Abolition, Labor & the Palestine Question

Destiny Blackwell, is a labor organizer in North Carolina focusing on the interaction between the praxis of abolition, labor and the Palestine question. According to ‘The Labor Movement is Key for Palestinian Liberation’, “before Israel launched its offensive on Gaza in October, the U.S. labor movement was experiencing an important resurgence. This resurgence challenged the neoliberal offensive that, over the decades, has eaten away at historical benefits won by the labor movement of the 1930s, like pensions, a system that ensured wages kept up with inflation, and even the right to unionize. From the entertainment industry, to healthcare, logistics, and manufacturing, labor has been fighting hard against concessionary contracts. The most important expression of this insurgent labor movement was the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) strike across the Big Three; GM, Ford, and Stellantis. The strike of a workforce in an industry that is responsible for three percent of U.S. GDP proved to be so powerful that both President Biden and former president Donald Trump had to address it. On the first day of the strike, every major news publication, station, and broadcast featured the strike. We aired a program on this, search the archive for this title: ’the Black Worker, the strike, & UAW’ According to, ‘The Labor Movement's History of Backing Israel—and the Changing Climate Amid the War on Gaza’, as the Israeli government continues to carry out what experts describe as a genocide in Gaza — with full political, financial, and military backing from the United States — millions of people around the world are mobilizing to demand an immediate cease-fire and a free Palestine. Workers in the United States, including numerous rank-and-file unionists and local union representatives, are similarly speaking out against the ongoing siege and bombardment of Gaza and pledging their solidarity with Palestinian trade unions, which have called on organized labor to refuse to manufacture or transport weapons destined for Israel. While rank and file labor leaders in various countries have joined in these calls, top US labor officials — especially those in the AFL-CIO, the country’s top labor federation — have mostly refrained from supporting a cease-fire, with a few making tepid statements about the ​“humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. After a central labor council in Olympia, Washington, unanimously passed a cease-fire and Palestine solidarity resolution a few weeks ago, the national AFL-CIO even stepped in to quash the measure. Today, we attempt to add more clarity to the Palestine question and the disconnects between rank and file and union leadership.