Dockworkers in Italy Win Against Arms Shipment to Israel
Source: Peoples Dispatch
Dockworkers in Genoa protest forced complicity of Italian ports in Gaza genocide, June 2025. Source: Unione Sindacale di BaseItalian port workers secured a significant win in their ongoing resistance to militarization and arms transfers, as shipping operators decided they would not unload military cargo destined for Israel from the vessel COSCO Shipping Pisces – returning the containers to their point of origin instead. The announcement came just days before a planned 24-hour strike on August 5 in Genoa, launched to protest the use of Italian ports for arms shipments such as this.
“We were informed today that the three containers carrying military equipment, destined for La Spezia and transported aboard the COSCO Pisces, will not be unloaded in either Genoa or La Spezia,” the union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) stated on Thursday. “This decision marks a tangible result of union action and the pressure exerted by USB.”
This outcome adds to a growing list of union-led actions across Europe in solidarity with Palestine and against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where at least 60,000 people have been killed by the Israeli occupation. “From Greece to Liguria, as previously demonstrated with the support of French dockworkers, the network of dockworkers across Europe and the Mediterranean has shown that stopping war logistics is possible, legitimate, and necessary,” USB wrote.
Following the announcement, the August 5 strike was called off. However, Genoa dockworkers have pledged to continue mobilizing against the arms trade. They have also announced plans for an international assembly on September 26–27, which aims to lay the groundwork for a sector-wide strike. “We are not alone: our struggle unites Marseille, Piraeus, Hamburg, Tangier,” trade unionists declared earlier in July. “If the war comes through the ports, the response must come from the ports.”
USB’s logistical workers continue to expand their campaign on the principle that strikes are a legitimate tool in the fight against war, militarization, and forced worker involvement in arms trafficking. While facing institutional pushback, they remain determined in their repudiation of war. “Law 146/1990 speaks clearly: war operations are not essential services, and a strike is legitimate if it serves to defend collective security and constitutional order,” the union noted. “Stopping arms is not just a political choice, it is a right.”
Locally, from Genoa to Brescia, workers’ actions are disrupting the chains that fuel massacres and armed conflict, USB emphasized. Their mobilization against the arms trade, including strikes, is backed by a growing international solidarity bloc. “Dockworkers in Europe, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere will not become accomplices of the murderous state of Israel and its allies – the USA, NATO, and the EU,” the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) wrote in a statement of support to dockworkers in Italy. “They will not allow ports and infrastructure to become instruments of war for the slaughter of people by the imperialists.”
Italian port workers secured a significant win in their ongoing resistance to militarization and arms transfers, as shipping operators decided they would not unload military cargo destined for Israel from the vessel COSCO Shipping Pisces – returning the containers to their point of origin instead. The announcement came just days before a planned 24-hour strike on August 5 in Genoa, launched to protest the use of Italian ports for arms shipments such as this.
“We were informed today that the three containers carrying military equipment, destined for La Spezia and transported aboard the COSCO Pisces, will not be unloaded in either Genoa or La Spezia,” the union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) stated on Thursday. “This decision marks a tangible result of union action and the pressure exerted by USB.”
This outcome adds to a growing list of union-led actions across Europe in solidarity with Palestine and against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where at least 60,000 people have been killed by the Israeli occupation. “From Greece to Liguria, as previously demonstrated with the support of French dockworkers, the network of dockworkers across Europe and the Mediterranean has shown that stopping war logistics is possible, legitimate, and necessary,” USB wrote.
Following the announcement, the August 5 strike was called off. However, Genoa dockworkers have pledged to continue mobilizing against the arms trade. They have also announced plans for an international assembly on September 26–27, which aims to lay the groundwork for a sector-wide strike. “We are not alone: our struggle unites Marseille, Piraeus, Hamburg, Tangier,” trade unionists declared earlier in July. “If the war comes through the ports, the response must come from the ports.”
USB’s logistical workers continue to expand their campaign on the principle that strikes are a legitimate tool in the fight against war, militarization, and forced worker involvement in arms trafficking. While facing institutional pushback, they remain determined in their repudiation of war. “Law 146/1990 speaks clearly: war operations are not essential services, and a strike is legitimate if it serves to defend collective security and constitutional order,” the union noted. “Stopping arms is not just a political choice, it is a right.”
