THE NATION: A rank-and-file campaign inside the National Education Association is demanding the president stop “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel.”

...Teachers Want the Largest Union in the Country to Rescind its Biden Endorsement Over Gaza

  January 22, 2024 

When Israel escalated its military operations against Gaza in October, Rahaf Othman was so distraught, she said, she “couldn’t think straight.” The 45-year-old Palestinian American, who teaches social studies at Harold L. Richards High School in Oak Lawn, Ill., recalled that she “started getting nightmares from my own experiences when I was in Palestine. I was functional at work, but barely functional. My brain was mush. I was getting traumatized every time I turned on my phone.”

“For the first month, people were asking me what we should do, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus.” While in this state, she said she discovered that she could lean on some of her colleagues. “Educators rallied together and created this group, Educators for Palestine. I am grateful they brought me along for the ride.”

Othman is a member of the Illinois Education Association (IEA) Local 218, which covers an area to the south of Chicago, part of the 3 million–strong National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the United States. She is now part of a member effort to press the NEA to put real muscle behind supporting a cease-fire, one prong in a small-but-growing campaign within the US labor movement.

But the rank-and-file campaign goes beyond demanding an end to Israel’s military operations, which have killed at least 22,000 Palestinians, 12,000 of them children. Othman and other members want the NEA to revoke its endorsement of Joe Biden for the 2024 presidential race until the president secures a “permanent cease-fire,” stops “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel,” and commits “to a fair due process for asylum-seekers and refugees.”... READ MORE https://www.thenation.com/article/society/nea-union-biden-endorsement-gaza/

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes or watch videos IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Statement from APWU [American Postal Workers Union] General Officers on the Conflict in Israel and Palestine

November 8, 2023

The American Postal Workers Union is shocked and saddened by the tragic and ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine. As working people, we stand with the oppressed and the innocent, thousands of whom have lost their lives in the last month.

As a union that stands for equality, social justice, human and labor rights, and international solidarity, we unite with unions and people of goodwill around the world in calls for justice and peace.

We unreservedly condemn the Hamas violence of October 7, which killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians and saw the kidnapping of more than 200 people.

However, Israel’s response has made the prospects for peace more remote. Over 10,000 innocent civilians, including 4000 children, have been killed by the relentless and indiscriminate bombing campaign on Gaza. Israel has shut off the flow of food, water, fuel and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip, a war crime. A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding every day in Gaza. Thousands more innocent civilians stand to die wholly preventable deaths.

We call on our government, which is the primary foreign benefactor of the Israeli government, to use all its power to protect innocent lives and to help bring about peace in the region, and not use our tax dollars for more war.

We join the calls for an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, and urgently needed massive humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The cries of humanity demand nothing less.

APWU General Officers: President, Mark Dimondstein; Executive Vice President, Debby Szeredy; Secretary-Treasurer, Elizabeth 'Liz' Powell.

 Statement from APWU General Officers on the Conflict in Israel and Palestine

https://apwu.org/news/international/statement-apwu-general-officers-conflict-israel-and-palestine

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]