnage.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Over the last year, both Mel and I
have sat down with many workers and organizers who have been agitating within
their unions to pressure leadership to take a public stance against the
genocide in Palestine and to draw attention to the US involvement in Israel’s
brutal campaign. Since October 7th, the United States government has sent more
than $12 billion, that’s billion with a B, to Israel, with billions more
earmarked for the next four years. The death toll in Gaza continues to climb
with conservative estimates putting the numbers of dead near 40,000, but a
recent report in the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, estimates the death
toll could be far greater than that, over 186,000 people or more. That’s
roughly 8% of Gaza’s population. And with each passing day, the humanitarian
crisis unfolding in Gaza gets orders of magnitude worse.
Seeing the dire situation in
Palestine seven major US labor unions have collectively drafted, signed and
sent a letter to President Biden demanding that US military aid to Israel stop
immediately. The letter reads, in part, “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 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.”
Mel Buer:
The seven unions, the Association of
Flight Attendance Communication Workers of America or AFACWA, the American
Postal Workers Union, APWU, the International Union of Painters and Allied
Trades, IUPAT, the National Education Association, NEA, the Service Employees
International Union, SEIU, the United Auto Workers, UAW, and the United
Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, UE, collectively represent about 6
million American workers. As Alex Press reported in Jacobin, this letter to
Biden is a product of relationships built through the National Labor Network
for Ceasefire, a coalition of unions that formed around a statement initially
sponsored by UE and UFCW International Union Local 3000, that statement called
on Biden and Congress to “push for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the siege
of Gaza”, stopping short of calling for an end to US military aid to Israel.
This new letter represents a
significant escalation in pressure from the US labor movement and an effort to
address this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe with us today to discuss this
important escalation in the campaign to pressure the US to end its involvement
in Israel are Brandon Mancilla and George Waksmunski.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, gentlemen, it’s so great to
have you on the show today. We really appreciate you all making time for this.
We know how busy you are, but we know that you know how important this issue is
to all of us as human beings, as fellow workers and to the unions that you
represent and the union members that you represent. And I really want to pick
up on that last point Mel was talking about in the introduction about how this
has been building over the course of months, if not years, right? This strong
forceful push from organized labor to oppose the brutal occupation and
genocidal violence happening in Palestine is something that UE has been on the
frontlines of, really a leader in the labor movement.
And I was wondering if we could
start with George going back there and talk a little bit for our listeners
about the Labor Network for Ceasefire, like how it was formed and the UE’s role
in pushing this call for a ceasefire and now an end to military aid to Israel
within the US labor movement. And then, Brandon, I’d love for you to hop in and
talk about UAW as well, your president, Shawn Fain of course being one of the
earliest and most vocal union leaders to call for a ceasefire earlier this
year. So, George, give our listeners a little background here on UE’s role in
this fight and how far that goes back.
George Waksmunski:
Sure. Thank you very much, brother.
Well, UE has been in this for a very long time. For many decades, we’ve had a
policy about the situation in Palestine and Gaza and as it relates to Israel.
So that goes back many decades. And every two years, we have a national
convention and we take up resolutions which our members ultimately vote on. And
so again, for each of those conventions over the decades, similar resolutions
were passed. In 2015, we passed a resolution called Justice and Peace for the
People of Palestine and Israel and that called for an end military aid to
Israel back then. It also endorsed BDS, boycott, divest and sanction, because
we believe that Israel is acting similar to an apartheid state and that’s how
apartheid was dismantled, at least one part of it. And so we were the first
union to sign onto that back in 2015.
And again, every two years since
then when we’ve had our conventions and we’ve had similar resolutions regarding
military aid to Israel and calling for peace between the two parties, calling
for a two-state solution. So this last convention in 2023, that resolution come
up again, and again, we passed that resolution, calling for an end to all
military aid to Israel. And that was about two weeks before the horrific attack
of the citizens of Israel that occurred. So even prior to that, we were already
calling for an end to military aid to Israel. So once the attack occurred and
after several weeks of seeing how this was playing out, we were already in a
position, long held, to be able to take the lead on it and that’s what we did.
