Palestinian Trade Unions Call On US Labor To Take Concrete Action Against Israel’s Genocide

Palestinian trade unions issued a call at the end of March 2024 to unions and labor organizations in the United States to intensify their efforts to put an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This urgent appeal comes nearly six months into Israel’s genocidal war. The death toll in the enclave has now crossed 32,000 and over 74,000 have been injured. Starvation and disease stalk the population, especially the 1.7 million Gazans who have been forcibly displaced.

The statement calling for the U.S. labor movement to strengthen their solidarity work was released by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and highlighted that despite their efforts to raise awareness to the genocide in international forums, they “have encountered shocking silence and neglect by the international labor movement.”

The PGFTU noted that “Instead of celebrating with you on May 1st, International Workers Day, we are busy shrouding dozens of people who are being killed around the clock in the middle of a genocidal war against our people—in every sense of that word.”

The statement calls for unions in the belly of the beast to not only expose the “extent of the war crimes and genocide committed against our people,” and the complicity of the U.S. in these crimes, but also to protest and exert pressure to stop the exportation of U.S.-made weapons to Israel. It also called for unions to force the Biden administration to stop supporting Israel.