Doctoral Student at UC-Berkeley Quits Academic Union Over Its Obsession With Palestine

Doctoral Student at UC-Berkeley Quits Academic Union Over Its Obsession With Palestine

The left thinks it has found its new cause in this and they have completely gone off the deep end.

Daniel J. Solomon writes at City Journal:

Why I Quit My Academic Union

Samuel Gompers and Albert Shanker were cultural heroes in my childhood home. The two Jewish men had worked relentlessly to build the labor movement in the United States—the American Federation of Labor in the former case and the American Federation of Teachers in the latter. Pete Seeger’s union anthems played so often on the stereo in our New York City home that I still remember the words to “Solidarity Forever.” Despite becoming a conservative as an adult, I retained a deep emotional attachment to the American labor movement.

I still see union membership as a positive good and a partial antidote to the growing anomie in a society bereft of most traditional forms of community. Indeed, I was, until not so long ago, a member of the United Autoworkers 4811 (UAW 4811), which represents academic student employees across the University of California system.

Despite my affinity for the labor movement, however, I recently resigned my UAW membership, and, with the help of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, filed an informational brief explaining that the union’s strike endangers the safety and rights of Jewish workers like myself. If I have become the “scab” and “stool pigeon” reviled in the songs of my childhood, it is because my former union has embraced anti-Israel activism.

On May 15, UAW 4811 voted to strike, demanding “[d]ivestment . . . from companies profiting from Israel’s war in Gaza” and “[a]mnesty for all academic employees, students, student groups, faculty, and staff who face disciplinary action or arrest due to protest.” While union officials claimed the vote was a response to the University of California Los Angeles clearing an anti-Israel encampment, the strike and its demands applied to all campuses across the UC system.

Within a month, a court struck down the union’s gambit. The UC system’s attorney argued (and UAW disputed) that the union violated a “no-strike” clause in its contract. Without resolving that question, a California state judge temporarily restrained the strike, and the union quietly capitulated on June 25.

The only explanation for UAW 4811’s costly action is that it has been captured by radical left elements, more concerned with revolutionary cosplay than improving the lot of student workers. Those elements are increasingly active in the UC system. For months, Jews have been harassed, denigrated, and sometimes assaulted in our workplaces on campus.

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