As you mentioned, we initiated along
with the UFCW 3000 a petition to get all labor unions signed onto to call for a
ceasefire. Since then, our members have been out in the streets rallying,
protesting on college campuses, at congressmen and senators’ offices, doors,
wherever we can catch those folks to give them help. And fortunately,
Congresswoman Summer Lee here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a strong advocate
for peace in the Middle East and a two-state solution, so we’ve got a good
congresswoman here. But so again, as the months have gone on, yes, we’ve been
part of the National Labor Network for Ceasefire, working and gathering other
unions into the coalition and we weren’t seeing any …
I mean, we got a lot of false hope
given to us about a potential ceasefire and about a potential ceasefire and
about a potential ceasefire, but it never happened. And we knew it never was
going to happen, because Netanyahu, that’s not his goal, that’s not his road to
success and the United States just backs Israel no matter what and even if it
means that we’re going to be involved in genocide, supporting it with our bombs
that we make. So again, we’ve put together our coalition to now put forward
this letter to President Biden, going more than just calling for a ceasefire,
but an end to all military aid to Israel, especially during this time.
So we’ve always been at the
forefront of this and we’re very proud and excited by the number of national
unions that you read off and especially the UAW and being part of this. And we
are excited, because in the past, these things took years and years to get a
coalition together. In this, it took seven months. So there’s a change going
on, I think, not only in our membership, but at the leadership levels as well,
to understand that the injury to one is an injury to all. Because there was a
time in our history back during the Red Scare when McCarthyism, part of that
was to silence unions from being active in political affairs, international
affairs such as this. And for a long time, that worked. And although UE has
never been silent on it, a lot of other unions on various issues have been.
So we’re very excited to see the
other unions stepping forward as quickly as they are, even though in some cases
it might seem like it’s been too long, but it is progress and we’re excited by
it. Thanks.
Brandon Mancilla:
Thanks for having me on. I think
just to add to George, unions like UE and Mark Dimondstein, his leadership with
the postal workers and some of the other unions originally listed in that
letter that UE helped lead really paved the way. I think it was really smart to
realize that this moment was, number one, the demand needed to be serious of
our government and of our elected officials to be held accountable to find a
pathway to peace and the retaliatory violence that Israel was going to set upon
after the October 7th attack by Hamas, right? But I think they also realized
that it wasn’t going to be enough to just rally the same unions that have
internationalist stance or a solid progressive stance on this issue. It needed
to be an opening to the rest of the labor movement and I really commend, I
think, UE and Mark and so many others for doing that because I think it forced
the rest of the labor movement to have this conversation.
So I think intertwined with that is
the fact that the international UAW has been going through its own reform
process over the last few years. The election of Shawn Fain after one member,
one vote, and my slate, which we ran with Shawn and the big three, Stand Up
Strike and our commitment to new organizing, I think this is another chapter in
that story. I think it’s in the same book that we’re writing and I think that’s
been powered by our members. So I think two things played a factor in us
joining that call in December, one being that a lot of our members, especially
in Regions, 9A, mine, and Region 6, but also in places like Dearborn, Michigan,
took to the streets and demanded peace, demanded a ceasefire from October 8th,
right?
And why October 8th? Because
everyone knew what was coming after October 7th, right? So they didn’t have to
wait until November, December, January to know the scale of the violence that
was going to be unleashed on the people at Gaza, right? So what happened
thereafter was a lot of street protests demanding that we wouldn’t see the
scale of suffering. That didn’t happen, of course. We supplied the weapons.
Israel began its counteroffensive and led to the death of tens of thousands,
which the numbers only increased and I do think that it’s far higher than the
conservative estimate of the round 38,000 to 40,000 that most media outlets
report nowadays.
And I think, with those members
going out to the streets, they were demanding that their union, I think realign
their own politics around this issue. I think that’s the key part of this. It
wasn’t just, “Oh, I just happened to be a UAW member,” or, “I happen to be a
union member,” or, “I happen to be a university staff member,” “I am doing
this. I’m out on the streets also as a member of my union, not just as an
average citizen, as an average worker. I want my protest also to be seen as a
demand of my own union to join this explicitly,” right? And I think those were
the conversations that started to happen, within local unions, within our
political councils. Eventually 5 and 9A, explicitly as political councils, came
out in support of a ceasefire sign on to the letter that UE mobilized and that
gave myself and Director Mike Miller the leverage to be able to take that to
the International Executive Board, have conversations with people like Shawn
Fain and others on the International Executive Board to educate and inform.
Shawn was very supportive from the
very beginning on being vocal on this. We just needed to find new way to do it.