Locally, from Genoa to Brescia, workers’ actions are disrupting the chains that fuel massacres and armed conflict, USB emphasized. Their mobilization against the arms trade, including strikes, is backed by a growing international solidarity bloc. “Dockworkers in Europe, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere will not become accomplices of the murderous state of Israel and its allies – the USA, NATO, and the EU,” the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) wrote in a statement of support to dockworkers in Italy. “They will not allow ports and infrastructure to become instruments of war for the slaughter of people by the imperialists.”
Moving the Middle on Palestine
Source: Liberation Road
Image Credit: “Jewish elders protest the opening of Anti-Defamation Leagues’s National Conference,” Jewish Elders for Palestine (March 3, 2025)On July 6, 2025, the NEA (National Education Association) convention delegates voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The NEA is the largest union in the US with more than three million members, primarily teachers and support staff in public education. As New Business Item (NBI) 39 states, the NEA “will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or statistics.” It continues, “Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.”
This groundbreaking motion was about more than the ADL’s use of flawed statistics on hate crimes. The ADL has not been an ally to educators seeking to combat antisemitism and other forms of bigotry. Instead, it has weaponized claims of antisemitism to attack supporters of Palestinian rights, while actively undermining local NEA chapters. For example, in 2024 the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) was tasked to create resources for teachers to learn about Palestine to counter the narrative that this area was a “land without people.” The ADL got hold of internal MTA documents and mounted a campaign accusing the MTA of “supporting terrorists.” Doxxing, death threats, and an anti-union barrage followed. This should not be surprising, given the ADL’s long and well-documented history of attacking organized labor, smearing the left, and actively working to discredit the voices and perspectives of Palestinians, Muslims, and Arab-Americans.
While the NEA has since qualified its break from the ADL, winning an absolute majority of its voting delegates to this position was no small feat. Until quite recently, a majority of NEA’s three million members held, at best, waffling and contradictory positions on Palestine. In my experience, moving the membership to a more clear and principled position took three things: disciplined organizing by Pro-Palestinian forces within the NEA, strong action and guidance from union leadership, and ongoing shifts in the broad “common sense.”
I have been attending NEA conventions since 2016. I don’t recall Palestine/Israel being a major issue at the convention until 2020, although I suspect that there have always been leftist, anti-Zionist Jewish, Muslim, and/or Middle Eastern American delegates who have raised the question of Palestine. Just as there have been Jewish delegates (possibly through the Jewish Affairs caucus) raising measures to combat anti-Semitism—or Zionist initiatives put forward under the framework of fighting anti-Semitism.
But at the 2022 convention, the conflict on the floor reached a fever pitch. (Mind you, October 7, 2023, was still in the future). Multiple delegates, many of whom presented as Muslim and/or Middle Eastern and others who identified as Jewish (sometimes explicitly anti-Zionist), moved NBIs that spoke to some aspect of our union’s engagement with resources that promote Zionism or US support for Israel. Speakers defending these resources, Zionism, or Israel proclaimed that just having the conversation was a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Emotions escalated. Eventually, one of the speakers accused Palestinians of using their children as weapons. A Palestinian delegate, alarmed by the dehumanizing remark, understandably reacted strongly, which deeply impacted the room.
At this point NEA President Becky Pringle stepped in. Her intervention not only deescalated an increasingly tense situation but moved the discussion forward in a positive way. Becky took great care to name that we would not be having a debate that devolved like this and demanded that delegates consider how to talk about Palestine without immediately turning the conversation into a discussion where delegates are accusing others of anti-Semitism or are dehumanizing Palestinians. Eventually the delegate making the offensive remark apologized to the entire convention. However, the convention ended without a vote on any of the NBIs.
Becky then traveled to both Palestine and Israel and met with union leaders. She also went to Ukraine and met with union leaders. At the 2023 convention she organized an international panel which spoke about these struggles in a complex and humanizing way. She set the stage for the discussion of NBIs, emphasizing that discussion must be respectful. Both the panels and her directives about engagement allowed delegates to understand the NBIs in a deeper way. Now it would be easier to discern which NBIs were rooted in Zionism, and which were aimed at ending anti-Semitism without reinforcing Zionism.
After the October 7th attacks and the reescalation of the conflict, Becky joined labor against the war spaces early and made it clear that NEA was working to move Biden on the question, even if those efforts were happening largely behind closed doors. We were public signatories on some of these efforts as well. While most members didn’t know our exact position, the convention delegates had a clear sense that we had been involved in anti-war efforts through Becky’s leadership.
