Delegates to the United Auto Workers’ 2026 Constitutional Convention voted to prohibit investment in Israel bonds on June 18.
The Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) caucus, which seeks “to build a militant, democratic UAW”, advanced the resolution. The constitutional amendment is expected to divest at least $400,000 from Israel bonds.
Olga Karounos, a Brooklyn public defender and member of UAW Local 2325, moved to bring the amendment before the full convention.
“This is going to send a message—not just to the billionaire class, but to politicians and to every single person who is not afraid of standing up to genocide, to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, to the United States government, and will put the UAW again on the map for standing for international solidarity,” Karounos said.
The amendment passed with 321 votes in favor and 287 against.
Similar demands were raised by the UAW Arab Workers Caucus in the 1970s. At this year’s convention, delegates also considered a broader resolution that would have supported workers who strike to disrupt weapons shipments to Israel and severed ties with Israel’s fascist labor federation, Histadrut. The proposal did not receive enough votes to pass.
The UAW is now the largest of a growing number of US labor unions taking action against the genocidal Zionist entity. In 2024, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) voted to divest its pension fund from companies linked to Israel. In 2015, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) became the first US union to formally endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In 2024, seven major unions representing 6 million workers—the UAW, IUPAT, UE, along with the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the National Education Association (NEA), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—signed an open letter to then-President Joe Biden calling on his administration to “halt all military aid to Israel.”
Image Credit: UAW.
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