Today, delegates to the 79th UE Convention unanimously endorsed a resolution, “End the Genocide in Palestine,” which demands that the U.S. government immediately cease all military aid to Israel, and instead pressure Israel to end its genocide against the Palestinian people.
Ani Adavi, Local 256 (MIT-GSU), spoke about how the genocide in Palestine “really is a labor issue, because we understand that we have a lot more in common with the people being bombed, those are also workers like us, and they’re members of the same class, than we do with the billionaires and the capitalists telling us that we should be happy about this.” He described Local 256’s successful efforts to win jobs back for members who were fired for speaking out about Palestine.
Michele McCoy, Local 1186, decried “the number of human beings who have been bombed, burned, and starved to death” by Israeli forces in Palestine. “I love my union,” she said. “I really appreciate that we all took time for this very, very vital and important issue.”
In the morning, National Nurses United (NNU) Executive Director Puneet Maharaj spoke to the convention. She commended UE for the union’s decades-long commitment to establishing a universal, Medicare for All-style single-payer healthcare system, saying, “We know we have to fight against the attacks that are before us, but we also have to create the future that we all deserve as the working class.” She described how members of NNU had been fighting back against the Trump administration’s attacks on healthcare, especially condemning Trump’s cancellation of all union contracts in the Veterans Administration system, where thousands of NNU members work.
In the afternoon, the convention heard remarks from several international guests. Eladio Abundiz Guadian of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (Mexico) and Manabu Natori of Zenroren (Japan) addressed the convention in person. Michele De Palma of the Italian metalworkers’ union FIOM-CGIL, Caroline Senneville of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) in Quebec, and Lana Payne of Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, sent video greetings.
Convention-goers also participated in two blocks of workshops today, on topics ranging from Steward Basics to Bargaining for Power on the Job to How to Lead a UE Local, and debated and passed resolutions on international solidarity, and standing up for the rights of immigrant workers.