UAW Local 2322 Membership Meeting – Agenda
Welcome, Roll Call & Introductions
Main Business:
Member / Rep review of units- UAW 2322 Year in Review
Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement – Amal Ahmad (read resolution below)
Labor Center support – Adam Garfield (read resolution below)
Announcements/Events:
2322 Holiday Party – Dec 9 (Northampton)
Additional Business:
Adjournment
MEETING LOCATIONS:
* First Churches of Northampton – Lyman Hall, 129 Main Street, Northampton, MA
* Goddard College – The Clockhouse, 123 Pitkin Road, Plainfield, VT
* Best Western Plus Executive Court & Conference Center, 13500 South Willow St., Manchester, NH
(October 13th 6-8pm – all locations)
Resolution: Standing in Solidarity with Palestinian Civil Society and Joining the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement.
Should UAW2322 and its members join the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement until such time as Israel has complied with international law and respected the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and all Palestinian refugees and exiles?
BDS should be maintained until Israel fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
- Ending its occupation of the Palestinian territories and dismantling the Wall;
- Ending its preferential treatment of Jews vis-a-vis Palestinians in the land under its control;
- Promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and property as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
In 2003, GEO’s membership overwhelmingly voted in favor of divestment from the Israeli occupation; this renews and furthers that commitment. Furthermore, in the spring of 2016 the GEO Membership once again affirmed its commitment to Palestinian liberation by voting to support BDS by a margin of 95%.
UAW2322 should join the movement in the following ways:
Renewing and furthering the commitment displayed by GEO members in 2003 and 2016,
1) UAW2322 should call on the University of Massachusetts (UMass) and the UAW International to divest their investments, including pension funds, from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations as part of the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. UAW2322 should also call on UMass and the UAW International to decline to conduct business with said companies.
2) UAW2322 should join other labor, academic, and cultural organizations in calling on the government of the United States of America to end military aid to Israel.
3) UAW2322 should call on affiliated bodies such as the UAW international, Jobs with Justice, and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO to join the BDS movement.
In carrying out the activities set forth above and in acting on this proposal, we affirm that this proposal should not be interpreted or applied to seek to influence the hiring or other employment decisions of the University or individual academics or UAW2322 members; nor will it in any way limit or affect the representative functions of the Union including but not limited to which grievances or contract demands we pursue. Furthermore, this resolution does not seek to discourage association with individual Israeli scholars. UAW2322 is strictly committed to opposing all forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, or ethnicity and we affirm our strong commitment to the principles of academic freedom for all.
A Resolution for Solidarity with the UMass Labor Center
Whereas the UMass Labor Center is one of UMass’s cherished institutions, and carries a special legacy of educating and training members of the labor movement who have fought hard for working people in the United States and abroad;
Whereas a big part of this legacy was that the Labor Center was accessible to all qualified students; funding, in the form of teaching and research appointments, was available to provide tuition waivers and livable salaries to students, making top notch education and training were available to all, such that working people were able to participate in labor movement leadership in a robust way through this arrangement.
Whereas that funding has now been cut[1], meaning that the education and training that the Labor Center provided will now be available only to students with the ability to pay for tuition, effectively putting the resources of the Labor Center out of reach for poor and working people, which is an affront to the special legacy of the Labor Center, as well as the democratic and accessible ethos of a public educational institution;
Whereas the shrinking funding of the UMass Labor Center has not occurred in isolation, but as part of broad cuts to the funding of higher education by the state[2], with concomitant attempts to allocate graduate funding by the ability of departments to ‘pay’ by the number of undergraduate students taught, as outlined by the Joint Task Force of Resource Allocation (JTFRA)[3] at UMass, be it resolved that
Therefore, we oppose funding models like the one outlined by the JTFRA in general, and the cuts in the funding structure to the UMass Labor Center in particular;
Therefore, in our signing of this document and in our various capacities as students, researchers, activists, professors, and administrators, we commit to pushing pressure upwards, through the University Administration and onto the State level, to restore the funding of the students of the UMass Labor Center, and to oppose funding models like the ones proposed by the JTFRA, which tie graduate funding to undergraduate demand.
[1] [via “The Promise of the UMass Labor Center”.PPT by Tom Juravich, Interim Labor Center Director, presented to the Sociology Department body meeting on September 14th 2016]
[2] [https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/29/umass-system-must-cut-million-from-budget/Ahwg4pJfyrUSY1dw5CPFYL/story.html, https://www.boston.com/news/education/2015/10/29/umass-has-to-cut-nearly-11-million-from-its-budget]
[3] [http://www.umass.edu/chancellor/sites/default/files/jtfra-finalreport-and-supplement_042114_0.pdf –Section Model Options]