Private sector unions in the U.S. have been in decline for a long time. Currently, only around 6% of all private sector employees are union members. And most of those union members are not left-wing; on the contrary, they tend to vote for Republicans and especially for Donald Trump.
Their leaders, nevertheless, are mostly throwbacks: socialists if not outright Communists. And in today’s world, being left-wing means being in favor of killing the Jews. It has become a sort of litmus test.
Still, I was surprised to see that the United Auto Workers prominently placed a group of its members, holding signs with the union’s logo, at a kill-the-Jews rally at Columbia University:
Here's a third organizer at @Columbia, calling for an armed resistance in NYC!
Remember: during the 5 years of the 2nd Intifada in Israel, there were 144 suicide bombing.
Almost 700 Israeli civilians were murdered.
How is it OK to call for killing civilians in the U.S? pic.twitter.com/5QGKnRbbJf
— Shai Davidai (@ShaiDavidai) January 24, 2024
I have no idea why UAW bosses consider wiping out Israel to be in the interest of their union’s members. But then, union bosses stopped caring about their members’ interests a long time ago. Now, they are just flacks for whatever cause the Left comes up with.
Still, there is a certain irony here. Not too many years ago, an auto manufacturing plant and an Ivy League university would have been considered worlds apart. Now, Columbia University is an ideal venue for the union bosses’ far-left “kill the Jews” ideology.
UPDATE: A reader writes:
The adjunct faculty union for NYU and The New School belong to the UAW. They have been very actively supporting Hamas. I am sure the UAW demonstrators you showed in your blog post were from that local. They do not look like they took time off from the assembly line.
I do not think there are any auto assembly plants left in the New York area. The national union also supports a “cease-fire,” but I don’t think they are as vocal about it.
They do not seem interested in stopping this activity.
A good friend of mine (an Israeli) belongs to this local and is furious. The adjuncts union has been participating in these demonstrations since October 7 as the UAW.
A couple of weeks ago there was a knock-down, drag-out fight over an anti-Israel resolution that narrowly passed. A group of Jewish members organized to fight the resolution and were basically denied a fair chance to make their case. All this should be more widely known, but adjunct faculty are very vulnerable and fearful. It took tremendous courage to fight the union even privately. They could not go public.
I am glad you brought the problem of union participation in anti-Israel activism to a wider audience. I have written to some Jewish organizations about this with no success. I certainly will not buy a car built by members of this union. Nor will I support their efforts to unionize other workers. GM and Ford certainly have an interest in not antagonizing large numbers of American consumers. This should be a target of action by Jewish and Zionist groups.
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