At the 2024 convention, the Middle Eastern North African Caucus (MENA) was established. Now the room would have explicitly anti-Zionist leadership that spanned religious, cultural, and ethnic differences. Through them, our North Carolina delegation has received strong guidance on how to ask questions and how to vote on measures with respect to their relationship to Zionist arguments. Because a strike from the NEA’s staff union cut the 2024 convention short, we cannot know how arguments would have played out on the floor last year. However, it seemed clear that the organizing efforts of MENA and other pro-Palestinian forces in the union, as well as the efforts of president Becky and others in leadership, were successfully moving the needle within the NEA.
This year (2025), there was even less conflict. Every NBI we hoped would pass did, and the discussion on the floor remained principled. Because an NBI that severed ties between NEA and the ADL might be considered a “boycott,” it would necessitate a referral to a higher body no matter the outcome of the vote. Becky let the floor debate happen. The vote was relatively close, but decisive nonetheless.
Winning a majority of NEA convention delegates to this position took several years and a concerted, multi-pronged effort. When it came to Palestine, there had long been progressive voices within the NEA—as well as regressive ones. But as is so often the case, the vast majority of the union’s membership started out somewhere in the middle. Moving the middle came about through a combination of:
- Good organizing work and leadership from a range of pro-Palestinian forces (many explicitly Jewish) inside and outside MENA, who united across religious/ethnic/national lines to continue to introduce NBIs and make compelling arguments on the floor.
- Strong and principled leadership from the front of the room.
- The weight of the conflict itself since the Fall 2023 and how that has moved the “common sense” in the US.
A similar evolution, prompted by a similar set of factors, has led to shifts in the North Carolina delegation over the same time period.
The NEA convention delegation from the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) represents the middle of the NEA. It skews a little older, is disproportionately Black, and is generally more “old school NCAE” than the majority of new members who have joined NCAE since our transformation into a fighting union. (In 2010, when Republicans took over our state’s General Assembly and began dismantling public higher education, NCAE had few active locals, a rapidly shrinking membership, and no political clout. Since then progressive organizers and educators have worked to build the power to fight back. We started in key locals in 2013, were elected to statewide leadership in the 2020 elections, and have since massively transformed the organization in both politics and program.)
While NCAE generally has an anti-racist orientation, it isn’t a deeply politically developed body. Until a few years ago, it wasn’t even a body that would have supported NBIs that put significant resources into organizing. Many members would have seen questions about Palestine, Zionism, and anti-Semitism as politically-charged lightning rods that we shouldn’t touch. You’d hear things like, “this has been going on forever,” or “we shouldn’t be taking a position on this because it doesn’t have anything to do with our schools,” or “we have conservative members and they will drop their membership.” It has even included people who would have made pro-Zionist, Christian Nationalist arguments.
In order to move the needle, before the 2022 convention I asked two NCAE members to give a presentation on the topic so we could be prepared to understand Zionism, and how Zionism would show up in discussions about anti-Semitism or Palestine. The presentation was extremely useful, and our members engaged with it thoughtfully. When things went awry at the convention in 2022, our people better understood what had happened, and were moved by Becky’s thoughtful leadership on the floor.
In 2023, we did more political education in caucus spaces, and members were increasingly able to navigate the complexities well.
In 2024, as the chair of our NBI committee, I reorganized the process so that we would consider the NBIs in our delegation in a more strategic way. Rather than just going through each individual proposal and identifying “yes” or “no” positions, we prioritized taking positions on certain questions that were of more strategic importance for us, and we made time in our morning caucus meetings to take up challenging questions with more depth. We continued to do political education and discussed the fact that the NEA, through Becky’s leadership, had been at the forefront of U.S. labor’s efforts to push the Biden administration towards a cease-fire.
Additionally, an Israeli-born, anti-Zionist, Jewish member attended this convention, connected deeply with the MENA caucus, and bravely stepped to the mic to do a lot of explaining and teaching in our caucus. Our members engaged with respect and curiosity and followed both her leadership, the state President/VP, and the NBI committee, all of whom were arguing for more sophisticated positions on the questions. Equally important, the horrors of the conflict itself were moving our members. Many of the people who came to the mic during caucus to argue in favor of cease fire or against Zionism were very middle forces who were appalled by what was happening and how much they had learned about what U.S. involvement means. The shifting “common sense” in society really seems to have impacted the perspective of people who have been paying attention, especially if they have any inclination towards anti-racism, justice, or love of children.
