UAW Strikes Down Local UCal Branch’s BDS Vote
The United Auto Workers International Union struck down a boycott resolution against Israel.
The University of California Student Workers Union, UAW Local 2865, which represents more than 13,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other student workers in the UC system, approved a resolution in December 2014 to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, against Israel.
On Tuesday the UAW International Executive Board stated its “unanimous belief” that BDS “espouses discrimination and vilification against Israelis and UAW members who are of Jewish lineage.”
The board determined that “the provisions of the BDS Resolution, despite semantical claims to the contrary by the local union, can easily be construed as academic and cultural discrimination against union members on the basis of their national origin and religion.”
The UAW board also called the BDS resolution “a clear and convincing breach” of the union’s constitution, and “would harm UAW-represented workers and other union members” by boycotting companies that employ these individuals, leading to “direct economic deprivation.”
Informed Grads, a UC student group that had opposed the resolution, said the UAW had set a national precedent by denying the local organization the right to adopt such a measure.
“The anti-Semitism and active promotion of hate that ran rampant throughout this BDS campaign cannot and must not be tolerated. We applaud UAW International for taking a firm position against BDS and discrimination based on religion or national origin,” Karra Greenberg of Informed Grads, who testified at the appeal hearing, said Wednesday in a statement.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.