Op-Ed by Andrew Grossman
The AFL-CIO issued a resolution on February 8th calling for a ceasefire in the current war in Gaza. To anti-imperialist workers within the AFL-CIO, and to progressive workers looking for organized labor to take a stand against the genocide against the Palestinian people, this may seem reason to let out a sigh of relief—finally, the largest labor organization in the US has turned away from its dogged support for Israel and US imperialist policy towards the Palestinian people—but there is good cause for this sigh to catch in our throat.
The AFL-CIO has expressed its concern late, and only due to immense pressure from below. The union has issued its tacit approval of Israel’s actions for over 120 days of bloodletting and genocide. Only now that Israel has driven itself into global shame and embarrassment does the AFL-CIO issue the most reactionary kind of support for a ceasefire. How magnanimous of them, and how brave of them, considering it only took them a few days after October 7th to arrogantly proclaim that “the American labor movement” stands with Israel’s so-called right to self-defense, as trumpeted by the American Federation of Teachers, and to call for a “swift resolution to the current conflict” by the AFL-CIO itself, which is tantamount to wishing the Israeli genocidal campaign “Good luck and godspeed”.
The ceasefire statement begins by “condemn[ing] the attacks by Hamas on October 7.” This is a suspicious way to open a statement denouncing the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people. That is, of course, because the statement is the most vile defense of the imperialist policy of aggression towards Gaza and not a denunciation at all. The AFL-CIO goes on to call for the release of all “hostages,” i.e. the prisoners of war taken by the Palestinian resistance forces, in exchange for humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. The AFL-CIO takes up its post alongside the extreme right-wing Israelis blockading Gaza aid trucks until the “hostages” are released!
The ceasefire statement from the AFL-CIO is a measly one sentence long, but we can learn more about what these bureaucrats are thinking by looking at the Texas AFL-CIO’s ceasefire resolution which is more substantial and which emerged just a week before the national one—this local resolution was not repressed by the national federation as local ceasefire resolutions were before.
The Texas resolution is titled “Resolution for Peace and Justice in the Middle East Conflict.” For class conscious workers, this is unacceptably vague language. It is imperative to call it like it is: the “conflict” is actually the Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation against the imperialist gendarmes organized into the Zionist state. It is the struggle of oppressed versus oppressor.
The resolution opens by saying “This is an issue of importance to union members across the state… including members working in the conflict zone,” referencing the maritime workers in the Red Sea who are potentially under threat from the Houthi blockade. The union members of Palestine are ignored—indeed, the AFL-CIO has utterly ignored the Palestinian Labor Federation’s October 2023 call to their working class brothers and sisters across the world to stand against the genocide, demand a ceasefire, and blockade and picket arms shipments destined for the butchers.
The Texas resolution “stands in solidarity with the people of Israel and Palestine, who are suffering from the violence and hostilities.” This is not the solidarity needed. The people of Palestine are suffering from the violence of genocide, and the people of Israel are cannon-fodder for the imperialist class. To stand in solidarity with them, then, would mean taking an anti-imperialist stance.
The resolution does not mention the cessation of US military or economic support to Israel. This is no surprise, considering the vast sums of money that the AFL-CIO has invested in the Zionist project since its inception—and considering the AFL-CIO has fought tooth-and-nail against rank-and-file divestment campaigns for decades. Instead of concrete acts of solidarity, the Texas resolution simply calls for “raising awareness” and “fostering dialogue and understanding among our members.” We are all for education of AFL-CIO members on the history of Zionism, the nature of US imperialism and its predation in the Middle East—but forgive us if we do not trust the AFL-CIO to lead this awareness-raising project.
Now, the Texas resolution does call for a ceasefire and for a prisoner exchange, going beyond the national resolution. But what sort of prisoner exchange do our labor leaders call for? “The immediate release of all hostages and non-violent political prisoners.”
We can assume they are suggesting the IDF soldiers and militarized Kibbutz members held by the Palestinian resistance are “non-violent” then, since they are simply “hostages”. In one blow they condemn the Palestinian resistance for its violence and would condemn the Palestinian prisoners of war to continued torture at the hands of the Zionist prison guards.
Why this sleight of hand? The resolution calls for the US to engage in regime change—to overthrow Hamas and the Palestinian resistance!—but through “diplomatic efforts” to “remove from power and bring to justice those who perpetrated the October 7 massacre and those who have committed war crimes in the current conflict”. We can safely assume they do not mean the Israeli army massacring “their own people” on October 7 by implementing the infamous Hannibal Doctrine, bombing Kibbutz houses containing Palestinian resistance and their prisoners alike.
Like the national resolution, the Texas resolution asks the US government to facilitate negotiations towards the “two state solution” which, as they say, means “two states for two peoples.” So, continuing their track record of bravery, the union officials have asked the government to pursue its own policy. Considering their long-standing links with the CIA, this trumpeting of the imperialists’ aims is nothing new for the AFL-CIO.
Lock up the Palestinian resistance fighters, depose the resistance organizations “diplomatically,” then the US can negotiate the “two-state solution”; the very thing the US imperialists have been attempting to negotiate for decades with one hand, while the other hand shovels more weaponry and funding to their Zionist attack dog. Disarm the Palestinians and prep them for the next slaughter—but don’t embarrass us before the elections. This is the position of our “labor leaders”. Their “ceasefire” call drips with blood and hypocrisy. The AFL-CIO has simply endorsed with this call the current US imperialist plans to create a “demilitarized Palestinian state” in exchange for the Abraham Accords proceeding anew. This is US State Department policy, one pursued under both Democrat and Republican administrations—to pivot away from the Middle East towards the Far East, to encircle China as inter-imperialist collusion switches to contention.
Jacobin Magazine says the AFL-CIO statement is “historic” and somehow “standing against the war” and the DSA has claimed the ceasefire call from rank-and-file workers has “filtered its way up to the AFL-CIO.” This is not the democratic mechanism of the workers calling and their leadership answering. Rather, the workers have been pressuring for months, and the bureaucrats in charge of corralling them have spat out these excuses for ceasefire calls as a way to placate their anger, belatedly, and only after realizing that three months of ignoring or repressing the workers’ ceasefire calls have failed. With their hundreds of millions in bonds in the Zionist entity, with their deep ties to the CIA and status as servants to US imperialism, there is no democracy for the rank-and-file in the AFL-CIO.
As Marx told the English working class regarding the Irish national liberation struggle: it is in the interests of the English workers to support Irish liberation, because the enemy of the Irish people is the same ruling class facing the English workers. The lessons sharpen in the era of imperialism—the enemies of the Palestinian people are our enemies, but not so for the AFL-CIO; they and the imperialists are decidedly friends, and they sell out the workers’ interests every day.
What sort of labor movement do the AFL-CIO claim to speak for? They are leaders of the working class into concessions, conciliation, and deference to the imperialists. The bankruptcy of their “ceasefire” calls is another sign of this parasitic and demagogic role they play among the class.
photo: December 2023 union workers protest in New York city at AIPAC headquarters, IfNotNow social media