And at the International Executive Board at the end of November, we decided to
sign on. So between October and December 1st when we finally came out. We were
definitely early on in the sense that a lot of the major unions who have
usually been silent or ignorant or on Israel’s side, on critically on this when
these bombing campaigns would happen. We’re early in breaking with that silence
or changing course, but we weren’t the first ones obviously, but I think our
leadership on this, when we did come out, did allow an even further opening of
the door for other unions to come out.
And I think that’s when you saw the
numerous local unions, central labor councils, international unions, and then
eventually, the AFL-CIO itself come out for a ceasefire. And now I think the
discussion is like, “Well, listen, we’re now seven months after this kind of
momentous moment of labor union ceasefire statements. What’s next?” right? And
I think that’s what this escalation is with the letter to call for halt of
arms. And I just think the key thing to remember through this process is that
it is a process of political education for our own unions, right? It’s not fast
enough, but it’s also historic. So those both things are happening at the same
time, and at the end of the day, this is not going to end until peace is
secured and there’s a true path to justice for the Palestinian people.
Mel Buer:
Thank you for that. Brandon, I
wanted to direct this question to you first. We’ve talked about why calls for
permanent ceasefire were really the start or temporary, a ceasefire, and now
we’re seeing through, what is it now, months of negotiations, almost reaching
an agreement or one side agreeing and then Israel walking back or broken
promises that the Biden administration has spent a lot of time saying, “We’re
close,” or these negotiations are breaking down for one reason or another, or
at some point, it seems like almost a cynical sort of ploy for votes in
November sometimes, right? And so I really want to drive home, one, Israel is
receiving at least every year until 2028 3.8 billion in military funding from
the United States. I think it’s something like 15% of the Israeli defense
budget is made up of money that comes from the United States, which is wild to
me, right?
I guess I want to ask, why do you
think this is the appropriate pressure on Israel to really hone in on the US
pulling back its military aid in a way to pressure them to actually accept the
terms of a permanent ceasefire in this conflict?
Brandon Mancilla:
I think that’s a great question. I
think there’s a few reasons. The first one that comes to mind is precisely
because of what you pointed out, that the amount of political backing, arms,
resources we supply and arms we supply to the state of Israel is astronomical,
right? I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that President Biden could make
a phone call and end this war today, right? How the state of Israel reacts to
that is a separate question, but they cannot carry out the scale of violence
without our support as the United States as a country, right? At the UN, it’s a
countless international bodies, right? In front of the international courts. We
are consistently one of few allies that the state of Israel has to give what
it’s doing right now, legitimacy or coverup, right?
And I think that’s really important
for us as leaders within the labor movement to emphasize for our own membership
and for our ability to wage our own political stance, is to say, “We know we
are complicit and responsible in ways in which we are not over the actions of a
group like Hamas. And we are not and disproportionately in this conflict over
so many others,” right? This is why it’s not because people want to talk about
Israel more than other countries, it’s because we are directly involved and complicit
in ways that really far outweigh anything else. So I think that’s really
important.
I think, second, the fact that this
opens up the door to talk about the fact about our defense budget, right? The
fact that we spend so much on defense, on military spending in lieu of actually
trying to solve deep social crises in this country of inequality, of
healthcare, of food access, of education, of so many social goods that working
people need, union and non-union alike, to be able to survive and make stable
good lives in this country. So these things are all intertwined to each other.
And I think, even though the majority of the defense industry is not unionized,
there is some union representation within defense, right?
So we don’t make the corporate
decisions that these defense contractors and manufacturers make and we’re not
out there signing the contracts with foreign governments, our own government
about supplying weapons, but ultimately, many workers do make the arms that end
up getting sent, the bombs, the arms, tanks, etcetera to different foreign wars
and conflicts. And I think that means that we have also responsibility to say,
“We have to have an economy that is able to run in a different way under humane
principles.”
Maximillian Alvarez:
I want to hop in here and definitely
ask both of you from your respective vantage points at the UE and UAW, what
response you’ve gotten from the Biden administration, if any at all, and also
from your own members? I’d love to just hear a bit more about that. But,
George, I was wondering if we could start with you and if you could tug on that
thread a little bit more. When you mentioned the Red Scare, when you mentioned
the role that organized labor used to play as a force fighting for social good
and fighting for political causes that it’s the labor movement saw as
fundamentally intertwined with our ultimate goal to make life better and the
world better for working people across the board.