This year, 2025, it took even less work. More of our members were openly supportive without much struggle, and it is clear that both the shifting common sense in the broader US society and the hard work of NEA/NCAE leadership has had an impact in our base. While our delegation continues to look like many others, especially those from the South, it is now noticeable how we stand out on the convention floor for the progressive positions we take, not only on these questions, but on just about everything, including support for getting strike-ready and investing more resources in organizing.
The ADL vote caused a great deal of controversy. Members were filming and then doxxing other members on the floor. Becky was summoned to meetings with some unhappy people. A bill was filed in Congress to revoke our charter.
On July 18, the NEA Board of Directors voted not to implement the proposal passed at the convention, stating that the proposal “would not further NEA’s commitment to academic freedom, our membership, or our goals.” At the same time, the Board acknowledged delegates’ criticisms of the ADL, stating:
“Not adopting this proposal is in no way an endorsement of the ADL’s full body of work. We are calling on the ADL to support the free speech and association rights of all students and educators. We strongly condemn abhorrent and unacceptable attacks on our members who dedicate their lives to helping their students thrive. Our commitment to freedom of speech fully extends to freedom of protest and dissent whether in the public square or on college campuses.”
The Board’s decision is not unexpected, given the complexities involved. In the current period where the authoritarian right has the decisive upper hand at the federal level, the Congressional bill to revoke the NEA’s charter should be taken seriously. Congress could easily invoke the Taft-Harley Act, passed in 1947 in a similar period of counter-attack on the left, which outlawed union boycotts. In addition, the very deep pockets of the ADL, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and their allies would mean, at the least, endless lawsuits. With a compliant Supreme Court, the union coffers would be depleted with no assurance of victory.
Yet despite or because of these setbacks, the experience of moving the middle within the NEA offers lessons for others within and beyond organized labor. We are in a perilous moment, with increasing repression domestically and ongoing and accelerating famine and genocide in Gaza. Our ability to resist, contest, and ultimately defeat fascism at home and genocide abroad will depend, in part, on our ability to rebuild mass multi-racial working class organizations, while strengthening their militancy and readiness to fight. With good organizing and strong leadership, we can shift the common sense and win organized majorities over to the defense of Palestinian rights and life.
On July 6, 2025, the NEA (National Education Association) convention delegates voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The NEA is the largest union in the US with more than three million members, primarily teachers and support staff in public education. As New Business Item (NBI) 39 states, the NEA “will not use, endorse, or publicize materials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), such as its curricular materials or statistics.” It continues, “Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.”
This groundbreaking motion was about more than the ADL’s use of flawed statistics on hate crimes. The ADL has not been an ally to educators seeking to combat antisemitism and other forms of bigotry. Instead, it has weaponized claims of antisemitism to attack supporters of Palestinian rights, while actively undermining local NEA chapters. For example, in 2024 the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) was tasked to create resources for teachers to learn about Palestine to counter the narrative that this area was a “land without people.” The ADL got hold of internal MTA documents and mounted a campaign accusing the MTA of “supporting terrorists.” Doxxing, death threats, and an anti-union barrage followed. This should not be surprising, given the ADL’s long and well-documented history of attacking organized labor, smearing the left, and actively working to discredit the voices and perspectives of Palestinians, Muslims, and Arab-Americans.
While the NEA has since qualified its break from the ADL, winning an absolute majority of its voting delegates to this position was no small feat. Until quite recently, a majority of NEA’s three million members held, at best, waffling and contradictory positions on Palestine. In my experience, moving the membership to a more clear and principled position took three things: disciplined organizing by Pro-Palestinian forces within the NEA, strong action and guidance from union leadership, and ongoing shifts in the broad “common sense.”
I have been attending NEA conventions since 2016. I don’t recall Palestine/Israel being a major issue at the convention until 2020, although I suspect that there have always been leftist, anti-Zionist Jewish, Muslim, and/or Middle Eastern American delegates who have raised the question of Palestine. Just as there have been Jewish delegates (possibly through the Jewish Affairs caucus) raising measures to combat anti-Semitism—or Zionist initiatives put forward under the framework of fighting anti-Semitism.
