In July, a coalition of seven unions — whose collective membership amounts to nearly half of all union members in the United States — sent a letter to the Biden administration escalating calls for a permanent, immediate ceasefire in Gaza by explicitly urging the end of US military aid to Israel. Signatories of the letter, all members of the National Labor Network for Ceasefire, include the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), International Union of Painters (IUPAT), National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW) and United Electrical Workers (UE). This signaled a major escalation in the American organized labor movement’s advocacy for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, which has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe and directly caused the deaths of at least 42,000 Palestinians over the past year, according to conservative estimates…..more
