#4: What are America's unions saying about Gaza?

If you hear crickets, you're not imagining things.

It’s been 41 days since the most recent flare up of hostilities between Israel and Hamas began. As of this writing, at least 11,470 Palestinians¹ and approximately 1,200 Israelis have been killed, according to reporting from Al Jazeera. Within the Gaza Strip, hundreds of thousands more have been displaced as the Israeli military lays siege to the area’s homes, hospitals and houses of worship.

There have been protests calling for a ceasefire and denouncements on every continent except Antarctica. Trade union members across Europe have blocked arms shipments to Israel, in one case literally blockading a weapons factory in the United Kingdom.

I was curious to know how American unions were reacting after reading about the AFL-CIO’s quashing of a ceasefire resolution from one of its labor councils in Washington State. So I went on a fishing expedition.

My own union, the Writers Guild of America East, sent a statement via email to members on October 23 explaining its silence on the matter. The Writers Guild of America West issued a similar statement, which was published by Deadline on October 24. Both unions essentially said they’re sticking to matters relevant to their industry, which strikes me as antithetical to the concept of solidarity, but I digress.

WGAE email to membership sent on October 23.

[…] we in leadership agreed to move away from public statements that did not directly involve our Guild, our industries or the labor movement.

— Writers Guild of America East

In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, we did not issue a public statement, not because we were not horrified by the atrocities, but because it felt outside the purview of a U.S. labor union representing writers to comment on it.

— Writers Guild of America West

Meanwhile, two other entertainment business unions, the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America, didn’t hesitate to throw their support behind Israel. Both released statements in mid-October that condemned the Hamas attacks without mentioning Palestinians at all.

In my search for various unions’ statements, I found that some of the largest and most well-known ones have been conspicuously quiet on the matter. Of the dozens of unions I looked at, 34 of them either didn’t have a statement publicly available² or didn’t respond to my request for comment last week.

NO PUBLIC STATEMENT/NO RESPONSE

• Actors’ Equity

• Alphabet Workers Union, but they protested Israel as recently as this summer

• Amalgamated Transit Union

• Amazon Labor Union, but they protested Israel as recently as this summer

• American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees

• Communications Workers of America

• International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees

• International Association of Fire Fighters

• International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers

• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

• International Brotherhood of Teamsters

• International Longshoremen’s Association

• International Longshore and Warehouse Union

• Laborers’ International Union of North America

• MLB Players Association

• NBA Players Association

• NFL Players Association

• NWSL Players Association

• National Air Traffic Controllers Association

• National Association of Letter Carriers

• National Nurses United

• National Postal Mail Handlers Union

• Office and Professional Employees International Union

• Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union

• Transport Workers Union of America

• UNITE HERE

• United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices

• United Auto Workers

• United Food and Commercial Workers

• United Farm Workers

• United Mine Workers of America

• United Steelworkers

• United Teachers Los Angeles

• WNBA Players Association

Of the unions that issued a public statement that I was able to access, I found those statements tended to fall into at least one of five categories:

• Pro-Israel

• Blanket condemnations of violence

• Calls for a ceasefire

• Pro-Palestine

• Avoidance/”We’re staying out of it”

I sorted all of the statements into those categories, with footnotes for statements that may fit into more than one.

PRO-ISRAEL

• American Federation of Government Employees

• American Federation of Teachers³, but the union’s Oregon affiliate joined calls for a ceasefire

• Directors Guild of America

• NHL Players Association

• SAG-AFTRA

• AFL-CIO, which is not a standalone union, but a federation of 60+ labor unions representing 12.5 million workers according to their website. Some of the labor unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella represent people who work in the defense industry, such as United Auto Workers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

CONDEMNATIONS OF VIOLENCE

• Association of Flight Attendants-CWA

• National Education Association

• Service Employees International Union, but the SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents went a step further and issued a statement calling for a ceasefire.

• United Federation of Teachers, the union representing educators in New York City’s public schools

CALL FOR A CEASEFIRE

• Many unions in this category signed a joint petition/statement calling for a ceasefire:

  • AFT-Oregon, broke with its parent union in doing so

  • Chicago Teachers Union

  • International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - Local 520, representing Central Texas

  • United Auto Workers - Region 6 and Region 9A. Region 6 represents the western United States (AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, UT and WA). Region 9A covers eastern New York (NYC, the Hudson Valley and the Capital District), New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI and VT) and Puerto Rico.

  • United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America

  • United Food and Commercial Workers - Local 3000

• American Postal Workers Union, to date the largest American union (approx. 200,000 members) to call for a ceasefire

• Brown University Faculty, not a union but still worth noting!

• Committee of Interns and Residents at SEIU

• Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union

• Thurston-Lewis-Mason Central Labor Council, an AFL-CIO labor council in Washington State

• United Electrical - Local 150, representing campus and graduate student workers at UNC-Chapel Hill

PRO-PALESTINE

• GSOC-UAW Local 2110, representing the graduate student workers of New York University

• Harvard Graduate Student Union Rank-and-File

• Industrial Workers of the World

• Starbucks Workers United

• Student Workers of Columbia - UAW Local 2710

• University of Michigan Graduate Employees Organization

AVOIDANCE

• NewsGuild-CWA⁴

• Writers Guild of America East (see above)

• Writers Guild of America West (see above)

While the silence of many of these unions isn’t shocking per se, it is nonetheless revolting to me. Demonstrating solidarity has never been easier in our digital-first world. And yet! Here we are, in that same world, where the AFL-CIO attempted to use its power to suppress such demonstrations among its own membership. Again: not shocking, just gross.

I don’t have a neat ending for this. The silence of so much of America’s organized labor movement grows louder with every passing day. It’s almost deafening at this point. And I can’t do much beyond contort my face into various expressions of disgust and wonder, “WTF are y’all doing?”

In solidarity,

Aria ✊🏽

1. Approximately 4,710 Palestinian deaths (41% of the total) were children.

2. For the purposes of this piece, I define “publicly available” as a statement that can be accessed through the organization’s website, whether by using the search function or visiting the newsroom/press sections of the site. I also checked their Instagram accounts in case some of them decided not to issue a formal press release. The demise of Twitter (I refuse to call it by that other name) has made it so that people without Twitter accounts can’t access most tweets, even if they’re public. So if any of these unions made a statement through Twitter, let me know and I’ll correct the record.

3. On November 3, the AFT issued another statement in which they reemphasized their defense of Israel while also calling for a “humanitarian pause.”

4. I’m sure the NewsGuild would disagree with my characterization of their stance, as is their right. But when you issue a statement about an ongoing war and you go to such lengths to surgically carve out members of your own profession as though they’re an exceptional class of victim, I’m not sure what else I could call that.