September 21, 2016

With this petition published at Change.org, Labor for Palestine is making an urgent call for union members to call on the federation to reverse its misguided support.

The determined resistance of Native peoples and environmental justice activists against the Dakota Access Pipeline project is setting an inspiring example for anyone who cares about the future of society and the planet. But shamefully, sections of the labor movement are on the wrong side of this struggle for justice. The AFL-CIO and some of its largest unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Laborers union and the International Union of Operating Engineers, have publicly declared their support for the project.

AS TRADE unionists and social justice activists, we urgently call on the AFL-CIO to reverse its disgraceful support for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

DAPL continues more than 500 years of settler-colonialism, dispossession and genocide against Indigenous people in the Americas, who are defending the Earth's vital resources against the same corporate greed, state violence and repression that violate workers' rights on a daily basis.

Like the Black and Brown Lives, Immigrant Rights, Palestinian and other freedom struggles, the courageous Sioux resistance at Standing Rock has become a worldwide beacon for all who fight injustice.

In solidarity, numerous trade union bodies--including the Amalgamated Transit Union; California Faculty Association; Communications Workers of America; Industrial Workers of the World; IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus; National Nurses United; New York State Nurses Association; National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981; United Electrical Workers; SEIU 503 OPEU; Border Agricultural Workers; and the Labor Coalition for Community Action, which includes the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Pride at Work--#StandWithStandingRock.

Sending solidarity to Standing Rock from Oakland, California (Peg Hunter)

Workers' rights are inseparable from Indigenous rights. We need decent union jobs that protect, rather than destroy, the Earth--there are no jobs on a dead planet.

An injury to one is an injury to all: #NoDAPL!

Labor for Palestine Co-Conveners:

Suzanne Adely, U.S.-MENA Global Labor Solidarity Network; former staff, Global Organizing Institute, UAW

Michael Letwin, former president, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325

Clarence Thomas, co-chair, Million Worker March; executive board, ILWU Local 10 (retired)

Jaime Veve, Transport Workers Union Local 100, NYC (retired)

First published at Change.org