The Joint Council of the Union of Academic Workers – UAW 2865, a body made up of 83 elected officers who oversee the affairs of the 13,000 member-strong student-worker union in the University of California system, has published an open letter which outlines its intent to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against public institutions and corporations that profit from occupation and apartheid, with direct implication to the state of Israel. Teaching assistants, tutors, and other student-workers at the University of California represented by UAW 2865 have chosen to assume their responsibility as educators ‘to both learn about and teach the social issues of our time, including pressing global struggles such as the struggle of the Palestinian people for liberation from settler-colonialism and apartheid.’
All major Palestinian trade unions have issued the following statement: “We call for a final end to the crimes and oppression against us. We call for: Arms embargoes on Israel, sanctions that would cut off the supply of weapons and military aid from Europe and the United States on which Israel depends to commit such war crimes…[and] Boycott, divestment and sanctions, as called for by the overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society in 2005 ”.
UAW 2865 believes it is their duty as a labor union to support their Palestinian counterparts.
Read the letter here.
