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The United Auto Workers (UAW), a union with some 400,000 active members across the U.S., has voted to divest its estimated $400,000 from Israel bonds. The divestment vote makes the UAW the first major national union to vote to divest from Israel.

On Thursday, UAW members voted at the union’s 39th Constitutional Convention in Detroit, where some 1,000 delegates from UAW locals around the country had gathered to discuss the union’s strategy for the next four years.

UAW represents some 400,000 active members, largely in the U.S. but also in Canada and Puerto Rico. Members include workers in the auto industry and in higher education, as well as a significant number of health care workers and state and government workers.

The resolution states that the “billionaire class” that “profits from war” funnels public money into militarism instead of “healthcare, housing and education working people need.” It cites the nearly three-year-long genocide in Gaza and the call by the Palestinian trade union movement for workers internationally to act in solidarity as among the reasons for its resolution to divest from Israel Bonds – which are bonds issued directly by Israel and function as loans to the Israeli government.

The vote was organized by Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), a left-wing caucus within the UAW, and UAW Labor for Palestine, which is part of a broader Labor for Palestine coalition.

Maryland Workers Are Fighting to Divest Their Pensions From Israel’s Genocide

Olga Karounos, a member of the UAWD caucus and public defender from Brooklyn who made the motion to call........

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