And it seems as if over the past 50,
60, 70 years, and we can’t go into the whole history there about why unions
have taken less and less of a strong political stance, deindustrialization,
offshoring, the open season on organized labor from the 1980s on, all of these
things, of course, compound and put additional pressure on unions to basically
be a bit more guarded over what they have while they’re losing so much over the
course of the past few decades. But at that same time, unions as political
engines for expressing the political will of working people have been largely
captured by just this idea that we can endorse a presidential candidate or our
job is to endorse and support candidates or parties, but that’s really it.
And yet, you have more independent
unions like UE and the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers Union who
played a critical role in striking against the apartheid in South Africa. I
just wanted to ask if you could tug a little more on that for our listeners and
with your experience and your union’s history, if you could say a little more
about how unions got so complacent when it came to taking strong political
stances like this and how you see that changing now. And then I would love to
hear from both of you about what response you’ve gotten from the Biden
administration, all the way down to your members.
George Waksmunski:
There’s a lot there for me to cover.
Well, we’ve always been a union that believed in independent political action.
We’ve never been a union to get in bed with the Democratic Party. We think
we’ve long believed that both parties are corrupt and do not serve our best
interest, especially since the McCarthyism and the Red Scare when the unions
were divided and they just busted up the militancy of the labor movement to the
degree that unions were running scared because of the McCarthy effect and UE
was attacked severely. We were almost killed. It’s taken us decades to overcome
all of that.
So an example, I think we were a
pretty good example to other unions about why you need to fall in line. And I
can’t speak for other unions or what their history is or what their thinking
was, but we’ve always seen ourselves as being a union that is not in the
mainstream and it comes from our principles of aggressive struggle and
militancy and the members have to run the union from the bottom to the top.
When the members are running the union from the bottom to the top and it’s
their nickels and dimes they’re fighting for, they tend to be a little more
militant about it when they believe that they have some investment in their
union, some control over their union. And they really do in UE. Anything that
happens at the local level is all the members business. We don’t get involved
with that.
So we’ve always had this history of
being militant and being aggressive. It’s written into our preamble and that
the members run the union. So the feedback we’ve gotten from our members has
been positive for our positions for the most part. Certainly, there’s every
once in a while some member who’s expressing his right to speak hot and
disagree with us and that’s okay. That’s healthy. We embrace that. But for the
most part and overall, members from coast to coast are out in the street on
their own with our support and approval. We have to give them approval. They
run the union, but they’re out there in the street and on the campuses
picketing and protesting. I’m leaving right now after this to go speak at a
rally over to University of Pittsburgh.
So again, during that period of
McCarthyism, it just really destroyed the labor movement because there was
factions that were very militant and those factions were one by one
annihilated. And we were one of the only ones surviving, us, the Longshoremen, maybe
the United Mine Workers. I’m not sure if they were in there as well, but there
aren’t too many of us left. And the other unions, they fell in line. They
signed the pledge, the non-Communist pledge, which we refused to do for many,
many years. Ultimately, we had to surrender or we would’ve died. So we’ve been
through some tough struggles in our history and we’ve learned some hard
lessons, some good lessons, lessons we always knew, but sometimes you got to
stand up for your principles and even if it costs you and it nearly costs us,
but we still have our principles and we are thriving today even after all of
that.
So on response from the Biden
administration, to my knowledge, we’ve not gotten any. I think I would’ve been
notified of that. I did talk to our national president, Carl Rosen, in the last
24 hours about this call. So he did brief me on some things that I should know
or share with you and he did not say anything about a response. So I don’t
believe we got anything.
Mel Buer:
Brandon, do you want to share? I
don’t know if Fain has gotten any sort of notification from the administration
that they even acknowledged that the letter freaking exists or has there been
communication just from the rank and file in general about the direction that
the UAW and this coalition are moving towards in terms of their call for ending
military aid? What has been the response that you’ve gotten on your end?
