Labor for Palestine: An Injury to One Is an Injury to All
Global working class solidarity is the only way to win. More than ever, in this era of globalization, workers and oppressed people everywhere are up against a common enemy.
Joint Statement From the Labor for Palestine National Network, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), and U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN):
The Labor for Palestine National Network, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), and U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) join the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions-Gaza’s 2025 May Day call* in urging U.S. unions to “go beyond statements and speeches and create real pressure”—including “general strikes and widespread civil disobedience”—against the ongoing bipartisan, U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza, and to “coordinate efforts with the student movement” against the Trump regime’s domestic assault on Palestine solidarity and on “civil liberties and freedom of expression.”
As the PGFTU-Gaza statement explains: “We, in the General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza, address this call to you on the eve of International Workers’ Day, affirming that your struggle for workers’ rights in the United States is inseparable from our struggle against occupation and colonialism. True labor solidarity is demonstrated through actions, not just words, and we count on your awareness and determination to take concrete steps to end this tragedy.”
The PGFTU-Gaza call is particularly welcome as—with little domestic resistance—the Trump regime is sharply re-escalating the genocide in Palestine, while unleashing a parallel blitzkrieg of repression and destruction at home, not only against Palestine solidarity activists, but against all workers, unions, students, immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ+, social services, education, science, free speech, and humanity itself.
We therefore reaffirm the Labor for Palestine National Network’s 2024 call for No Business As Usual: May Day for Palestine by calling on working class and labor bodies across the U.S. to take one or more of the following actions on and leading up to May Day 2025:
Withhold labor, and uplift growing calls for a general strike on May Day 2025
Organize a labor contingent for Palestine or otherwise amplify demands to stop Israeli genocide at actions on and leading up to May Day, including the March on Washington to Stop the Genocide and Hands Off Mass Mobilization on April 5, Kill the Cuts National Day of Action on April 8, and Day of Action for Higher Ed on April 17, and the May 1 National Day of Action
Hold a teach-in or moment of silence
Post a group photo, with flags, signs, keffiyehs, buttons, and other symbols of Palestinian solidarity
Leaflet and demonstrate at a weapons plant, military facility, or other complicit institution
Storm social media with:
#AnInjuryToPalestineIsAnInjuryToAll
#MayDay4Palestine
#GeneralStrike2025
#StopArmingIsrael
#BDS
#DumpIsraelBonds
#DroptheHistadrut
#FromtheRivertotheSeaPalestineWillBeFree
Devise other creative actions
Why is Palestine a Labor Issue?
An injury to one is an injury to all. The Israeli settler-colonial regime is part of the same U.S.-backed system of racist state violence that brutalizes Black, Indigenous, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, Asian, and working class people in the Global South and around the world. With Israel’s knee on their neck, Palestinians can’t breathe, and we unconditionally stand with them, just as they have stood with our struggles for Black and Brown Lives, Standing Rock, migrant rights, and beyond.
Our tax dollars fund Israel. Israel’s crimes are committed with tens of billions in bipartisan US weaponry—tax dollars that should be spent instead to reverse Israeli destruction in Palestine, and on badly-needed jobs, food, housing, healthcare, education, and transportation for poor and working people at home.
Our workplaces arm Israel. Many of our unionized factories, logistics, academia, tech, and other workplaces—without our consent—produce weapons, transportation, research, technology, and other materials for the genocidal Israeli regime.
Our unions fund Israel. Our unions are already involved—on the wrong side. In the 1920s-1930s, top labor officials donated millions to the Histadrut, the Zionist labor federation that spearheaded anti-Palestinian dispossession, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, including the Nakba (Catastrophe) that established the Israeli state in 1948. For more than 70 years, they have used our union dues and pension funds to buy billions of dollars worth of Israel Bonds. Today, despite horrendous Palestinian casualties, most labor officials remain silent—or worse.
Global working class solidarity is the only way to win. More than ever, in this era of globalization, workers and oppressed people everywhere are up against a common enemy. We can’t win if we are atomized by union, or even country. We need international, classwide unity. That means every worker must take on the task of building solidarity with Palestine—today an epicenter of class struggle.
Workers can stop Israeli genocide. More than 50 years ago, Arab and Black auto workers led a wildcat strike and other actions to protest UAW complicity with Israel. Today, we can follow their example in respecting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line by protesting, bringing union resolutions, and—above all—by mobilizing our collective power at the workplace, as shown by dockers in South Africa, India, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Italy, Belgium, and the ILWU on the West Coast of the United States, which has respected Block the Boat’s community-labor picket line by refusing to handle Israeli cargo.
Call from the General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza to Labor Unions in the United States on the Eve of International Workers’ Day
To the Free Trade Unions in the United States of America and to every free worker and trade unionist fighting for justice, freedom, and human dignity,
We salute you on the eve of International Workers’ Day, a day that embodies the unity and solidarity of workers in confronting oppression and exploitation. We raise to you the voice of Gaza’s workers, who today stand at the forefront of confronting the most heinous forms of genocide, siege, and starvation, imposed on our people for decades and continuing to this day with direct support from the U.S. administration under Donald Trump, and previous administrations, in blatant violation of all humanitarian and international laws.
Dear members of American trade unions,
For over 16 months, Gaza has been subjected to a brutal assault that has resulted in the martyrdom of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, including thousands of workers, along with the systematic destruction of infrastructure, homes, hospitals, schools, and factories. The occupation has stripped Gaza of all means of life, sparing no service or productive sector from systematic devastation, leading to the collapse of healthcare, public services, education, and the economy. Millions of Palestinians now find themselves displaced, without food, water, shelter, electricity, or medicine.
The genocide is in a dangerous escalation. The occupation continues its policy of collective starvation by closing crossings and preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, placing our people at risk of mass famine while the international community remains powerless, silent, or even complicit in this crime against humanity. These policies are not merely intended to subjugate our people but are part of a settler-colonial regime aimed at completely erasing Palestinian existence.
Dear comrades,
Workers in Gaza are among the most affected by this catastrophe. Economic life has come to a complete halt, workplaces have been destroyed, and tens of thousands have been forcibly pushed into unemployment, with no social safety nets in place. Today, workers and their families live in inhumane conditions, deprived of their most basic rights, struggling to survive—whether from hunger or under bombardment.
This war would not have been possible without the unlimited U.S. support for the occupation, whether through military funding, political and diplomatic backing, or arms deals that kill our children, women, and elderly every day. The U.S. administration under Trump has continued what the previous administration started, becoming a direct accomplice in genocide, ignoring the voices of millions inside and outside OF the United States, and an overwhelming majority of the nation, who reject this brutal aggression.
Therefore, we call on you, the American labor unions, to translate your solidarity into effective actions that go beyond statements and speeches and create real pressure to stop this dirty war.
Basheer Al-Sisi, General Secretariat of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions-City of Gaza
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