At UE’s 53rd Convention in 1988, delegates adopted the resolution “Time for a Just Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” The resolution said, “The occupation by Israel of the West Bank and other Arab lands since 1967 has blocked the exercise of Palestinian national rights and resulted in ongoing violations of human, social, political, economic and particularly trade union rights of Palestinians.” The resolution also called out how the U.S. government’s support of Israel contributed to the conflict, and called for the U.S. government to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization and for the creation of a Palestinian state.
At UE’s 74th Convention in 2015, delegates took this commitment to another level by endorsing the worldwide Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In November 2023, UE was a founding member of the National Labor Network for Ceasefire, and at UE’s 79th and most recent convention in August 2025, delegates passed the resolution “End the Genocide in Palestine.”
However, UE’s commitment to Palestinian rights is the exception, not the rule, in the U.S. labor movement. In his new book, No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine, historian Jeff Schuhrke explains that the U.S. labor movement has never been neutral when it comes to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and critiques those that claim unions should stay out of the worsening conflict. He explains in detail how U.S. unions have not only supported Israel, but helped build it.
U.S. Unions Have Never Been Neutral on the Question of Palestine
In response to the Labor Network for Ceasefire actions that UE and other unions participated in, many from both inside and outside the labor movement reprimanded union leaders. Some commentators were outspoken in saying that unions have no place in foreign affairs and that labor leaders should stick to issues that impact their members, falsely implying that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no effect on working-class people in the U.S. The backlash unions faced included misinformed ideas that American unions “up until now been exclusively focused on narrowly defined bread-and-butter issues that ‘impact [their] members the most’ and ‘not foreign policy.’” Throughout the book, Schuhrke proves that this is not the case. In fact, American unions have been some of Israel’s most devoted supporters. The problem that critics have now is that many unions are expressing a desire for Palestinian oppression to end. Schuhrke rightly points out that, “In trying to organize their unions to act in solidarity with Palestinians, rank-and-file workers often must contend with arguments that the labor movement should keep quiet and remain neutral… But, in reality, unions in the United States have never been silent or neutral on the question of Palestine.”
Schuhrke shines light on the dark, inextricably connected past that American unions have with Zionism, the ethnocultural nationalist movement to colonize Palestine and create a settler-colonial Jewish homeland. He also does an excellent job at explaining how capitalism, settler colonialism, and Zionism go hand in hand. He begins by giving a brief overview of the labor movement’s support of Israel throughout the last century before giving a history lesson on the creation of Israel and the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel during the 1948 Palestine war. The book then delves into the relationship between Israel and the U.S. — explaining how U.S.labor was involved — before getting into the complex aftermath of the Six-Day War, the messiness of the Vietnam War, and tension between U.S. labor and Israel due to Israel’s use of scabs during the International Association of Machinists strike at the Israeli state-owned airline El Al in 1984. The book then describes the Intifada, a Palestinian uprising involving both nonviolent and violent methods of resistance, which began in 1987. In his final chapter, Schuhrke highlights a change in the U.S. labor movement after the Intifada. He credits the rising diversity of union membership for this shift.
Roots in the Late 1880s
In his first chapter, which gives an overview of labor history in the U.S., Schuhrke takes readers back to the late 1800s when the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded. The AFL espoused the idea that trade unionism in the U.S. should remain loyal to American capitalism in exchange for limited protections for the most skilled workers, particularly those who were white and spoke English.
“Labor Zionist” principles, which emerged in the early 1900s among those promoting Jewish nationalism, found favor with both the AFL and, later, the CIO. As Schuhrke explains, “AFL leaders could easily sympathize with Labor Zionism because, like their own brand of unionism, it substituted class struggle with class collaboration in the service of nationalism.” The CIO agreed with Zionism because its followers were “putting certain socialistic ideas into practice, such as establishing cooperative enterprises and implementing social welfare programs.” Their support completely ignored the impact of Zionism on the Palestinian people, who are Indigenous and whose situation was similar to that of Indigenous peoples in the U.S.