Brandon Mancilla:
Yeah, so as you can imagine, when we
did not endorse Biden last year and also had our Stand Up Strike, which had a
lot to do with the way that subsidies to companies were being dished out by the
Biden administration for the transition to EVs and battery plant assembly,
etcetera, the Biden administration took note of that and got very involved in
our contract negotiations. They did not … Ultimately, that’s not what made the
difference, right? What made the difference was our strike and our membership
power, but we opened the door to the Biden administration in order to basically
set a new tone, which is to say, “From now on when you build these new assembly
plants for EVs and batteries, etcetera, you’re going to have to keep labor in
mind. You’re going to have to set labor standards. You’re going to have to
regulate these places for health and safety standards. They’re really dangerous
plants. And also you’re going to have to make this a just transition. If we’re
going to actually accelerate EV production, it’s going to have to be a just
transition,” right?
So I think that was the beginning I
think of conversations with the Biden administration, and then of course,
October 7th and the war on Gaza came right around this time, right in the
middle towards the end of our strike, right? So when we passed our ceasefire
resolution, and since then, Shawn has been very blunt with the president,
President Biden about our union’s position. I personally had a little bit of a
flareup with Biden’s staff when I wasn’t allowed to go on stage with my
ceasefire stickers on. I was ultimately, but they threatened that Biden would
leave if I was up there. I didn’t give that up. And ultimately, nothing
happened. He went up there, gave a speech for our endorsement and also I had my
stickers on. But after that, Shawn has been very clear to him, this is
especially after the uncommitted vote in Michigan especially, that, “You’re
going to lose this election in places like Michigan because there’s no change
in direction,” right?
And unfortunately, we haven’t seen a
dramatic change in course. Some rhetorical I think changes, I think a
commitment to find a framework and negotiate towards a ceasefire, but no real
actual I think leverage from the government to actually make it happen. And
recently in conversations with the Harris team, since Biden stepped down from
the candidacy, I know that President Fain has also brought up the fact that we
have to see a change in course on Gaza and we also have sent that letter
demanding and to arm shipments and did not expect the Harris team nor anyone in
the administration to immediately, I think, change course because of those
things, right? It’s going to be continued pressure and growing to movement
that’s going to ultimately, I think, deliver.
But I think, in part, what we saw
from Kamala Harris in that press conference she gave after she met with
Netanyahu, I think that is in part because of the continual pressure, right?
Because of pressure from the labor unions and generally just I think the US
public, is at a place where they just don’t want to see this happening anymore.
So a ceasefire, I think, if you poll the majority of Americans, they want to
see an end to war and genocide and that’s it, right? So I think you can call
that political calculation. I don’t know what you can call it, whatever, but I
think they’ve taken note of it. And I think we just have to see now with
continued pressure, continued mobilization, how much the Democratic Party will
want to change course.
And I think events that happened
this week in Iran, I think, are going to be really indicative how the US
responds to the assassination of a key Hamas leader through the peace talks.
Mel Buer:
I think that’s a really good of
segue into our final question to wrap up the conversation. This question is for
both of you, Brandon, if you’d like to start. Now that the letter has been
published and we see groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for
Justice in Palestine also picking up this thread to calling for an end to US
military aid to Israel, I think it’s an important way to end this conversation
by really bringing it back to a call to action for those who are listening.
What can rank-and-file union members or organizers workers, individuals who
care, what can they do to join this anti-genocide movement and how can we
continue to keep this pressure up? What are the things that you think of?
Brandon Mancilla:
Well, I think just to start from the
UAW side, the UAW 4811, the 48,000 academic workers of the University of
California, I think that something historic in going on strike against the
unfair labor practices that the university committed when they repressed
protests and silence speech on campus during the encampment period. So I think
the fact that we had our first ever … George, you can correct me, but I think
it was the first ever authorized strike for Palestine. I think that’s a
historic breakthrough. So what UAW 4811, I think that it goes … Honestly, to
me, it’s like the biggest advancement of this movement beyond statements and
letters, which are all important, but to actually go out on the line defending
your co-workers for the simple right to speak out against injustices is crucial
because that’s what the labor should be about, aside from also fighting for our
benefits and our wages and so many other protections we need on the job. This
one’s just as important.
So I would say, for workers across
different industries, just know that having a voice on the job is protected.
That’s important, right? And if your boss is retaliating against you for
political activity, union activity, you have rights and you can organize around
that and I think that’s really important. Similarly, I think this wasn’t a
strike, but Local 2325 in my region represents public defenders and legal
services workers across New York City. Many of those unions, those units within
the amalgamated local have passed their own ceasefire resolutions. Ultimately,
this became a solidarity resolution that then some of our pro-Israel members
sued the local four, which made us exploded it into a whole legal fiasco, which
to me was ridiculous because this is a internal democratic union decision of
members, not something to bring the courts.
