In California and Michigan, a Surprising Force Drives Anti-Israel Campus Activism: Labor Unions
'You basically have auto workers across the nation subsidizing these trust fund graduate students'
Lexi Boccuzzi
January 25, 2025
The average United Auto Workers training session involves discussions on how members can negotiate strong health programs, meet federal safety standards, and investigate work accidents. For UAW chapter 4811, which serves the University of California, it involves a panel with the Palestinian Youth Movement, a leading anti-Israel group that's organized protests across the country condemning the "brutal US-Israeli genocide."
The chapter held that panel last summer as part of "four days of classes, conversations, and workshops" through which "members learned about the critical tasks ahead of us: winning strong contracts, helping hundreds of thousands of new workers form unions, and continuing to fight for justice in Palestine." Those classes came in the wake of a UAW-backed strike within the UC system that centered not on wage or working hour disputes but rather on the arrests of illegal anti-Israel protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, months prior. A judge halted the strike in June, roughly two weeks before the UAW chapter's summer workshops.
The ordeal reflects the growing influence unions like the UAW and American Federation of Teachers have on anti-Israel campus unrest. Those unions typically represent graduate students who work for their universities—a far cry from the high-paid administrators who determine school rules. And yet, they've increasingly provided institutional support for controversial activism.
https://freebeacon.com/campus/in-california-and-michigan-a-surprising-force-drives-anti-israel-campus-activism-labor-unions/
