This resolution was passed at the October 2024 Annual Membership Meeting via Zoom on October 13, 2024.
Resolution: UAWD and UAW Labor for Palestine Special Membership Meeting About BDS and IEB Divestment
Submitted by Martha Grevatt (UAW Local 869 retiree), Sophia Gurulé (UAW Local 2325 trustee)
Whereas
The UAW International Executive Board (IEB) can and must act democratically to reflect the will of dues paying members.
Whereas
Dozens of UAW locals have passed resolutions in support of Palestine and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movements over the years.
Whereas
All UAWD-endorsed candidates won in the recent IEB election, including Shawn Fain, Brandon Mancilla, Mike Booth, Margaret Mock, Rich Boyer, LaShawn English, and Daniel Vicente, with the active support and engagement of UAWD members.
Whereas
All UAWD-endorsed candidates ran on the UAWD Platform Plank, which includes the following on International Solidarity: “The corporations are global, the labor movement must be global too, if we want to make lasting gains as a working class. As part of this, UAWD supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, called for by Palestinian unions and workers, and seeks to end all UAW investments in corporations perpetuating human rights violations.”
Whereas
Consistent with the UAWD Platform Plank, UAWD membership passed a resolution on December 10, 2023 titled “Resolution for UAWD to Educate & Organize for BDS & Palestinian Liberation as an Official Position of the UAW”, which supported the Palestinian labor movement’s call for unions “to take action against complicit companies involved in implementing Israel’s brutal and illegal siege, especially if they have contracts with your institution.”
Whereas
At its quarterly meeting held April 30-May 2, the UAW International Executive Board nevertheless voted down a motion to cease all future UAW investments in Israeli bonds and securities and to divest nearly $1 million in such investments.
Whereas
Only two out of seven UAWD-endorsed IEB members voted consistently with the UAWD Platform Plank that they ran on and only three out of fourteen IEB members total voted in favor of the divestment motion, despite overwhelming support within the UAW for BDS and Palestine.
Whereas
The overwhelming support within the UAW for BDS and Palestine reflects the majority of U.S. voters who 1) support a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza, 2) support decreasing funding for military aid and weapons for Israel 3) believe that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza and 4) disapprove Congress passing $4 billion dollars to replenish Israel’s missile systems. (https://www.filesforprogress.org/datasets/2024/5/dfp_zeteo_israel_palestine_cross tabs.pdf).
Whereas
The corporate and political elite who attack U.S. labor at large, including Representative Virginia Foxx and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, are the same people currently targeting UAW Local 2325 for democratically passing a resolution in support of Palestine. (https://truthout.org/articles/some-of-aipacs-biggest-donors-are-also-financing-atta cks-against-labor-rights/)
Whereas
Both the UAWD’s Palestine Solidarity and Peace Economy Working Group and UAW Labor for Palestine have a shared commitment to divesting the UAW from funding Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide.
Whereas
Every day that the UAW fails to divest from Israeli bonds and securities is another day that the UAW and its members are complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine
Be it Therefore Resolved
– In collaboration with UAW Labor for Palestine facilitators who are UAWD dues paying members, the UAWD Steering Committee will schedule and prepare a UAWD special membership meeting in advance of the next IEB meeting scheduled for the first week of August 2024.
– The purpose of this special membership meeting will be to strategize about putting forth a divestment resolution at the next IEB meeting, consistent with the UAWD Platform Plank.