Even before the 1955 merger, both the AFL and CIO both supported Labor Zionism. Once the two labor organizations merged, the ardently anti-communist AFL-CIO President George Meany pushed the federation to become an “appendage of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus during the Cold War.” Labor officials believed that Israel was an important ally, and particularly looked to Israel’s labor-centered economic development model and wanted others to emulate it. They believed this could help prevent other countries from being influenced by the Soviet Union. Unions even went so far as to donate money to Israel. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union donated one million dollars for new construction in the ancient city of Beersheba which was conquered by Israel in 1948, going against the United Nations’ partition plan. There are many other examples of U.S. unions’ support of Israel in the book. Schuhrke provides a well-researched and detailed account of this murky history.
Allies in Apartheid
One of the strengths of the book is the way Schuhrke ties together the oppression of Indigenous people in different corners of the world. He points out that the American labor movement, for many years, has glossed over the genocide of Indigenous peoples that took place on U.S. soil. In the introduction, he writes, “US labor’s close connections to the history and ongoing legacy of settler colonialism in North America served to make many of its leaders ideologically receptive to Labor Zionism and its own myths of ‘making the desert bloom’ that were premised on the dehumanization and violent dispossession of another Indigenous people.”
The book also makes comparisons to the brutal racial segregation of South Africans during apartheid. The U.S. government backed the white settlers in South Africa who put the system of subjugation in place and continued to support their rule because they were an anti-communist ally during the Cold War.
During the apartheid regime in South Africa, AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland was initially hesitant to back the boycott and divestment strategy many unions adopted after calls went out from Black South African workers. While many other unions and even top leadership of AFL-CIO were standing with the thousands of U.S. citizens who were protesting apartheid in the 1980s, Kirkland was following U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Kirkland finally endorsed boycotting and divesting from South Africa in 1986 after being pressured for years.
Schuhrke describes a long history of Israel being compared to South Africa. He quotes South Africa’s former far-right prime minister Hendrick Verwoerd, who was the architect of apartheid. In 1961, Verwoerd addressed the UN General Assembly and said, “[Israelis] took Israel from the Arabs after they had lived there for a thousand years. In that I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.” The two states even maintained a covert military alliance beginning in the 1970s in which Israel would export weapons to South Africa’s racist white regime so they could control the Black population. In return, South Africa sent uranium for Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
AFL-CIO leaders rejected attempts to compare the two countries, saying it was “a calumny we categorically reject and resent.” Schuhrke astutely explains that it was easier for top labor leaders in the U.S. to denounce apartheid in South Africa than to criticize Israel’s oppression of Palestinians because they were not financially tied to South Africa, nor did they have the same ideological investment that they do in Israel.
“Palestine will free us all”
Schuhrke recounts the second Intifada, which began in 2000, in painful detail. While explaining the destruction and colonization of Palestine, he describes the valiant efforts of union locals who pushed back against their national unions in order to support the Palestinian people. In the same chapter, he also highlights UE’s actions, including the resolution passed at the 2015 convention. He quotes former UE Western Region president and current General President Carl Rosen, who said, “We reached a breaking point when Israel launched the war on Gaza in 2014, killing over 2,000 people including 500 children.” Leaders of the Palestinian Postal Workers Union later sent a letter to UE expressing their “deepest appreciation for the courageous resolution… in support of our right as Palestinians to live in peace and dignity as equals on our lands.” They also added that they hoped other national unions across the world would follow.
The author describes other acts of resistance by Palestinians and acts of solidarity that have recently come out of the U.S. labor movement. He builds a sense of hope within the book’s last few chapters. The question that the author leaves with the reader is whether American labor will stick with the traditional style of unionism touted by the AFL-CIO or begin to embrace organizing the unorganized, anti-imperialist internationalism, and class struggle.
The book is incredibly timely and impressively detailed. Schuhrke proves his worth as a historian by telling a meaningful story about U.S. labor with a lesson to be learned. The book is compelling and the author does not pull any punches. Schuhrke’s determined writing style refuses to shy away from highlighting the complicity of U.S. unions. He convinces the reader that the labor movement has an obligation to stand up for Palestinians. Schuhrke eloquently writes, “If, with labor’s help, freedom can be achieved in a place and for a people long plagued by imperial machinations, colonial domination, racial and religious oppression, ecological degradation, and worker exploitation, then there can be hope for the world. It is no wonder that Palestine solidarity activists in the United States and around the globe have adopted the slogan ‘Palestine will free us all.’”
- No Neutrals There: US Labor, Zionism, and the Struggle for Palestine can be purchased from Haymarket Books as a paperback or an ebook.