And of course, the reactionaries in
Congress caught onto this and brought the president forward to a deposition and
there was a hearing about this, and this is just ridiculous. This is the kind
of stuff that is reminiscent of the McCarthyist period in this country. So I
think workers and folks should know that. I think, number one, the strongest
protection you’re going to have is a union in all of this because there will be
retaliation. We take risks and speak out politically, but there’s no stronger
defense than a union that’s going to have your back in these situations. But
second, we need to take those risks. We need to step up and stand up and speak
out on all of these issues, because if we don’t do it, no one’s going to do it,
right?
And I think the solidarity movement
for Palestine in this country I think has really, I think, constantly spoken
about how labor entering the fight has really changed the dynamic, right?
Because it’s not just a protest of groups that have usually come out for these
things, now it’s got another added muscle to it, which is the labor movement.
So don’t get discouraged, is my kind of message at the end of this.
George Waksmunski:
First we got to have discussions. We
have to be talking to each other worker to worker have to have … Workers on the
shop floor, they’re having these discussions and they have like-minded people.
Those like-minded people should bring themselves together, come to their union
meeting, exercise their rights within the union too to speak at those meetings
and make your voices be heard that we need to express ourselves on this issue,
because again, an injury to one is an injury to all. These are workers who are being
murdered and injured and starved in Palestine, in Gaza, in the West Bank. And
so it is a workers’ issue and we should take these conversations to our locals,
seek for them to pass resolutions in support of a ceasefire and in support of
end of all military aid to Israel.
Workers can be seeking out community
groups. There’s rallies in every city, in every town at some point, maybe not
every town, but almost anywhere you go, you could find a rally in support of
the people of Palestine and go to a rally, find somebody. Find a group who
sponsored that rally. Get involved with that group and they can share
information with you that you could take back to your local union and have more
discussions and more conversations about this very important issue. And we got
to educate people. We got to mobilize people. That takes time. We got to get
people out of their comfort zone because, “Why is this important to me? That’s
way over there. I have nothing to do with that. Why should I care?”
Well, we got to educate people on
that and we got to get them out of this decades’ old way of thinking that,
“What is happening over there don’t affect me,” because it does affect us.
We’re paying the taxes. We’re building the bombs, we’re sending the bombs,
we’re sending the bombs and the bombs are dropping on innocent children and
women and men, citizens indiscriminately. And that has to end because what
happens there can happen here and we’re in a living in a crazy time. Our
country’s under a severe attack and this political season is very scary. We’ve
seen an attempted assassination right here in Western Pennsylvania and we’ve
seen multiple other acts of violence against political leaders all across the
country.
So we really have to be talking to
each other, taking it to our union meetings, having these discussions,
educating people, getting involved. There’s all kind of ways. You can go to the
National Labor Network for Ceasefire. You could come, look up the UE’s website
at ueunion.org, reach out to us. We will try to find you somebody to get in
touch with. Many of our locals are active. Like I said, I’m going today here in
Pittsburgh area. We have three or four locals who are very active in the
struggle. A lot of them aren’t active, but here we definitely have a few who
are out there all the time, but thank you.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right, gang, that’s going to
wrap it up for us here at Working People. I want to thank our incredible guest,
Brandon Mancilla, UAW Region 9A director, and George Waksmunski, Eastern Region
president of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, for coming on the
show today and talking to us about this important issue. And I want to thank
the great Mel Buer for co-hosting with me. Mel and I want to do more of these
conversations. We want to keep talking to more folks, union and non-union and
getting more perspectives on these and other issues as we continue into the
election season and beyond. So please do reach out to us if you have
recommendations for folks you’d like us to talk to or topics that you want us
to discuss.
And as always, I want to thank you
all for listening and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see you all back
here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait
that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the great bonus
episodes that we’ve got there for our patrons. And of course, go explore all
the other great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network where we do
grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the frontlines
of struggle. Sign up for The Real News newsletter so you never miss a story and
help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming
a supporter today. It really makes a difference. I’m Maximillian Alvarez.
Mel Buer:
And I’m Mel Buer.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Take care of yourselves. Take care
of each other. Solidarity forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment