ucking a decades-long trend of sidelining questions of international solidarity and silencing Palestine liberation, delegates to the 39th UAW Constitutional Convention in Detroit, Michigan voted June 18th to divest from Israel bonds. The UAW reportedly holds at least $400,000 in these investments. Delegates from Unite all Workers for Democracy (UAWD), the class struggle movement of the UAW, representing UAW members across the country, led the effort to divest.
UAW members have been fighting to divest dues money from Israel bonds for over fifty years. In the 1970s, the UAW Arab Workers Caucus picketed UAW events, struck, and organized for the 1974 UAW Constitutional Convention demanding divestment. Workers redoubled their efforts after the apartheid state escalated its genocide in October 2023.
UAWD developed and organized to advance a class struggle program of Constitutional amendments, grounded in UAWD’s principles of rank-and-file militancy, workers’ democracy and workplace control, international working class solidarity, and political independence. The program includes a stronger version of the divestment amendment to end the UAW’s complicity with Israeli genocide and end imperialist wars. UAWD members brought the amendment to membership meetings in several locals across the country. Members at locals 869, 1115, 2320, 2325, and 7902 voted to send versions of the amendment to the Convention.
UAW leadership initially excluded divestment from the Convention’s agenda. On Wednesday, June 17 UAWD member Olga Karounos, a legal services worker from New York, made a motion to call the amendment out of committee. 147 delegates stood in support, clearing the 128 required to agendize the amendment. The amendment was debated and adopted by the Convention Thursday, June 18 with 321 votes in favor and 287 against. A previous UAW Executive Board vote on divestment failed on May 3, 2024. The vote came after sustained worker pressure and demands for action on the issue from multiple union locals.
Since its founding in 2004, Labor for Palestine has led the effort within the US labor movement to honor the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) picket line. Labor for Palestine has organized protests and resolutions in the UAW and in unions across the labor movement, and many of the UAWD members who advanced the divestment amendment are also long-time Labor for Palestine members.
Earlier in the day on Wednesday, UAWD member Mike Davis, a parts manufacturing worker from Ohio, made a motion to call the stronger pro-Palestine amendment to the floor. In addition to forcing divestment, UAWD’s amendment to End Complicity With Israeli Genocide and Imperialist Wars would support workers who strike to interrupt weapons flows to Israel, set endorsement criteria for politicians, and cut ties with the apartheid Histadrut labor organization. 69 delegates stood in support of Davis’ motion, falling short of the 128 required.
The stronger version of the UAWD amendment would’ve enabled weapons workers in the US to take action to shut down the flow of weapons to Israel by giving them job and pay protections while striking or if they face retaliation. UAW’s divestment shows the potential for greater militancy and labor solidarity action within US unions, coming as the working class around the world has mobilized to fight genocide. The pro-Palestine movement in the United States has won the divestment of public investment funds in Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and New York City. Workers in Belgium, France, Greece, Morocco, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and beyond have even refused to handle weapons and Israeli-bound cargo.
UAWD delegates also brought amendments to fight layoffs and ICE to the Convention. UAW leadership also excluded these resolutions from the agenda and UAWD delegates called for them to be debated. These amendments, and the stronger pro-Palestine amendment, threatened to disrupt production and labor-management agreements that maintain labor peace.
UAWD’s amendment to Fight Layoffs with Work Sharing would require UAW negotiators to bargain work sharing provisions, spreading available work across the entire bargaining unit instead of throwing some workers out of a job. The resolution notes that “thousands of UAW members have recently been laid off at John Deere, Stellantis, General Motors, Ultium, and numerous IPS facilities.” On Tuesday, June 16 UAWD member Margie Thornton, a legal services worker from Colorado, made a motion to call it out of committee. 62 delegates stood in support, failing short of the 128 required.
UAWD’s amendment to Abolish ICE and Fight State Attacks on Workers would trigger membership meetings to discuss striking in the event of ICE attacks in the area. UAW Local 2325 has already implemented a similar structure. On Tuesday, June 16 UAWD supporter Andrew Eichen made a motion to call it out of committee. 162 delegates stood in support, clearing the 128 required. Shawn Fain’s United caucus, the renamed Administration Caucus that ruled the UAW through top-down repression for decades, organized against the resolution in their Wednesday morning meeting. As has been practice for years, delegates were urged to attend the caucus meeting to hear recommendations from top UAW leadership if they want to secure future jobs on UAW staff. The amendment was debated and ultimately voted down Thursday, June 18, following impassioned speeches about the importance of building working-class capacity to shut down production with political strikes.
This Constitutional Convention was the second attended by UAWD, and the first since UAWD split last year after a faction of former leaders’ failed attempt to dissolve the organization. At the 2022 Convention, UAWD called out three amendments from committee, a first in the modern era for the historically undemocratic UAW Convention setting. UAWD’s amendment to begin the calculation of strike pay on the first day of a strike, instead of the eighth day, passed unanimously after top UAW leadership had tried to block it procedurally.
Unite all Workers for Democracy (UAWD) is the class struggle movement of the UAW. UAWD members across the country organized in their locals to send class struggle amendments to the Convention and ran as delegates from their locals.
Photo Credit: UAWD
This article was updated to include details of the final amendment vote and the larger pro-Palestine movement.
