There was a time not that long ago in this country when labor union leaders and members were among the most patriotic of Americans, backing strong anti-totalitarian policies at home and abroad.
Even so, witnesses testifying before a Tuesday hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce's Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions (HELP) provided abundant evidence of the explosive growth of anti-semitism and anti-Americanism in major labor unions. This especially includes those on college campuses, among government workers, and representing a multitude of medical staffers.
The horrifying October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, the anti-semitic terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip bordering Israel, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 Israelis, including men, women, and children. The victims were murdered by being shot, burned alive, beheaded, or stabbed multiple times. Hamas insurgents videoed many of their atrocities, including brutally raping and killing women and beheading infants. More than 250 individuals, including seven Americans, were also taken hostage by Hamas. The health and whereabouts of most of them remain unknown.
The first witness before the subcommittee, Llana Kompar, is a staff attorney for the Nassau County (N.Y.) Legal Aid Society and a former president of her office's staff union. That union is affiliated with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA), which is Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers (UAW). Kompar described what happened in her workplace in the wake of the October 7 attack:
"Recently, instead of focusing on collective bargaining and fostering a united membership, the ALAA and its leadership created an antisemitic, hostile work environment for its Jewish members for whom Zionism is an integral part of their Jewish identity, as it is for the vast majority of American Jews, and their non-Jewish allies," Kompar told the subcommittee.
"After the attack by the terrorist organization Hamas on October 7 - the worst attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust – the ALAA communication channel, Gaggle (an email listserv for Union members and Joint Council meetings) became a hotbed of antisemitism and blatant discrimination directed against us," she said.
That "hotbed" included threatening emails from non-Jewish union members, verbal abuses, messages denying that any atrocities were committed against Israelis during the October 7 attack, and resolutions questioning the veracity of atrocity reports.
"Most shockingly, the resolution proclaimed the ALAA Chapter’s support of Hamas’ 'resistance under occupation,' which is a call for continued violence by Hamas against the Israeli and Jewish people. Shortly thereafter, the CAMBA Chapter of the ALAA, located in Brooklyn, New York, put out a similar antisemitic resolution.
"These resolutions caused a public outcry and calls to defund the organizations employing ALAA members. I and others recognize these resolutions as supporting violence and discrimination against us, our families, friends and other Jewish Zionist and allied Union members," Kompar added.
Glenn Taubman, veteran staff attorney for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), told the subcommittee that he has a hard time keeping up with all of the calls for help he and his colleagues in the foundation have been receiving since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel.
In response to a question from Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Taubman said, "it is heart-breaking for me as a Jew and a Zionist to have my phone ringing off the hook every single day since the October 7 attack from students, workers, teachers, legal aid lawyers, doctors saying 'how do I get out of this, I am surrounded by vicious people attacking me as a Jew, attacking me as a Zionist.'"
Taubman continued, noting "[I have] friends in Israel, I have family in Israel, I have friends who served in the Israel Defense Force (IDF), the most moral army in the world, second only perhaps to the United States. They are attacked in their workplace and that is the reality I am seeing. And unfortunately, I cannot say to all these people 'exercise your constitutional right to get out because under the National Labor Relations Act they cannot get out, they are forced to be part of a bargaining unit and forced to pay dues to a union or be fired."
Democrats on the subcommittee said they shared Republican members' disgust with and opposition to anti-semitism wherever it is encountered. Even so, however, as New Jersey's Donald Norcross said, "We live in a country that is a democracy and unfortunately many of those views are something I personally disagree with."
But, he continued, "We did not choose and we do not want many of our elected officials, some of whom might even be in this room. And we are forced to fund them, whether it's a union or our government. But the suggestion that because of a few bad actors, for whom we make no excuses, are being anti-semitic and smearing the entire workers is no different than calling Republicans racists, or calling Democrats Socialists. But it doesn't make it true."
In addition, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the committee and its former chairman, asked Professor Anna Marie Lofaso of the University of West Virginia what recourses are available to union workers who believe they are suffering from racial and religious discrimination.
When Lafaso pointed out that such workers can seek redress through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Scott asked her if cutting the commission's budget would be helpful. She said, "It would be very difficult to enforce the rights of the people."
Scott was alluding to House Republican proposals to cut non-defense federal spending across the board by 10 percent.
Related: Billions in U.S. Tax Dollars Going to Colleges Tolerating Anti-Semitism
The subcommittee was told by MIT graduate student William Sussman of his experience seeking a religious exemption from paying dues to the United Electrical Workers (EU) union with which the MIT Graduate Students Union (GSU) was affiliated.
Representatives of the GSU and the EU were actively involved in anti-Israel and pro-Hamas demonstrations, according to Sussman.
"That is why many of us asked for a religious accommodation that would divert our compulsory dues from the UE to a charity. The union denied my request, telling me in a letter that 'no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union,' that one of UE’s founders was Jewish ..." Sussman told the hearing.
"In other words, UE thinks it understands my faith better than I do. With the help of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, I joined four other Jewish graduate students in filing discrimination charges against the union with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In response, the GSU chanted 'shame' against us, calling our lawyers 'well-financed.' They forgot to mention our horns."
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