But at the 2022 convention, the conflict on the floor reached a fever pitch. (Mind you, October 7, 2023, was still in the future). Multiple delegates, many of whom presented as Muslim and/or Middle Eastern and others who identified as Jewish (sometimes explicitly anti-Zionist), moved NBIs that spoke to some aspect of our union’s engagement with resources that promote Zionism or US support for Israel. Speakers defending these resources, Zionism, or Israel proclaimed that just having the conversation was a manifestation of anti-Semitism. Emotions escalated. Eventually, one of the speakers accused Palestinians of using their children as weapons. A Palestinian delegate, alarmed by the dehumanizing remark, understandably reacted strongly, which deeply impacted the room.
At this point NEA President Becky Pringle stepped in. Her intervention not only deescalated an increasingly tense situation but moved the discussion forward in a positive way. Becky took great care to name that we would not be having a debate that devolved like this and demanded that delegates consider how to talk about Palestine without immediately turning the conversation into a discussion where delegates are accusing others of anti-Semitism or are dehumanizing Palestinians. Eventually the delegate making the offensive remark apologized to the entire convention. However, the convention ended without a vote on any of the NBIs.
Becky then traveled to both Palestine and Israel and met with union leaders. She also went to Ukraine and met with union leaders. At the 2023 convention she organized an international panel which spoke about these struggles in a complex and humanizing way. She set the stage for the discussion of NBIs, emphasizing that discussion must be respectful. Both the panels and her directives about engagement allowed delegates to understand the NBIs in a deeper way. Now it would be easier to discern which NBIs were rooted in Zionism, and which were aimed at ending anti-Semitism without reinforcing Zionism.
After the October 7th attacks and the reescalation of the conflict, Becky joined labor against the war spaces early and made it clear that NEA was working to move Biden on the question, even if those efforts were happening largely behind closed doors. We were public signatories on some of these efforts as well. While most members didn’t know our exact position, the convention delegates had a clear sense that we had been involved in anti-war efforts through Becky’s leadership.
At the 2024 convention, the Middle Eastern North African Caucus (MENA) was established. Now the room would have explicitly anti-Zionist leadership that spanned religious, cultural, and ethnic differences. Through them, our North Carolina delegation has received strong guidance on how to ask questions and how to vote on measures with respect to their relationship to Zionist arguments. Because a strike from the NEA’s staff union cut the 2024 convention short, we cannot know how arguments would have played out on the floor last year. However, it seemed clear that the organizing efforts of MENA and other pro-Palestinian forces in the union, as well as the efforts of president Becky and others in leadership, were successfully moving the needle within the NEA.
This year (2025), there was even less conflict. Every NBI we hoped would pass did, and the discussion on the floor remained principled. Because an NBI that severed ties between NEA and the ADL might be considered a “boycott,” it would necessitate a referral to a higher body no matter the outcome of the vote. Becky let the floor debate happen. The vote was relatively close, but decisive nonetheless.
Winning a majority of NEA convention delegates to this position took several years and a concerted, multi-pronged effort. When it came to Palestine, there had long been progressive voices within the NEA—as well as regressive ones. But as is so often the case, the vast majority of the union’s membership started out somewhere in the middle. Moving the middle came about through a combination of:
- Good organizing work and leadership from a range of pro-Palestinian forces (many explicitly Jewish) inside and outside MENA, who united across religious/ethnic/national lines to continue to introduce NBIs and make compelling arguments on the floor.
- Strong and principled leadership from the front of the room.
- The weight of the conflict itself since the Fall 2023 and how that has moved the “common sense” in the US.
A similar evolution, prompted by a similar set of factors, has led to shifts in the North Carolina delegation over the same time period.
The NEA convention delegation from the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) represents the middle of the NEA. It skews a little older, is disproportionately Black, and is generally more “old school NCAE” than the majority of new members who have joined NCAE since our transformation into a fighting union. (In 2010, when Republicans took over our state’s General Assembly and began dismantling public higher education, NCAE had few active locals, a rapidly shrinking membership, and no political clout. Since then progressive organizers and educators have worked to build the power to fight back. We started in key locals in 2013, were elected to statewide leadership in the 2020 elections, and have since massively transformed the organization in both politics and program.)
While NCAE generally has an anti-racist orientation, it isn’t a deeply politically developed body. Until a few years ago, it wasn’t even a body that would have supported NBIs that put significant resources into organizing. Many members would have seen questions about Palestine, Zionism, and anti-Semitism as politically-charged lightning rods that we shouldn’t touch. You’d hear things like, “this has been going on forever,” or “we shouldn’t be taking a position on this because it doesn’t have anything to do with our schools,” or “we have conservative members and they will drop their membership.” It has even included people who would have made pro-Zionist, Christian Nationalist arguments.
In order to move the needle, before the 2022 convention I asked two NCAE members to give a presentation on the topic so we could be prepared to understand Zionism, and how Zionism would show up in discussions about anti-Semitism or Palestine. The presentation was extremely useful, and our members engaged with it thoughtfully. When things went awry at the convention in 2022, our people better understood what had happened, and were moved by Becky’s thoughtful leadership on the floor.
In 2023, we did more political education in caucus spaces, and members were increasingly able to navigate the complexities well.
In 2024, as the chair of our NBI committee, I reorganized the process so that we would consider the NBIs in our delegation in a more strategic way. Rather than just going through each individual proposal and identifying “yes” or “no” positions, we prioritized taking positions on certain questions that were of more strategic importance for us, and we made time in our morning caucus meetings to take up challenging questions with more depth. We continued to do political education and discussed the fact that the NEA, through Becky’s leadership, had been at the forefront of U.S. labor’s efforts to push the Biden administration towards a cease-fire.
Additionally, an Israeli-born, anti-Zionist, Jewish member attended this convention, connected deeply with the MENA caucus, and bravely stepped to the mic to do a lot of explaining and teaching in our caucus. Our members engaged with respect and curiosity and followed both her leadership, the state President/VP, and the NBI committee, all of whom were arguing for more sophisticated positions on the questions. Equally important, the horrors of the conflict itself were moving our members. Many of the people who came to the mic during caucus to argue in favor of cease fire or against Zionism were very middle forces who were appalled by what was happening and how much they had learned about what U.S. involvement means. The shifting “common sense” in society really seems to have impacted the perspective of people who have been paying attention, especially if they have any inclination towards anti-racism, justice, or love of children.
This year, 2025, it took even less work. More of our members were openly supportive without much struggle, and it is clear that both the shifting common sense in the broader US society and the hard work of NEA/NCAE leadership has had an impact in our base. While our delegation continues to look like many others, especially those from the South, it is now noticeable how we stand out on the convention floor for the progressive positions we take, not only on these questions, but on just about everything, including support for getting strike-ready and investing more resources in organizing.
The ADL vote caused a great deal of controversy. Members were filming and then doxxing other members on the floor. Becky was summoned to meetings with some unhappy people. A bill was filed in Congress to revoke our charter.
On July 18, the NEA Board of Directors voted not to implement the proposal passed at the convention, stating that the proposal “would not further NEA’s commitment to academic freedom, our membership, or our goals.” At the same time, the Board acknowledged delegates’ criticisms of the ADL, stating:
“Not adopting this proposal is in no way an endorsement of the ADL’s full body of work. We are calling on the ADL to support the free speech and association rights of all students and educators. We strongly condemn abhorrent and unacceptable attacks on our members who dedicate their lives to helping their students thrive. Our commitment to freedom of speech fully extends to freedom of protest and dissent whether in the public square or on college campuses.”
The Board’s decision is not unexpected, given the complexities involved. In the current period where the authoritarian right has the decisive upper hand at the federal level, the Congressional bill to revoke the NEA’s charter should be taken seriously. Congress could easily invoke the Taft-Harley Act, passed in 1947 in a similar period of counter-attack on the left, which outlawed union boycotts. In addition, the very deep pockets of the ADL, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and their allies would mean, at the least, endless lawsuits. With a compliant Supreme Court, the union coffers would be depleted with no assurance of victory.
Yet despite or because of these setbacks, the experience of moving the middle within the NEA offers lessons for others within and beyond organized labor. We are in a perilous moment, with increasing repression domestically and ongoing and accelerating famine and genocide in Gaza. Our ability to resist, contest, and ultimately defeat fascism at home and genocide abroad will depend, in part, on our ability to rebuild mass multi-racial working class organizations, while strengthening their militancy and readiness to fight. With good organizing and strong leadership, we can shift the common sense and win organized majorities over to the defense of Palestinian rights and life.
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